Cherry woes extend across Northwest

By KRISTI ALBERTSON

The Daily Inter Lake

Cherry growers across the Northwest are facing the same dilemma as growers in the Flathead Valley: To pick or not to pick? More and more growers are finding that picking cherries for packing would not be worth the cost of labor.

Because of the condition of the regional market, Monson Fruit Co. is not accepting cherries of size "11-and-a-half row" or smaller, said Robert Kershaw, president of Domex, Monson's marketing company.

It's a combination of poor timing, a huge crop and small cherries, he said, "just a perfect storm of bad events."

"Mostly the size was the issue," he added. "It would have made zero financial sense to pick them."

Cherries are measured according to how many can be lined up across a 10-inch box; 1-inch cherries are "10 row" because 10 fit in one row. The larger the number, the smaller the cherry. The smaller the cherry, the more must be picked to make a pound.

Picking is the No. 1 cost in growing cherries, Kershaw said. When the market is this tight, it costs more to pay pickers than growers would earn for their fruit.

Weather contributed to the cherries' small size, he said, as did the size of the crop.

"When the crop is so big, sometimes they don't size very well," he said. "The Montana cherries were very small. They were going to be peaking on 11-and-a-half row."

It isn't just Montana cherries, though. Growers across the Northwest have smaller cherries than usual.

"In every district, there are growers basically leaving them on the trees for the birds," Kershaw said.

Packing isn't the only market available to growers, but it tends to be the most profitable. Without the option of selling fresh cherries, some growers are hauling their entire crop to processing plants for use as frozen fruit, syrup or in other ways.

It's not just small-time farmers being affected either, Kershaw said. Some major commercial orchards can't sell their cherries as fresh fruit either.

"I've never seen a year like this where there's huge growers just taking crops straight to the processor," he said.

Part of the problem is that Washington's season is later than usual and Montana's arrived early. Usually Washington and Oregon can sell their cherries well before Flathead orchards are ripe for picking.

"Oftentimes, when you're the only game in town, it's usually late enough where Washington and Oregon are completely done," Kershaw said.

Because the Flathead's only competition is usually a small portion of British Columbia, growers can get away with selling smaller cherries, he said. This year, however, so many orchards are still in the market that there's no room for the smaller fruit.

"Last year, you could get $40 or $50 a box (for small cherries)," Kershaw said. "Cherries right now, today, are selling for $5 to $10 a box on the New York market, and it's $3 to $4 freight just to get there."

It's not enough profit to make it worth the growers' while, he said.

"The thing we have to do as cherry packers and as cherry marketers is we absolutely have to look out for growers' best interest at all times. The only time we would ask a grower not to pick is if we felt they would be losing money," he said.

Had growers harvested their crops anyway, they likely would have received a bill for packing charges, he said.

"It would just add insult to injury," he said. "If it doesn't show value to them to pick, we've got to look them straight in the face … and say it would be a major, major, major gamble if you were to pick these.

"It's a gut-wrenching decision," he added. "But it would be a complete disaster if we asked them to pick. The only solace you can take is that the last couple of years, the returns have been fantastic."

Reporter Kristi Albertson may be reached at 758-4438 or by e-mail at kalbertson@dailyinterlake.com.