By KEVIN WALKER
Michigan Correspondent

OLD MISSION, Mich. — Some tart cherry producers are chafing at the bit over too much supply and not enough money.

Perry Hedin, executive director of the Cherry Industry Administrative Board, an organization created as part of a 1996 tart cherry federal marketing order, says cherry producers voted in this system. There have also been amendments to the marketing order and it’s been renewed several times.

“It’s not as though the hammer of bureaucracy is descending on the growers,” Hedin said. “I think we have much of a tempest in a teapot here.”
Some news stories have broken recently about tart cherry producers unhappy with the state of things this season. One in particular, Leonard Ligon, reportedly dumped 72,000 pounds of cherries on the side of a road near his orchard in Old Mission, Mich. Ligon, reached at his home last week, said he doesn’t blame the federal marketing order for what’s going on, at least not entirely.
“I’m leaving the tart cherry business for the wine grape business,” Ligon said. “The cherry business is continuing to collapse. We have a few major retailers that run the food business now. These major retailers really have the power now.”

Cherries that a handler can’t take can’t be marketed, Hedin explained. In 1995, he said, growers got paid 5 cents a pound for their tart cherries. “That was just disastrous,” Hedin said.

Mostly as a response to that low point, producers in 1996 voted in the current federal marketing order. It’s administered by the Cherry Industry Administrative Board (CIAB) and reports to the USDA. In order not to put too many cherries onto the market in any given year, the CIAB uses crop yield estimates and puts a ceiling on the number of tart cherries that handlers may use in the domestic cherry market for that season.

A handler, or processor, may accept more cherries to place into inventory for a future year, to market to a foreign market or to try and market to a new domestic market, but it can’t use those restricted cherries for an established domestic market. The handler can also tell the grower not to bring in some of their crop because the handler can’t handle it.

“It’s a fairly complicated procedure, but handlers are key to dealing with the restriction and the handler determines how it can deal with a restriction,” Hedin said.

This year the tart cherry crop is 350 million pounds, while the average harvest is 200 million-250 million. Hedin said handlers are telling growers not to bring in some of their harvest, and growers are frustrated.

“No commodity can absorb that excess of harvest,” he said. “If you flood the market, the price will simply plummet.”

But Hedin said the federal marketing order has been good for growers. In 2008, growers were paid 39.3 cents a pound for their tart cherries.

Ron Prentice, president of Cherry Growers, Inc., a growers’ cooperative on the northwestern side of Michigan, said the only quoted price for cherries he’s seen is a co-op in southwestern Michigan paying 20 cents a pound.

He said his 68-member group pays a 10-cent “harvest time advance” to growers to help them cover their costs. He said this amount is comparable to what’s been paid in previous years. The rest of it is paid in installments, with the final installment in June the following year.

“I would think that 20 cents a pound is realistic” for cherries this year, Prentice said.

Ligon isn’t happy about what’s going on for cherry growers, and hasn’t been for a long time. “I want people to know the tart cherry growers’ plight,” he said. “He’s an endangered species because the value of the land is so much greater for other uses, primarily development.”

He said tart cherry orchards are prime real estate because they have excellent views near the water and usually have well-drained soil. Ligon also complained that Michigan has too many layers of government, with townships and counties to pay for, in addition to state government.

He is hopeful that he can transition out of cherries and into wine grapes, which he says he’s been working on for years.

“This is probably one of the best places in the world to grow fine wine grapes,” Ligon said. “It’s the right temperature and the right relative humidity. It’s one of the brightest spots in Michigan agriculture, and agriculture is the brightest spot in the Michigan economy.”