B.C. crop insurance program not working under wildfires and climate change

0:00This episode is brought to you by TickTack. Lay some and get your game on because the TickTack lineup just got a new teammate. Dr. Pepper TickTack. This new double threat puts two of your favorite flavors into one box of mince. And when two iconic flavors come together, the result can only be iconic. Score big. Try Dr. Pepper TickTack today. We know it has been a very challenging season for a lot of vineyards and wineries, especially because of the wildfires we saw this past summer. We talked about crops being lost, the smoke causing a lot of damage to the fruit. Well, now there are concerns about insurance coverage. And joining me once again is Rod and Kubak, the owner of Lightning Rock winery. Ron, thank you for coming back on the show. My pleasure, Joe. Always a pleasure. I think last time we talked, we were still talking about provincial trade barriers and the alcohol man from the United States, but you have also had some pretty big losses because of the fires.

1:02Where do things stand there? Yes, it's a tough day. I've got staff out right now dropping fruit in all of our vineyards. And tomorrow I've got a big crew coming in to finish it up because in order to get insurance money, you have to have the fruit on the ground. So we got had insurance. And so we've been buying fruit, caromias, costin, I'm just between Oliver and a Soyuz right now headed to a Soyuz. And we've gotten smoke-taint numbers in. So we've gotten really good at taking a look at what's there and what's not there. It's just really sad when I left the winery today to see we're going to probably have our best year ever. Last year was a great year, but we, the fruit looks even better than last year's. And it's all just being dropped on the ground right now. And so can you explain why that needs to be done for insurance? Well, insurance doesn't want you to make a claim and then have someone come around and make something out of it. And you know, we've tried to, you know, find uses like there's a pig farm

2:03in Somerland. And we offered the grapes to them, but they said that they can't use it because they got in trouble for feeding pigs, apples because CFIA hadn't approved it if you can believe it. And they, so they want you to see that you're not sort of double dipping, which I understand and, and, you know, the thing about insurance is that it's really, I miss no more. There's a lot of growers who choose not to have insurance. And that's a choice, just like you can have no insurance on your car other than what the government requires, or you can have no insurance on your house, but then you take a risk. And so we're buying a lot of fruit right now because we get three to five phone calls minimum a day, my winemaker and myself wanting to know if we want to buy fruit. And so there is insurance out there. It's the level of insurance that you get. And, you know, you can pay a large premium to get really good coverage. We have a so, so coverage to, for what we did, but we're okay on that. And, you know, the challenge for a lot of the growers

3:03is everybody that I'm buying from has no insurance, which is crazy. And because it's not something that I, you know, I, I learned after 24, you better have insurance. And so, you know, when I hear the people talking, well, you know, it's a horrible year and the government should bail us out. And I'm like, well, the government shouldn't bail you out if you don't have insurance. The government is providing insurance where no other third party insurance company will. At the same time, the growers are also like in the situation that happened last year. They wanted to try and recover their losses in 24 when they had no insurance. So they jacked the price or fruit up. The dirty secret, you know, because I own a winery and I own vineyards, I am a member of BC great growers, a member of wine growers, BC. And the price that we pay for fruit is among some of the highest prices in the world. And, you know, we've been very blessed. Like, thank you to all your listeners because I had people come in and say, I was listening to you on Jill Bennett's show and I'm like, we love Jill. And they came in and we had a great September.

4:07They supported us in Summerland and so thank you for that, Jill. But, you know, at the same time, we can only charge so much. And we compete because the BCLDB would rather have foreign wine. So we compete against wine that's made for three or four dollars a year or in Europe. And it comes over here. We can't even make wine for less than $50 a bottle. And so, on the insurance thing, you've got to have insurance. Like, I'm looking at, I was telling you, they're a producer. I mean, I'm looking at my 10-page insurance document this year going, okay, am I going to have a 1%, 5%, 20%, 50% deductible so that I can get insurance on next year. And we've had two bad years out of three. So I'm thinking, probably going on the lower deductibles, so my premium is going to be higher. Right, which is something like you said, with when you're already dealing with wildfires and the smoke that has damaged the grapes, it's probably not what you want to have to be dealing with. But, is it also a scenario then where you're talking about the levels of insurance? Because year to year,

5:12you wouldn't know exactly what the crop is going to be like, how, what the profits are going to be. So how do you know how much insurance you need? It would have been Devegas. Being a farmer right now is like going to Vegas and playing craps or roulette. But, you know, I'm looking at the document and it says, you know, payments have to be in before October 31st, 2026. Otherwise, there's no insurance for 2027. And so, you know, I think that, you know, you know that I have many difficulties with the government and the fact that they make it so hard to do business in this province, in this country. But when it comes to the agribusability support, which is also another program, the agriculture insurance, I really think that BC is leading the way. And for growers, yes, it's money that you've got to put out for insurance. But it would have helped in a year like this. It would have helped in a year like 2024. And so, I may be a little different than where you thought the interview was going to go. But the fact is,

