Cherry Tariffs Pt 2

Bob Larson

International trade is facing numerous challenges these days as ag producers worry about how and if they'll get their goods to market. Northwest Cherry Growers president BJ Thurlby says with harvest underway, growers are naturally concerned ...

THURLBY ... "Well, all of this couldn't probably be worse timing for us. I mean, here we are ready to start our first harvest and we've got issues going in the U.K., we've got issues going on in Mexico, issues going in Canada, and we've already got existing issues going on in China."

He says producers of every crop are concerned, including tree fruit growers right here in the Pacific Northwest ...

THURLBY ... "So, for today, you know cherries haven't been thrown out anywhere on these lists, but generally these countries go straight at agriculture because it's commonly, one of the most commonly traded items and so who knows where that's going to go, but for our growers, if we lose Europe, if we lose Mexico, if we lose Canada, that's a lot of fruit. We're talking about three to four million boxes that we would normally send in that direction. So, it's concerning."

Asked if it's a time of 'wait and see', Thurlby says not growers in the west ...

THURLBY ... "I can say that so far the ag producers on the West Coast haven't felt it with a 'wait and see' approach. And, we've been feeling it and we hope that there's a broad scheme that's going to work out in favor to our growers at some point, but you know right now we're just concerned."

Harvest began for some cherry growers last week and will move northward over the course of the next few months.