Less than five per cent of family businesses make it to the fourth generation but the Davison family did just that.
Davison Orchards has been growing apples since 1933. This year they celebrate 85 years and four generations of family farming in Vernon.
Bob Davison is the eldest of the three generations currently working on the farm. His uncle Tom began the business after emigrating from England after the First World War in the hopes of a more prosperous future. The family realized their dream of owning their own orchard in the Okanagan in 1933. Bob began working in the orchard with his uncle in 1948. He was 17 at the time and still works at the family orchard today.
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From horse to tractor, ditches to drip irrigation, boxes to bins, fruit grower to merchandiser and production farm to agritourism experience, Davison Orchards have seen all these technological and societal changes and survived.
“Apples have been my whole life,” said Bob Davison. “Today there are four generations running around here.”
Three generations are actively working on the farm and although Bob Davison says he isn’t sure what his grandchildren’s interests will be, he and his wife Dora are proud to have reached 85 years of growing apples in Vernon.
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