12/13/07 Tree Fruit Outlook

Tree Fruit Outlook. I'm Greg Martin with today's Fruit Grower Report. The tree fruit industry in the northwest and in Washington State specifically is big business, much like the computer and other major industries. Retired WSU Economist, Desmond O'Roarke recently spoke at the WSU Economic Outlook Conference and said that the industry looks good. O'ROARKE: The last two years have probably been among the best in the last 50 years. We've probably had 4 or 5 other periods in 50 years that have been as good so this has really been very, very good times for the fruit growers in the state. Coming after one of the worst decades from 1995 to 2005 was one of the worst decades of recent years so this is starting to compensate for some of the bad times they've had. O'Roarke says there are a number of reasons why the up tick. O'ROARKE: There has been quite a sharp reduction in the supply of Washington apples coming onto the market but in addition to that we've been fortunate in that a lot of competing supplies of apples have been down around the world and also you've had various catastrophes in bananas, citrus and so on that has reduced the supply of competing fruit. Just generally the environment, the demand has been very strong. What about making sure the industry stays on the upside? O'ROARKE: The industry need to be much more selective on quality when they have a very large crop. There's no question if they put all the apples that they could possibly grow or all the cherries they could grow, if they put all those on the market it's going to lead to the return of the bad times. That's today's Fruit Grower Report. I'm Greg Martin on the Northwest Ag Information Network.