12/14/07 Tree Fruit Outlook Part 2

Tree Fruit Outlook Part 2. I'm Greg Martin with today's Fruit Grower Report. Yesterday we heard from Desmond O'Roarke, retired WSU Economist talking about the upswing in the Washington tree fruit industry. But how does the industry keep that momentum going? O'ROARKE: There are a lot of export opportunities that have not been tapped when world supplies were down so it's going to take a much more aggressive approach to world marketing in the next 2 or 3 years as we do get the return of more normal situations. And according to O'Roarke there are a number of overlooked marketing opportunities. O'ROARKE: The resurgence of the Middle East because of rising oil prices make that one market where there are a lot of opportunities. And there are a lot of other countries in Asia now that were not quite as important, countries like the Philippines and Malaysia that have had strong economic growth. China of course still has a lot of potential and then there are a lot of countries in inner-Asia like Kazakhstan that have oil and that will be the Saudi Arabia's of the next 30 years and again these are much more difficult markets to access but that's what you got to do if you're going to try and expand your exporting. He also adds that really the products are much better today than in the recent past. O'ROARKE: The selection and varieties that are available now from the Washington Apple industry and the improvements in storage technology and treatments like Smartfresh, Retain and so on and all of those have meant that you have a much better product available all year round. That's today's Fruit Grower Report. I'm Greg Martin on the Northwest Ag Information Network.