Ports Impact On Fruit
Ports Impact On Fruit. I'm Greg Martin with today's Fruit Grower Report.
The tally of the port issues impact on agriculture is still being looked at. It will take time to get all the ports back to normal and moving again. President at Washington State Fruit Commission, BJ Thurlby says that last years cherries really weren't affected.
THURLBY: It would have definitely had an impact on the cherry growers and the reason is that most of the cherries that are exported go on airplanes. But, the airplane space is limited and other products that were not finding space on your traditional water shipments on the ocean, some were being moved over to airplanes and so it's making the space less available but it's also increasing the price for the space that's there so yeah, it would have had an impact.
They of course are happy to see the resolution to the issue.
THURLBY: Hopefully these ports start to get cleared by the time we start shipping in early June. Definitely an impact but not as certainly as I think that we've seen in the apple business here this winter. It's had a severe impact on our exports. Still been strong but space has been so limited that we've been down to some places 60-70% of what capacity would have been so that's not good.
With pressure from the White House port officials reached the tentative agreement but it didn't resolve the long union-management differences that are hurting the container business at the Port of Portland's Terminal 6.
That's today's Fruit Grower Report. I'm Greg Martin on the Ag Information Network of the West.
