Op-Ed

Baseline Price Guarantee for Growers

By Doanne Andresen
P.O Box 2268
Duxbury, MA 02331
[email protected] 

1/5/01 -- The USDA is about to spend $30,000,000 for cranberries that are held as surplus. This money will be given to Ocean Spray and/or Northland. The money is intended to increase the price that growers will receive for their berries. But the USDA is being misguided in the use of these funds.

As John Wilson pointed out at yesterday’s Cranberry Marketing Meeting, Ocean Spray does not buy berries from their growers. Therefore any monetary benefit that Ocean Spray receives does not go directly toward increasing the grower’s return. It will be owned by the corporation, an international corporation.

Yes, the USDA will be subsidizing an International Corporation and helping Canadian Ocean Spray stock holders. This government money will be helping expand the market for Canadian growers while The Cranberry Marketing Order may be asking US growers to dump 35 % of their crop. This is without guaranteeing growers at least a cost of production return for the berries that they will be allowed to sell.

The USDA is attempting to help the US farmer survive but is being misled. The Cranberry Industry problem is not a simple problem of oversupply. The price to growers is also affected buy the handlers battling for market share. While the handlers have paid the growers less and less to gain market share, the retailers have kept the supply and the retail prices relatively stable. So the money, that the handlers have not given to the growers, has been given to the retailers to protect a handler’s market.

Growers need to unite to be heard. I intend to go to Arlington, Virginia for the next CMC Meeting on February 5, 2001. I intend to meet with USDA Officials to present them with a grower perspective.

1. I will ask the to set a base line minimum price of forty dollars for berries delivered this year.

This baseline price will help to keep the small family farm in business while handlers try to increase the market and shrink the surplus. It will also prevent the large retailers from benefiting at farmer’s expense.

2. I will ask that any cranberry marketing order be imposed on handlers, not growers. Handlers will be responsible for reducing the surplus that handlers are storing, while growers are allowed to continue selling their crop. Handlers sat on the Cranberry Marketing Order and recommended that growers be restricted by producer allotments. This year, the Cranberry Marketing Order should use the handling withholding regulation. The impact will be to reduce the surplus while not forcing growers to sell berries below cost.
3. I will ask that the $30,000,000 that is being invested in this industry by the USDA be invested in US growers, not Canadian growers.

I would like to represent any grower that supports these three proposals. Send me a letter stating that you support these proposals. Identify your company name and the number of bog acres on your farm. I would like to represent growers from all states. I would also hope that your handler affiliation would not deter you from protecting your own farm. If growers unite, we will be heard.

I plan to present a stack of letters to a representative of the USDA and a duplicate stack to the Cranberry Marketing Committee.

If we act now, we can get a guaranteed baseline price for this year’s crop.

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