Fruit Year in Review Part 3

Fruit Year in Review Part 3. I’m Greg Martin with today’s Fruit Grower Report.

One of the biggest news stories for 2011 to affect the fruit industry was the ongoing Mexican tariff. The issue was finally resolved with Mexican trucks again rolling across the border. Washington Congressman Doc Hastings said this should never have happened.

HASTINGS: This issue was being worked on for 15 years until the National Teamsters Union exercised their political muscle to essentially end it and as a result now our processors have been hurt by this.

The other big news story was Mother Nature and another long cool spring that affected just about all ag crops and that was after a nasty cold snap in November 2010. Tim Smith with WSU Chelan Extension talked about the damage.

SMITH: So we were pretty certain that we would have at least some winter damage to the fruit trees in the state of Washington. And uncharacteristically the damage is likely to have occurred over a wide area rather than some small limited area. And then the reports that we’ve had come in have pretty much come to that.

Labor was also a hot topic that got a lot of talk in 2011. Scott Dilley, Public Policy Analyst with Washington Farm Bureau said the state needed to jump into the fracas.

DILLEY: The state government has to step in and provide some sort of bailout and that could also lead to some kind of privatization of insurance. So the state has the opportunity to step up and actually fix a broken public system.

More tomorrow.

That’s today’s Fruit Grower Report. I’m Greg Martin on the Ag Information Network.