Pear Marketing Funding Pt 3

Pear Marketing Funding Pt 3

Bob Larson
Bob Larson
With today's Fruit Grower Report, I'm Bob Larson. Pear Bureau Northwest has been awarded more than $1.5-million dollars in the second round of the Agricultural Trade Program funding, part of the USDA's larger trade mitigation relief package.

Bureau president Kevin Moffitt says this will be a big help, but only in the foreign markets ...

MOFFITT ... "It's a little bit unfortunate to me that they don't allow us to use it in the domestic market because often times there are a lot of commodities from the U.S. that are being affected by this trade, the high tariffs and sometimes that fruit, if it can't go to the export market, they'll sell it in the U.S."

As a result, Moffitt says, we're seeing more competition ...

MOFFITT ... "Last fall, we saw a lot of competition from grapes, for example, because they're being hit by high tariffs in several of their markets and they sold more of their fruit domestically and that affected the shelf space for pears, the ad space for pears, that sort of thing. But, we'll make the best use of it in our export markets to help pull some of this fruit off the domestic market and get it sold overseas."

And so, where does it hurt pears the most? ...

MOFFITT ... "We get hit pretty hard in the Asian markets mostly, mostly China, from these tariffs that have been, retaliatory tariffs, so that's where we're seeing most of the decrease due to the tariff issues. However, last year, we saw a huge increase in shipments to Mexico and a good increase in shipments to Canada. So, those two remain our most important markets."

Tune in tomorrow for more on the ATP funding and how other markets factor into a successful year for pears.

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