Here

This article started in the Washington Post and has been picked up by many news outlets. I think most growers know the real story so I won’t elaborate.

Nice Article on our neighbor to the north!

I received an email early this am about Cranberries “making the list” but here is a story in the state wide paper Here.

Ugh.

See here

Best wishes to Randy Papadellis!

Just an update from the CMC meeting just held in DC. No new action was taken on the volume regulations. The Committee and all of us really, are waiting on the USDA to act on the recommendations.

The 2017 regulation has been posted in the Federal Register and the comment period has closed. We are waiting on the Secretary to finalize and sign.

Sometime soon the 2018 order will be posted in the Federal Register for comments. And then the Secretary will finalize and sign.

I think that the CMC members and attendees made it clear to the USDA officials present that we need action quickly so that growers can make growing decisions to control costs. It was duly noted by Oregon growers that the growing season has already begun!

In other news, the 2017 crop was smaller than previously estimated in January, now that actual numbers have been reported. Mother Nature really helped us out on that front. In making the 2018 forecast, most all growing areas expect to be back up to their normal production.

In looking back at my post about the Boston CMC meeting, I had (at least) one thing wrong…I said that the worldwide crop was down 1,500,000 bbls. Nope, wrong. The projected crop was down that amount off the August 2017 estimate. The projected crop as compared to the actual 2016 crop is down 2,100,000 bbls or almost 16%. This includes all of Canada and Chile. Sorry for any confusion.

An article in the Packer…..

https://www.thepacker.com/article/comments-due-volume-control-cranberries

The CMC met in Boston this past Wednesday to discuss the proposed Marketing Order as published in the Federal Register on January 2, 2018 for comment. This is the order for the 2017 crop. They reviewed this proposed order and compared it to the order that the CMC proposed in August.

First though, the committee reviewed estimates of the 2017 crop just delivered. I say estimates, because the handler reports aren’t due for a couple of days and those final numbers won’t be official until early next month. Mother Nature provided a significant supply correction with an estimated crop US crop of 8,260,000 bbls, down 880,000 bbls from the CMCs projection of 9,141,000 bbls. That is about a 10% drop. One handler told me that he thought this was the largest crop decrease since 1976! Every single growing area was level or down, both within the US and growing areas not covered by this order. Worldwide, the crop is estimated to be down 1,560,000 bbls. I can’t remember, and don’t know if this has ever happened that all growing areas were down.

When the CMC voted for an order in August, they had projected that a 15% order would reduce the US crop by 915,000 bbls. So poor growing conditions/weather did most of our work for us. Based on that information, the committee discussed the other items introduced in the Proposed Order by the USDA. The committee had recommended that every handler receive a 125,000 bbl exemption, so in other words the first 125,000 bbls of a handle is exempt. The USDA’s proposal is that handlers below 125,000 are exempt and those above are not exempt. This affects only 7-8 handlers out of the 60 total handlers and affects the smaller of these handlers disproportionately as they can’t spread the cost of disposal over as many barrels. There were many comments as to the fairness of the proposed changes. Take for example a 300,000 bbls handler. With the CMC proposal he would have had to dispose of 300,000 bbls – 125,000= 175,000 bbls x .15%=26,250 bbls disposed. Under the proposed USDA plan that same handler would have to dispose of 300,000 bbls x 15%=45,000 bbls. The difference is significant. If the proposed USDA plan is enacted it would take another 1,000,000 bbls off the market in addition to the 880,000 bbls that naturally came off the market.

Besides the 125,000 exemption, the other significant change made by the USDA was the addition of “Any handler who does not have carryover inventory at the end of the 2017-2018 year would also be exempt” and ” Further, only handlers who would have carryover inventory that is not sold or under contract and the end of the 2017-2018 fiscal year would be subject to the 15 percent restriction” to the order. There was much discussion on these provisions imploring the USDA to provide guidance on what is define what is “sold” and “under contract”. The industry needs a certain amount of “pipeline” that is in our projections to get the processors from one crop to the availability of the new crop, which allows the processing plants to run efficiently and continually. Do we have more than the necessary amount of carryover as an industry. Absolutely, hence the request for a marketing order. But to make handlers prove their sales or contracts to prove they are in balance without carryover seems like an exercise fraught with problems. The addition of this wordage was probably intended to have the handlers with the most inventory subject to the order, and has numerous problems in application.

