The Fruit Growers News

There’s good news for cherry growers in Michigan and Utah.

Apple growers in New York, Michigan and Washington should be happy, too, along with grape growers who suffered huge crop losses this year.

When Congress approved a $397 billion omnibus appropriations bill in mid-February with President Bush signing it soon after, $3.1 billion of it was for weather-related disaster aid for losses incurred in 2001 and 2002. Nearly $2.1 billion of that money is earmarked for quality and quantity loss disaster payments to farmers.

The fruit and vegetable industry leaders had to work overtime to change the original Senate bill. That version would have only provided $100 million in disaster aid as money to state departments of agriculture - not direct payments to growers - while program crop growers in certain regions would receive money even if they didn’t have a disaster.

The U.S. Apple Association (USApple) and the Cherry Marketing Institute (CMI) worked in tandem with each other and put on a full court press and got the bill changed.

“We are proud to have worked hard to make this payment possible for U.S. apple growers who suffered incredible losses due to drought, frost or freeze in 2001 and 2002. In 2002 alone, U.S. apple growers suffered over $268 million in weather-related crop losses,” said USApple President and CEO Nancy Foster.

CMI President and Managing Director Phil Korson said it was a great victory for all fruit and vegetable growers because in this appropriation bill, they are treated like every other farmer in the country.

Last year, cherry yields were down 95% in Michigan. According to CMI, the national crop was down 80% with losses estimated at more than $47 million in Michigan, Utah and Wisconsin. Odd spring weather that damaged cherries also damaged grapes and apples across the United States. And apple growers in Washington state faced damaging weather that destroyed fruit just before harvest.

A group of New York apple growers also helped in the effort to get the disaster funding by forming the Hudson Valley Task Force a few months ago. The group, chaired by Peter Barton, an apple grower from Poughquag, N.Y. along with George Lamont, executive director of the New York State Horticultural Society, made several trips to Washington, D.C. over the past several months asking House members and senators for help. Those missions, supported by the New York Apple Association, are credited with helping to pave the way for the legislation. National Grape Cooperative, Inc. also helped lobby for disaster assistance.

To qualify for assistance under the program, growers will have to prove losses of 35% of their normal yield. Growers will be eligible for disaster payments for losses to their 2001 or 2002 crops. Assistance is available to only one of the two disaster years, forcing producers to choose to be covered for losses in one of the years, but not both.

For growers that prove 35% losses, early reports indicate that a payment rate of 50% will be applied in cases where crops were covered by crop insurance or catastrophic coverage or no crop insurance was available for the commodity. A payment rate of 45% will be applied in cases where a producer could have purchased insurance but chose not to. Payments will be capped so that disaster payments, Federal Crop Insurance, indemnities and actual crop value do not exceed 95% of the total expected crop value, according to the Michigan Farm Bureau.

The funds will come from money directed to the Conservation Security Program in the last Farm Bill.