10/03/06 Cherry Assessment Change

Cherry assessment rate change. I'm Greg Martin with today's Fruit Grower Report. Good news for cherry growers. A small part of your operation expense is going down. The assessment rate established for the Washington Cherry Marketing Committee for the 2006-2007 is going down. Recently due to staff changes the assessment was turned over to Northwest Cherries. Northwest Cherry's BJ Thurlby explains why. THURLBY: The gal that was running is, Lucille McFarland retired and so this year we took over her job doing the marketing order because we have a network in place and an office and a staff the growers are employing, we took it over and cut the cost of it in half. So to the growers it's still pretty miniscule, I mean I think our budget went from 85,000 down to 40, 000. It's the same thing, nothing changed other than we're doing the work now and the reason we took it is we're the cherry guys and we're the natural, I think, group to do it. While the assessment change is a small one, its purpose is far reaching. THURLBY: The marketing order is responsible for administrating and keeping into place the grades and standards that are, that's its medium. It's the body that upholds the grades and standards of our industries pack outs. We have a compliance person that would go out and look at sheds; look at boxes, make sure there's not somebody out there selling Washington sweet cherries on the side of the road that haven't been inspected and gone through that process. But the big thing it does, it says okay we're going to have; here are the standards of the industry. Here are the boxes, here are the sizes. These are the requirements, if you don't stay within these standards you're outside of them and you can't ship it. That's today's Fruit Grower Report. I'm Greg Martin on the Northwest Ag Information Network.