Section 32 Pear Purchase
From the Ag Information Network, I’m Bob Larson with today’s Fruit Grower Report. Here in the Northwest, we produce nearly 88% of all U.S. fresh pears, but on the canned side, the August closure of the Del Monte canary left many growers holding the bag.
But Pear Bureau Northwest president and CEO, CarrieAnn Arias says not for long, thanks to the Department of Agriculture …
ARIAS … “We did have an out-of-cycle, so not in its normal timing, Section 32 buy, which is a buy that the USDA comes in and does for services like schools and foodbanks.”
The USDA’s timing, Arias says couldn’t have been better …
ARIAS … “We had an extra special one happen, which was about 500 loads of Bartletts, which is unprecedented. It happened very, very quickly. The administration worked really closely with us and Northwest Hort Council to help us make that happen, which certainly is going to alleviate some of the pressure that those pears that would have typically gone to the canary would have on overall prices.”
And with this large crop, Arias says it saved a lot of losses …
ARIAS … “Econ 101 says that your prices are going to go down because your volume is up, but if you think we hadn’t had the administration work so quickly to help us alleviate some of that pressure, it would be a much more challenging situation than it is already with a crop that’s almost double from last year’s crop.”
Arias says we’re looking at a crop of around 19 million boxes, compared to last year’s 10 million.
