This spring, the province announced $12.5 million in support of the centre, bringing that level of government’s contribution to a total of $25 million.

Funding for the re-birth of the horticultural centre was not only good news for Niagara’s vast greenhouse, grape and tender fruit industries, but also for farmers across the province.

Farmers like Beamsville-based Jamie Warner, who not only grows tender fruit including peaches, cherries, plums, apricots, pears and nectarines on his 100-acre farm — but also sits on the project’s board of directors.

“Vineland is very, very important historically from the breeding work that has been done there and the work on pesticide registration,” he said. “I think that with all the pressures we’re facing now, we need it more than ever. We need it to solve problems short term, but we also need it to carry us through to the next century.”

Those pressures, he said, are mainly economic. The greenhouse industry is struggling with higher fuel costs and the low U.S. dollar is hard hitting for farmers who export to the U.S. The high Canadian dollar also makes it cheaper to import food.

“We need to preserve our margins and that’s only going to happen through cutting costs or increasing prices. We also need new, better products coming out of Vineland. The breeding work they do will be a major part of the future.”

As for the future of the family farm and farming as a powerful industry in Niagara, Vineland will play an integral role, said Warner.

“It’s one of the pieces that will allow that to happen. Any kind of new markets that we can develop is what we are interested in. Some of our best varieties of fruit are Vineland varieties. When we have problem insects there have been people at Vineland who have been able to react and help us.”

Warner is a fourth-generation farmer and director for the Ontario Tender Fruit Producers’ Marketing Board. He is past chair of the Niagara Peninsula Fruit and Vegetable Growers’ Association. He knows farming and what drives the industry.

Warner said the investment in the horticultural hub will not only breathe new life into the industry, but also science.

Established in 1906 through a gift by M.F. Rittenhouse, the Vineland Research Station has contributed to the emergence of a competitive horticulture industry in Niagara. But the path to the revitalization project has not been a smooth one. For years the centre was dying on the vine at the hands of the province.

Cutbacks in staff led to rumours of the centre being shut down.

“There has been minimal investment in the Research Station infrastructure during the last 25 years and the number of scientists has declined. As a result, the starting base position has been depleted and eroded,” the panel concluded in their December 2006 report.

Yet the Ontario Ministry of Agriculture and Food credits scientists at the Vineland centre with the creation of more than 50 varieties of peaches, apricots, cherries and plums, along with numerous varieties of vegetables and flowering plants. An open house is scheduled for May 15 from 7 to 9 p.m.

With a hope for more funding from the federal government, Warner said in 10 years he hopes to see more buildings, state-of-the-art labs and a lot of employees at the site.