US Blueberry Industry Groups Face Off in Business Audience

A mechanical row blueberry harvester in action in Berries Northwest, north of Albany, Oregon. The US International Trade Commission is trying to determine why blueberry prices are falling.

Sectors of the US blueberry industry clashed Tuesday in a one-day hearing before the US International Trade Commission, offering conflicting explanations for declining farmers' profits.

The American Blueberry Growers Alliance blamed the surge in Latin American imports in the spring and fall, robbing farmers of lucrative early and late season sales.

A rival group, the Blueberry Coalition for Progress and Health, said the imports do not hurt American farmers. He attributed the low prices to a “massive increase in supply” from Washington and Oregon.

The president of the growers' alliance, Georgia farmer Jerome Crosby, called the claim that imports are not dragging prices down "funny."

“The world I live in is a problem,” he said.

The trade commission heard the conflicting testimony, as well as the grieving legal and economic analyzes, as part of its investigation into whether foreign business partners are seriously harming U.S. blueberry growers.

The Trump administration launched the investigation at the request of blueberry growers. The commission will report its findings to the Biden White House. The Washington, Oregon and California blueberry commissions are helping fund the research.

The growers alliance argues that imports once supplemented US production by ensuring that fresh blueberries were available in grocery stores year-round, which helped make the fruit popular with consumers.

However, in the last five years Mexico, Chile, Peru and Argentina have begun to invade the U.S. growing season, according to the alliance.

Traditionally, US blueberry growers relied on early and late harvest sales to offset low mid-summer prices. The producer alliance links the rising volume of “shoulder season” imports to falling spring and fall prices.

Representatives of Latin American countries, as well as Canada, rejected and said that their farmers are not responsible for the fall in prices.

The trade commission also received a letter Tuesday signed by 18 federal lawmakers, 10 Democrats and eight Republicans, calling on the commission to respect "cross-border trade and consumer preferences."

The blueberry coalition, which represents American companies that grow or buy blueberries in other countries, blamed the low prices on competing American farmers.

“Prices stagnate in the summer months when domestic produce saturates the market,” said Soren Bjorn, president of the Americas for Driscoll's, a Watsonville, California-based fruit vendor.

Rutgers University economist Thomas Prusa said blueberry production and employment are growing, signs of a healthy industry, although industry prices deteriorate in late summer.

“This is attributable to a massive increase in supply from their US growers in Oregon and Washington, not from import sources,” he said.

Testifying for the grower alliance, Washington Blueberry Commission executive director Alan Schreiber said the growing US production reflected the choices farmers made before imports increased.

“This wave of plantations that originated many years ago has ended,” he said.

Washington blueberry growers once made as much as $ 11 a pound for late blueberries, Schreiber said. In 2020, the highest price was $ 6 a pound, he said.

“It is incomprehensible that someone with a straight face says that blueberries are not going to arrive during our season,” he said. “They are targeting our market and July is next.”

Building on new plantings in other countries, the blueberry alliance projected that imports will double in two years, providing more than enough berries to meet US demand.

"Imagine what's going to happen to us when imports have doubled," Schreiber said.

Previous article

next article

ARTÍCULOS RELACIONADOS

Austral Cherry: Good Campaign for the Pretty Girl of Fruit Growing
The impact and supply of new genetics will be the main topic at the meeting...
Novel system to evaluate the impact of relative humidity on the pe...