6:14is that the people that I deal with at the BC government, you know, in the agribusability part and the crop insurance thing, they are really, really good at what they do. Like, I didn't do this before, but they do a really, really good job. And, you know, they have to come out when it's after we get our insurance, they have to, we had to count all the plants and all four of our vineyards. And so, you know, we've got that days of keeping track of the plants and what type of arrival. And then they have claims adjusters that come out and estimate how much crop you have. And then they pay you on that. Part of the problem is it's sort of an averaging thing. So, it's not quite what we would get normally for the crop. But, you know, it's sort of like BC assessment. I mean, if BC assessment gets within 80 or 90 percent, they've done a good job. And I think that the agribusability people, all the people that I deal with there, I have zero complaints. And I, you know, I would commend, you know, it used to be a land of pop until she retired. But, you know, for what they do there, it's not a fun thing. I mean,

7:17I spent a lot of time in this last month talking to a lot of people and that they're the people I don't want to hear from Julein September. Right. But they're the people that I can hear from. So, the insurance money I'm getting, it's not the greatest amount of money. But I'm taking all of that and more and I'm buying fruit. So, you know, we have a lot of growers that were buying from that didn't have insurance. And so, I'm taking my insurance money and removing it through the economy. And I know a lot of other wineries are doing like I am and we're buying fruit, maybe not as much as we normally would because we have to be worried about the smoke tank. But at the same time, we're out there re-investing the money. And, you know, for all of the guys who have wineries like myself, you know, they deserve support from British Columbians because they could have just sat on that and done nothing and used some of their inventory, but they're taking that money re-investing it. And I got a lot of growers that run. I had no insurance and we're paying them X amount of dollars a ton and they're like, thank you. And to me, that's just part of keeping the industry going and so that's why I do it. It's me, the we don't need the jingle twice. Stop it. This is about vacation

8:28inflation and how price line negotiates amazing deals on hotels, flights and rental cars. Things like you decided. Yeah, but I didn't mention that you can save up to 60% off hotels in the price line app. Fine, no one deals more deals then. Please stop. This episode is brought to you by TicTac. Lace up and get your game on because the TicTac line up just got a new teammate. Dr. Pepper TicTac, this new double threat puts two of your favorite flavors into one box of mince. And when two iconic flavors come together, the result can only be iconic. Score big. Try Dr. Pepper TicTac today. Well, that makes sense because you lost most if not all of your grapes. 100% 100% 100% So your grapes are all gone. So you will still be able to make wine though with the fruit that you're buying. Yeah, we're making about 65% 70% of what we do. It reminds me of 2024 again with the amount of

9:32driving that I'm doing or Sebastian's doing my line maker. You know, I was to the caramias toy. I was to caramias twice last week to cost in once. I'm going to do a soy sauce twice this week. I got to go. We've got fruit even coming from Abbott's Fertival things because the grower reached out. And you know, part of the problem was is that because the and I will take a challenge here where the BC government screwed up, especially the BCLDB and the vintage replacement program because you know, they're tax collectors and they were taxing us on the 24-year that we lost everything and bringing in stuff from Washington State. And so the BCLDB really needs to be purged of their senior leadership because no one we had a great year last year. And so no one wanted to make more because of the way the tax was. And so because we had a good crop and so a lot of guys aren't buying as much this year. And the other thing was a lot of growers doubled their prices last year. So it came into sort of an economic situation. So we're doing all weekend to keep

10:33growers. We're meeting a lot of new growers. I can tell you that. I've probably put on 2,500 kilometers in the last 21 days, driving around, picking up fruit, just like I'm going to be doing today. And you know, it's, I just, you know, British Columbians support British Columbians, but at the same time, you've got to take care of yourself. You know, and it's like if you're over weight, you better go to the gym or going to diet. If you are in the business like this, you better have insurance. And maybe it's an expense. Yes. And you factor that in there. But it's the cost of doing business. And we can't be going to the tax payers and going, oh, bail us out because we have this loss. bail us out because we have that loss. I don't want the government to bail me out. I just would like the government to get out of my way because I know I have a survive. And you know, as far as the crop insurance, Agree stability, those are wonderful people, BCLDB, not wonderful people. And you know, it's sad because there are growers who made that decision not to go with insurance. But you know, if you didn't have insurance on your house in

11:37Vancouver and then you had a fire, do you expect the government to bail you out? No, I don't. But I certainly have heard sometimes where that question is asked. Ron, let's leave it there for today. I always appreciate you coming on the show and telling us what's happening in that region of the province and in the wine industry. We will talk to you again soon. Yeah. And it's also just make sure everybody knows that wine that was bottled prior to this year was not affected by any of the fires. And so we thank the British Columbians for helping support, especially those of us in Somerland who had to be evacuated. And I just thank you always so much for your time and for taking an interest in this show. Every mile matters, whether you're driving your dream car or your daily commuter, the mobile one team knows that. It's why we created mobile one advanced clean motor oil. It cleans your engine in one oil change and helps extend engine life, delivering performance, protection and cleanliness for vehicles of all ages. All to help keep your

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