Bumper Crop Of Sweet Cherries Sours Growers

August 8, 2009

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August 8, 2009

Several sweet cherry-growing states are breaking records this year, producing not only bountiful but also big cherries. It's been a boon for consumers, who have been buying super-cheap cherries for weeks. But growers have taken a financial hit because of the low prices, as cherry grower Dana Branson tells Guy Raz.

GUY RAZ, host:

Have you noticed an unusual amount of cherries at your supermarket this summer? Well, if you have, there's a reason and the climate has a lot to do with it. The weather this season has actually been so good for growing sweet cherries in Oregon and Washington State that there are too many. And it's actually been bad news for many of the nation's cherry farmers, like Dana Branson.

She has eight acres of cherry trees in her farm in Hood River, Oregon. And Dana Branson joins us.

Welcome.

Ms. DANA Branson (Cherry Grower): Thank you.

RAZ: Why are there so many cherries, sweet cherries this summer? What's going on?

Ms. BRANSON: Pretty much all the trees bloomed in all the growing areas so we had a very even bloom. And then normally, that bloom would last over 40 days. So when everything blooms at once, it's all going to get ripe at once.

RAZ: And that happened to all of the farmers, not just in Oregon but presumably in Washington, as well.

Ms. BRANSON: Exactly. There are several different growing areas for cherries out her on the northwest. Two separate areas in Oregon, three up in Washington and Montana, Idaho, and Utah and the weather was just perfect in every place, it happened.

RAZ: So all of a sudden, all of these farmers had these delicious beautiful sweet ripe cherries except the market can only absorb a certain amount.

Ms. BRANSON: Right. The season just got compressed. We got started picking late. Normally, you start around the first of June in some areas. But we didn't get started until June 15th this year. And then after that, they just came on like gangbusters.

RAZ: I read in the Oregonian about how some farmers are actually letting the fruit rot on the trees because it would cost them more to pick them and to get them to market rather than just leaving them there?

Ms. BRANSON: That's true. Because you have additional cost to pick them. You got to pay your pickers. And then, they've got to go over the sorting line so you have to pay the packing house to sort out the food that you just paid to have picked.

RAZ: Hmm. Dana Branson, I got to tell you, the supermarkets are jam-packed with cherries, almost less than half of the price they were last summer.

Ms. BRANSON: It's good news in that they want to get people to try them and then like them and make them a part of their summer diet every year, you know, maybe the people that haven't felt like they could afford them in the past.

RAZ: But at the same time, I can imagine it's pretty hard for farmers like you who are otherwise having to deal with a bad economy anyway.

Ms. BRANSON: It is really difficult. I know there's going to be a lot of growers that are very disappointed because everyone was looking forward to such a good year. The last two years, we've had frost and so our crop was really short. You have to make money every few years or you can't keep playing this game.

(Soundbite of laughter)

RAZ: What kind of cherries do you grow?

Ms. BRANSON: I grow Rainiers and Lapins.

RAZ: The Rainiers here on the East Coast, we sort of know them as white cherries.

Ms. BRANSON: That's funny. I have a friend who calls them blond cherries.

RAZ: Blonde cherries, ah. How do you recommend, what do you recommend doing with cherries?

Ms. BRANSON: This year, I took some and I pitted them. I left the stem on, but I have this great little pitter, and I would pit them and then I melted dark chocolate, so my sweet chocolate.

RAZ: Mm-hmm.

Ms. BRANSON: And I dipped the cherries in the chocolate and I put them on a cookie sheet and put them in the freezer. And then, you've got the stem to eat with but no pit and the great chocolate. Chocolate and cherries is a great combination. Then once they get frozen, you can take them off the cookie sheet and put them in a bag and stick them back in the freezer.

RAZ: Dana Branson is a cherry grower in Hood River, Oregon and she runs the Oregon Sweet Cherry Growers Commission.

Ms. Branson, thanks so much for joining us.

Ms. BRANSON: Thank you.

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