Watching Fruit Prices

Watching Fruit Prices. I’m Greg Martin with today’s Fruit Grower Report.

Last year was a great year for northwest fruit but not so good for other fruit producing areas of the U.S. and so we are seeing some higher prices at the consumer level for some fruit according to USDA Economist Kristi Plattner.

PLATTNER: Two of the main crops that are getting high, high prices right now are apples and pears and it’s due to the freeze damage last spring, I believe, or fall that caused reduced production which is increasing prices for both apples and pears this season.

Other fruits like seedless grapes and strawberries have been benefitting from those higher prices as well but Plattner says for strawberries:

PLATTNER: We’re expecting a strong season this year for strawberries so that should help lower prices from the beginning of the year where they’ve been very strong so that should help consumers towards the late spring and summer. Prices should come down on strawberries.

Lower prices are a good sign for consumers but other fruit crops also suffered and so things like oranges and orange juice will be affected.

PLATTNER: They’re losing a lot of orange production this winter and the fruit sizes are a lot smaller because of the drought in Florida so they are getting less juice yields so it’s pushing up the prices because they’re going to need more oranges to produce the same amount of juice.

Florida has been experiencing a drought like a lot of other areas of the U.S. and that has been causing the loss of the orange crop.

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