Apples to India
From the Ag Information Network, I’m Bob Larson with today’s Fruit Grower Report. The Washington Apple Commission is out there helping to negotiate deals with other countries, trying to readjust and rebuild the export share for our apples.
WAC president, Michael Schadler says one market they’re feeling pretty good about right now, following some down years thanks to some hefty tariffs, is India …
SCHADLER … “Yeah, it’s actually going well. We got a little bit of help this season from Turkey because Turkey’s crop was cut in half due to bad weather in the spring. And Turkey was one of the origin countries that had actually taken a lot of market-share away from us when we had that tariff put on us in 20018-19.”
Since then, Schadler says we’re back on India’s good side and they’ve reduced those tariffs …
SCHADLER … “If the Trump administration can get a deal with India, we might actually find ourselves with a very advantageous tariff situation even compared to our competitors. And, you know, that’s a market that has 1.5 billion people, so if we can get just 1% of that 1.5 billion that could be a real growth market for us in the years to come.”
But Schadler says there’s still plenty of work left to get back where we were …
SCHADLER … “You never quite know until it happens and there’s going to be some heated rhetoric on both sides. Both sides are jockeying for negotiating leverage in that process, but ultimately, I think we’re still pretty constructive that a deal is going to get done.”
Again, that’s Michael Schadler, president of the Washington Apple Commission.
