As many in Ontario continue to enjoy apple season, several pick-your-own farms and orchards are reporting a surge in thefts this year.
Jessica Farmer owns Maple Grove Orchards in Bowmanville where she said they can see up to 2,000 people on weekends during the peak apple season. She said her first-generation farm is among those that have been targeted.
“This year has been extremely high, and I’m not sure if it has to do with the economy (or) if it has to do with the influx of people joining us,” Farmer told CityNews during a recent tour of the burgeoning small business.
“Every apple that’s stolen is money out of our pocket, money out of the community, and us trying to remain operating.”
Farmer described the brazen acts she and her staff have seen this year.
“People are packing reusable bags into their pocket and then they’re going out into the orchard and filling those bags and thinking that they can just take them home, walk away and not pay for them,” she said.
“We’ve seen people fill strollers and wagons and then cover them. They’re filling their sweaters, their jackets and everything like that.”
The acts subsequently led Farmer and her staff to question those involved.
“We approach them with a good demeanour, just kind of explain to them that it isn’t allowed (and) it is considered stealing,” she said.
“We’ve had responses that they didn’t know. They thought it was OK. ‘We just wanted the experience to pick them.’”
Farmer said the increase in thefts forced several changes, such as fencing the 100-acre-plus farm, creating a single entrance and exit point, prepaying for branded bags before entering the orchard, banning outside bags and hiring extra staff to do monitoring.
“Our overhead is quite large. We spent hundreds of thousands of dollars going into the operation. Our biggest thing is labour. So typically, we would like pick-your-own, but every apple that is taken that’s not any money that we can make back at the end of the year, that’s already money spent,” she said.
Making matters worse, Farmer said if people opt not to pay for the apples they’ve picked then that means the produce can’t be resold due to Ontario and federal government regulations.
“Because they haven’t used any hand washing practices and things like that, we’re unable to sell to the local grocery stores. We can’t sell it in our farm market, so it’s just waste unless they’re going to pay for it themselves,” she said.
Kevin Vallier, the CEO of Agritourism Ontario — an organization charged with promoting Ontario farm products, said he’s heard from other small business operators who have experienced similar issues.
“One of our members actually followed a customer into town, and when they opened their trunk it was full of apples that they didn’t pay for,” he told CityNews.
“One member had about 500 pounds of apples stolen just this season alone already.”
Vallier noted the businesses involved are family-owned properties running on “fairly thin” profit margins.
“To see this type of theft at this level is really sad to see,” he said.
“The vast majority of folks are very good, very respectful, and if we can just get a few attitudes to change we’ll be in good shape.”
According to statistics gathered by Agritourism Ontario 10 years ago, agricultural tourism businesses (including pick-your-own farms) pumped $1.5 billion into the economy. It’s not clear how thefts might spoil the opportunity for further growth. Vallier had a warning for consumers.
“The more that’s stolen, unfortunately, the more the price has to increase,” he said.
Back at Maple Grove Orchards, Farmer said she’s worried about being able to maintain the business as it exists. She noted there isn’t a charge for admission and that they work to maintain a wide variety of apples and other crops such as pumpkins.
“A lot of hard work, a lot of time, a lot of money and everything has put into this to allow us to share the farm with the community, and we want to continue to do so as long as we can keep it affordable, keep our orchard safe, no damage,” Farmer said.
“This is time taken away from our children. We have sacrificed time with friends and family, and we’re just doing this to better our community, to show them where their food is coming from, to support and maybe influence other young farmers to keep going, because we are seeing a lot of farms also being demolished for infrastructure and things like that.”
