09/25/06 After the Storm

After the storm. I'm Greg Martin with today's Fruit Grower Report. This past summer, hail damaged a large part of the Washington fruit crop. Apples and pears took a big. While there is disaster assistance available, Bruce Grim of the Marketing Association says it may not be enough. GRIM: What essentially has to take place for you to qualify for those low interest loans, and there are no grant programs out there where they are providing money as we received under the mlot programs a number of years ago and there were some market issues that caused some damage. We received direct monetary payment from the government those years, there's nothing comparable to that out there taking place now, and in order to be qualified for those low interest loans you have got to be turned down by a conventional lender and I think there's probably not a pear operation in the Upper Wenatchee River Valley that a banker would turn down for a loan. So it's not an option. There's really nothing out there that's helping those folks out. According to Grim, farmers don't have much to salvage. GRIM: There is not going to be that much salvageable fruit out there, whether its pears or apples, damage has been tremendous. I don't think there will really be much in the way of pears either 3rd grade or fancy, I don't think there will be much that was hail damaged that will be picked and the same with apples. There are just very little, limited options. So I don't think very much will be picked. Tomorrow, more on the hail damage. That's today's Fruit Grower Report. I'm Greg Martin on the Northwest Ag Information Network.