In the end, the CMC could only review the Proposed Order and make recommendations. In consideration of the large amount of decrease in fruit provided due to growing conditions, the CMC recommended to the USDA that the Volume reduction be reduced from 15% to 5%. This amount is estimated to take another 320,000 bbls out of the supply.

The USDA representatives were engaged and listened intently to all of the presenters and commentary. It was by no means a negotiation or give and take. They suggested that everyone make these same comments to the Federal Register. The comment period is open until February 2, 2018

Just a reminder…I am not a member of the CMC and that I try to provide this information to other growers as a service. I try my best to be fair and accurate.

If you have an opinion on the marketing order yay or nay, this is the way to make yourself heard: go to this link and click on comment. If is public and everyone can read it, including the Secretary of Agriculture who eventually has to amend, sign or reject the marketing order.

https://www.federalregister.gov/documents/2018/01/02/2017-28169/cranberries-grown-in-states-of-massachusetts-et-al-free-and-restricted-percentages-for-the-2017-18

Our personal accountant told us that this was in the new tax bill, but I didn’t really believe him. Wow. Sounds like the politicians are working on a fix though, so hold on.

https://www.wsj.com/articles/agriculture-firms-decry-provision-in-new-tax-law-1515529022

The cranberry marketing order has been published in the Federal Register. https://www.federalregister.gov/documents/2018/01/02/2017-28169/cranberries-grown-in-states-of-massachusetts-et-al-free-and-restricted-percentages-for-the-2017-18

It does have some changes vs what the committee approved, so everyone should read and form their own conclusions. The comment period is open until February 1st.

So much is happening in the industry! Spray is apparently folding the B pool into the A pool over the 2017 and 2018 pools. I don’t know what happened to the waiting list.

I heard that Spray is buying Atoka in Quebec. If true, that sounds like a good acquisition for them. They didn’t have all that much acreage in Quebec, or Sdc production up there. Quebec is also big in organic fruit, which will also be a plus. And they get to export from Canada tariff free in many cases.

Finally, Cranberries Limited has sent registered letters to their growers indicating that they will be done handling fruit after the 2019 crop. CLI has handled a large amount of fruit for the past 10plus years. All their growers will be looking for a home for the 2020 crop.

Wow.

Ok, so this was given to me years ago…it is the best. Just try it.  The sauce is put on the cake AFTER it is baked for 40 minutes in 350 degree oven.  

Thanks Toon for these photos…I finally got around to posting! I have to say, this is really different than growing them in Wisconsin…

Not too long ago I received word from a reader who is growing Cranberries in a different way. Check out these photos and descriptions of how he is doing it.

The plants grow in 1,3 meter planters on a frame of old 51 mm heating pipes. Everything had to be cheap because I didn’t know if this way of growing will work  about 8 years ago. It turned out quite well. So I gowing to plant 3 times more meters tabletop this winter. I’m looking now for a good variety, perhaps you have some suggestions. Over here it is diffcult to become the newest variety’s with good potentials. I have collected Pilgrim, Stevens, Red Star, Crowley and Langlois. Stevens is my main variety. It has a good dark red color because the sun can reach all the berry’s and they drys quikly what is good for storage.

I sent also a few fotos from the tabletopframe to give you an impression.

If anyone wants to chat with this grower, send me a message and I will get you in touch…

Jonathan Smith’s Cransations are now at WalMart under the Sunkist brand….I tried these a while back and loved them!

I blogged a link before, but here is the visual. I think it is great that Spray is getting into Organic AND they are bringing back 100% pure cranberry.

https://www.pbs.org/newshour/show/why-the-cranberries-on-your-thanksgiving-table-might-be-more-trouble-than-theyre-worth-for-local-growers

https://modernfarmer.com/2017/11/cranberry-industry-wild-also-many-cranberries/