AUGUST 2018 • COUNTRY LIFE IN BC


Richmond cranberry


grower honoured


Peter Dhillon credits law training, operation experience with success by SEAN HITREC


RICHMOND – The first thing one needs to know when sitting down to interview the newest inductee into the Canadian Agricultural Hall of Fame, Peter Dhillon, is he prefers not to be called the cranberry king. “Obviously it's a term given


by the media,” he says, adding he feels it is too ostentatious. “It's just not who I am, but you get labeled in a newspaper story as the cranberry king and then there's nothing else you can do because everywhere I go, they go, ‘Hey, cranberry king!’” Regardless of what you call


him (just Peter is good, he says), Dhillon, who was born and raised in the Lower Mainland, has amassed the biggest cranberry operation in Canada with farms in BC and Quebec. His induction into the Canadian Agricultural Hall of Fame, awarded to people who continue to make a difference in the agriculture industry, is merely the latest in a long line of successes. Dhillon received the Order of British Columbia in 2009 and the Queen’s Diamond Jubilee Medal in 2012. He became the first Canadian chair of Ocean Spray in 2014 and in 2017, he joined the Bank of Canada board. He’s also contributed a considerable amount of time and money on philanthropic ventures. In 2010, he started Rashpal Dhillon Fund in Idiopathic Pulmonary Research and Rashpal Dhillon Track and Field Oval at UBC in memory of his father who instilled a healthy farm work


ethic in Dhillon at a young age.


“My father made sure I understood what a hard day at the farm is all about and that I appreciate it,” he says. “The lesson I think he wanted me to learn was respect the people that work for you; this is what they have to do.” Dhillon attributes his success to a healthy understanding of the operations side of the business married with skills he picked up in law school. It hasn’t been without challenges though. Anyone farming in the Lower Mainland faces a significant conflict between urban and rural, he believes. “It is truly farming in the


city, and as cool as it sounds, it's very hard,” he says. “We have theft, we have trespass, never mind all the other problems that farming has with Mother Nature and soil issues and pests.” Crops were jeopardized last


year at harvest when someone vandalized his large water pump in Richmond. This sort of thing is not nearly as common in rural areas, he says.


Though one would think


labour would be the least of a farmer’s worries when living in a highly populated area, Dhillon says this isn’t the case. “People don't want to come


work on a farm,” he says. “Even if we pay more, they'd rather work at a Starbucks because it's much cooler.” Operating costs are also


higher for cranberry production in the Lower Mainland. In Quebec, his costs are half of what they are in BC,


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Richmond cranberry grower Peter Dhillon will be inducted into the Canadian Agricultural Hall of Fame later this year. SEAN HITREC PHOTO


mainly because cranberries out east are grown in sand and not peat.


Dhillon has his eyes set on


the future and predicts how we view food systems may change. New growing techniques condense the amount of space needed to grow food. Dhillon looks at modern-day greenhouses and cubicle farming as a new horizon. “Relatively speaking, food supply has been a very quiet area on technology and innovation,” he says. “I don't know to what level or to what degree, but I think if it can


happen in other places, we have to be naive to think it's not going to [change] how we source our food.” Regardless of what the


future holds, Dhillon says institutions such as the Canadian Agricultural Hall of Fame are important to the industry because farming isn’t celebrated as much as it should be. “If we're going to eat in the


future, we better look after our farmers first,” he says. “I love what I do. I think one of the most honourable professions you can have is to provide food to people in


whatever form.” Dhillon is the seventh


British Columbian inducted into the Canadian Agricultural Hall of Fame since its creation in 1960. Other inductees include vintner Anthony von Mandl (2015), cattle geneticist Gordon Souter (2004) and dairy farmer Alexander Mercer (1961), a founding member of the Dairy Farmers of Canada. Other inductees this year include Maple Leaf Foods executive Ted Bilyea, plant scientist Wilf Keller, agricultural economist Larry Martin and former federal agriculture minister Gerry Ritz.


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