Op-Ed

Response to John Decas letter of 3/9/01 

by Gary Jensen

Gary Jensen is a voting member of the Cranberry Marketing Committee. An independent Wisconsin grower, he is one of two members who voted against the volume regulation that was passed in Wisconsin Rapids. Jensen proposed the marketable quantity of 4.0 million barrels with no fresh fruit exemption, which Dick Ducklow seconded. That motion was defeated 5 to 2. That was the proposal that the subcommittee recommended to the full committee.

3/11/01 -- John Decas has criticized the buy-back subcommittee for, among other things, not submitting a written request to the USDA to combine producer allotment with handler withholding, which would have created the 'buy-back provision" that everyone is looking for. The reason that the subcommittee chose not to do that is because at the onset of the meeting in Providence, the USDA announced that they had conferred with their legal department, the Office of General Counsel (OGC), and they had determined that this proposal would require formal rule changes. Therefore, it would not be able to be implemented for the 2001 crop year. They stressed that it would be unfair to the growers to give them a false hope of something that could not be accomplished for this year and that it would just be a waste of time to pursue this approach for this year.

The subcommittee then realized that if anything were to be accomplished this year under producer allotment, that they needed to look at some other approach for handlers who would need fruit to be able to acquire that fruit from the handlers that would have fruit. The subcommittee finally concluded that individual handler needs were probably something that is beyond the control of the CMC under producer allotment for this year. They subsequently encouraged inter-handler negotiations for the sole purpose of establishing a supply of fruit for the handlers that would be cut short due to a volume regulation.

At no point did the subcommittee feel that the handlers would or should discuss desirable marketable quantities from the handlers' perspective, certainly not in closed meetings where the growers and USDA are not allowed to be present. If marketable quantities were going to be discussed, those discussions should only have taken place in an open meeting format where growers are allowed to attend and in the presence of USDA.

John Decas himself has publicly stated on occasion that he and the rest of the independents should meet with Ocean Spray, in the presence of USDA, to try to effectuate a fair and meaningful Marketing Agreement for the purpose of eliminating the surplus. The USDA has stated on various occasions that a Marketing Agreement was also unattainable for this crop year.

The real crime that was committed here, in my opinion, is the fact that an overwhelming majority of growers have voted, through surveys that were conducted by various grower's associations throughout the country and by a show of hands at the Wisconsin Rapids meeting, that they wanted a marketing order that removes the entire surplus this year. The problem is, their votes do not count in this atmosphere. With the exception of Northland, the handlers have taken it upon themselves to decide how and when this surplus situation will be resolved. In doing so, they have ignored their own grower's wishes and concerns. The question that now remains is, what if anything, will the growers do about it?

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