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“The public thinks of apples as a pure, natural, healthy and nutritional fruit,” said association president Jeet Dukhia in a statement. “GM apples are a risk to our market image.”

Similarly, south of the border, since early 2012 the U.S. Apple Association has been staunchly claiming that “no one is asking for this apple.”

In its latest annual report, the group announced it had mobilized its crisis communications subcommittee to refine its talking points in anticipation of the expected 2014 approval the Arctic Apple by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration.

“U.S. Apple is on call to safeguard the image of apples and apple products,” the group assured its members.

Mr. Carter, a veteran apple grower, said his opponents in the industry are simply scared of “anything that’s going to compete with their outdated methods.”

“New things in the fruit and produce business, that’s the reality, and these growers associations need to get their head out of the sand and realize that,” he said.

“We speak in this country of innovation, but every time it happens people get worried and paranoid about it.”

As per Statistics Canada, Canadian apple production is indeed in a tailspin.

In 2001, 26,000 hectares of Canadian soil were planted with apple trees. By 2010, the proportion had dropped to 18,000 hectares. In only 10 years, Canada had lost an area of apple orchards the size of Manhattan.

Consequently, in the same 10-year period Canadian apple production dropped by an incredible 129,800 metric tonnes.