CBS Evening News

Nov. 27, 1999

CRANBERRY GROWERS HAVE BUMPER CROP, BUT FARMERS ARE ARE NOT CELEBRATING

ANCHOR: RUSS MITCHELL

REPORTERS: RANDALL PINKSTON

The biggest name in cranberries, Ocean Spray, has decided not to sell off any of the company but is promising big changes to cope with a glut in the cranberry market. As Randall Pinkston reports, with prices bogged down, many growers are seeing red.

RANDALL PINKSTON reporting:

For the third year, America's cranberry growers have a bumper crop; seven million barrels nationwide, but farmers are not celebrating.

JOHN DECAS (Decas Cranberry Company): We have three million left over from last year. This industry is capable of selling about half of that. So we've got two crops to sell this year and - and that can't be done.

PINKSTON: Massachusetts farmer John Decas is one of the nation's largest independent cranberry growers. With reports touting the health benefits of drinking cranberry juice, he and other farmers began adding new bogs, but it was much more than the market needed. Wholesale prices nose-dived nearly 70 percent.

DECAS: It suppressed the price so badly that growers, unfortunately, this year, are probably not gonna get paid enough to cover their costs.

PINKSTON: Many farmers blame juice giant Ocean Spray, charging it mismanaged production.

STEWART GALLAGHER (Ocean Spray Cranberries, Inc.): Obviously our business is down over the last few years, and that hasn't helped the situation from a supply standpoint, but it is by--by no stretch the--the primary reason for the glut that we have right now.

PINKSTON: Ocean Spray blames the weather and warns farmers the oversupply will not ease soon.

GALLAGHER: Patience is a very difficult thing to ask for of these growers right now but, unfortunately, that's what we need to ask for a little bit right now.

PINKSTON: Farmers say they can't wait. So to the disgust of environmentalists, some, like John Decas, are selling land around their bogs to timber companies and real estate developers.

DECAS: I prefer not to do it, obviously, but survival is--is necessary and you have to do what you have to do.

PINKSTON: But selling land could be only the beginning. As the glut continues, small cranberry farmers may be squeezed out. A sour end to another fruitful harvest.