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BC's climate makes hardneck garlic a
viable route Hardier, arguably more flavourful, and suitable for small lot farming
by RONDA PAYNE
ABBOTSFORD – Garlic isn’t an easy crop but it has great potential if growers can band together, says Jim Capellini of Rasa Creek Farm in Lumby. In fact, BC could be a garlic leader thanks to the success of hardneck varieties that grow well here compared to hotter climates where softneck varieties rule. “That’s one of the selling
points we have,” Capellini said in a talk at the Pacific Agriculture Show in Abbotsford this winter. Canada produces a mere 8% of the garlic it consumes, with about 70% coming from China, 10% from the US and 12% from other regions. This leaves a great deal of room for domestic growers to serve the market, despite a common belief domestic growth was saturated years ago. When he began growing garlic in 2009, Capellini was told BC had more than it needed. Driven by a vision of supplying hardneck varieties and stealing market share from softneck garlic, Capellini persisted and today helps others get started. While milder parts of BC are able to produce hard and softneck varieties successfully, Capellini believes hardneck varieties are tickets to success. Hardneck garlic generally
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has more flavour, is easier to peel and thrives in a longer, more severe winter. It produces a smaller head with fewer cloves but also creates scapes, the edible flower bud of the plant popular in spring.
COUNTRY LIFE IN BC • JUNE 2017
Jim Capellini demonstrates his method of sizing garlic. RONDA PAYNE PHOTO
Both varieties can be grown alongside other crops or on their own. It’s unlikely consumers will
have much trouble shifting to hardneck from softneck garlic, and may even find they prefer it, Capellini says. Moreover, a locally grown garlic is a great win when it comes to consumer choice. “There’s a high profit potential compared to other crops,” he said. “It’s a very viable crop for that.” Despite the successes,
Capellini said garlic isn’t all sunshine and rainbows. Sometimes growers may think the antifungal and antibacterial properties of garlic keep the pests at bay but this isn’t the case in the
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Fewer but larger cloves distinquishes hardneck garlic from the more familiar softneck variety. FILE PHOTO
field. Crop losses in a good year can run about 5%, but in a bad year, when botrytis and other issues take hold, losses can be upwards of 30%. Riding the highs and lows
is part of the cycle of farming which prompted Capellini to create a five-year business planning tool [www.rasacreek
farm.com/how-to-grow- garlic]. “I created this spreadsheet as an aid for me to help growers,” he said. The spreadsheet provides
growers with the information they need, from how to get a loan to plant spacing, labour, size of a curing shed, how much to hold back for replanting and more.
On average, Capellini
believes growers can earn up to $30,000 per acre annually on an established farm based on the average of 67,000 cloves per acre. With this potential, however, he fears the nature of the business will change in 10 to 20 years. “It’s going to go the way of big business,” he said. “The opportunity I see is that we can co-ordinate… a large group of smaller scale farms.” Rather than one or two industrial-sized farms, Capellini would like to see growers of one to five acres coming together, pooling their harvests and putting forward a high-quality, consistent, stable volume of hardneck garlic to retailers.
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