Let’s support our fruit growers

Dear Editor: I am not a fruit grower. I am a fruit lover. A dear knowledgeable former restaurateur, just brought the truthful, sad situation of our Okanagan grapes to my attention and I felt you readers would like to know.

The snow is falling, yet again and with the unusual double digit cold weather we are getting, there will in 2017 not be any more grapes!

This sounds like a threatening statement, however, on record for the years of 1969, 1972 and 1979, the similar cold weather killed not some, but all of the Okanagan grapes. The grape bark and roots cannot handle this kind of cold weather.

So very much money has beeen put into Okanagan grapes, versus hardly any into our Okanagan apples and other fruits.

Thirty years the rest of the Okanagan fruit industry has vastly failed due to the completely different financial supports. The financial supports even affected a former business in Penticton which used to be on Dawson; a fruit store which sold nothing but Okanagan fruit, which had to close down due to not being able to obtain the Okanagan fruit which people loved so much obtaining.

This is what causes our Okanagan fruits to be so very expensive at our grocery stores.

It’s Canada’s 150th birthday. So c’mon Okanagan, let’s financially support all of our fruit growers! Sheryl Ann Wilson Penticton