Cranberry Oversupply Pt 1

Cranberry Oversupply Pt 1

Bob Larson
Bob Larson
With today's Fruit Grower Report, I'm Bob Larson. Facing more cuts in cranberry production, growers are looking at the larger handlers withholding 25-percent of the fruit they receive thanks to an oversupply.

Washington State University Extension Service professor Kim Patten says the industry is facing a lot of challenges ...

PATTEN ... "Of course, the big concern is the price which is not going to be very good. There's a set-aside, a USDA set-aside of 25 percent so that will also be a challenge to the industry. Most of the folks are exempt from that, you know, except for the large processors, but it's not a bright future for the market on cranberries."

Patten says most of the Washington growers aren't impacted directly, but they will feel it to some extent ...

PATTEN ... "It's probably not going to affect Oregon and Washington growers, but overall it could have an impact, yeah."

He says we have a pretty diverse collection of growers in the Pacific Northwest ...

PATTEN ... "The bulk of our industry, a big majority, 90-plus percent is Ocean Spray Cooperative and it's about split between how much goes processed and much goes fresh fruit. A large quantity of our fruit is for the fresh fruit market and it supplies the majority of the fresh fruit west of the Rockies, or at least it used to, now there's some exports out of Quebec and so forth, but it's a good portion of the fresh fruit on the west coast."

Wisconsin, Massachusetts and New Jersey lead the way in U.S. cranberry production, but Oregon and Washington are right behind.

Listen tomorrow for more on the challenges in the cranberry industry.

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