08/25/06 Pear Contract

Pear Contract. I'm Greg Martin with today's Fruit Grower Report. Being a farmer is more than a love of working the land, it's earning a living from the land. The Washington-Oregon Canning Pear Association works with processors to ensure that farmers make an honest living. Jay Grandy is the manager of the Association. GRANDY: We have three processors up here who pay cash to the growers when they buy the pears from them immediately and those are the people we bargain with. The other two processors operate like co-ops with their pears so their growers deliver them there and then when it's all finished they get what's left. The Canning Pear Association recently reached a contract agreement with the processors. GRANDY: The contract we negotiated was a new 2-year deal for this year's crop and next year's crop. We just finished a 2-year contract and prior to that had a 3-year contract so we've had these kinds of deals for a period of time. Grandy explains how the pricing works. GRANDY: The pricing is what's known as the variable price system and that is we settle on a number for the number one grade of Bartlett pears and then when we get all finished processing and we know exactly how many tons of pears got processed we adjust the price depending upon how many tons got processed. The base price this year is $225 per ton for number ones and it will go up or down $10 a ton depending upon how big the volumes are that are processed. That's today's Fruit Grower Report. I'm Greg Martin on the Northwest Ag Information Network.