Tart Cherry Referendum

Tart Cherry Referendum. I’m Greg Martin with today’s Fruit Grower Report.

Tart cherry growers in the northwest are being asked to vote on a proposed referendum to a federal marketing order. Michael Durando, Director of the Marketing Order and Agreement Division for the USDA Ag Marketing Service explains.

DURANDO: The proposed amendment that is going before the growers is one that is viewed by the Cherry Administrative Board as a way of improving the effectiveness of the volume control provisions in the marketing order. In short, the amendment, if it were adopted would modify the grower diversion provisions so that they would have the same effective capability or effectiveness if you will as a handler diversion.

Durando explains further.

DURANDO: In those years when there is a restriction in place on the crop in order to balance supply and demand, whether a diversion of cherries occurred in the orchard or whether they occurred at the handling plant or the processing facility, it would carry the same weight.

He says this does not affect how cherry producers grow or harvest their crops.

DURANDO: Currently the way the order is structured - grower diverted cherries in the orchard don’t count as having been diverted. They count still as being harvested and that throws off numbers in a way that makes for a less effective diversion program. The cherry order is a little bit different than most of our other orders in that both growers and the handlers have a say in these referenda.

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