Fruit Growers News

Are Cities Condemning Land, Creating Urban Sprawl?

The Supreme Court decided rightly in the eminent domain case Kelo vs. City of New London. The court ruled that the city could use its power of eminent domain to carry out a planned redevelopment of part of the city, even though private developers carried it out and profited by it. The American Farm Bureau has been particularly agitated as a result and is leading the charge to have state legislatures make the use of condemnation power illegal. Ohio has done that. Several other states, including Michigan, already have limits in place. But is this activity really about a threat to farms and farmers? If so, what, precisely, is that threat? Farm Bureau argues that cities might use the power to seize farmland and convert it to non-farm uses. I did an Internet search and could find no case where that has ever happened. There are many cases where…  » Read more

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California Governor Promotes Grapes to China

On a recent trade mission to China, California Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger used his star power to promote California grapes as well as other state produce. “He’s very popular in the Far East and he used his star power to talk about why it’s important to eat California farm products,” said Kathleen Nave, president of the California Table Grape Commission. “All the media attention he got was just unbelievable and his consumer appeal was amazing to see.” Schwarzenegger drew hoards of Chinese wholesalers and retailers to local grocery stores, where he sampled grapes and other California produce, Nave said. “We also had permission from him to use his image in some of our promotional materials, which was also a big boost,” Nave said. In 2004, California exported $456 million worth of farm products to China, making it the state’s fifth largest overseas market. With a population of 1.3 billion…  » Read more

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Willamette Valley Couple Thinks It’ll Work

The experts told David Lett he couldn’t grow Pinot Noir winegrapes in Oregon’s cold, soggy Willamette Valley. But Lett, considered by many the father of Oregon’s modern wine industry, proved them wrong. Now, four decades later, Larry and Dawn Monagon of Keizer hope to have the same success Lett had, only this time with a totally different crop: olives. Unlike Lett and other Oregon winegrape pioneers who planted mostly French-origin Burgundian grapes, the Monagons are letting the dice roll with close to 40 olive varieties – many of them numbered experimental cultivars yet to prove themselves commercially – from eight countries. “We’re trying to see which ones are more tolerant of our kind of climate here,” Larry said. If anything, the Monagons, who have named Oregon’s first commercial olive orchard Victory Estates after the agricultural triumph they hope to achieve, are persistent. Not only have they traveled all the way…  » Read more

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Tart Cherry Industry Organized to Create Better Times

The tart cherry industry is emerging from some bad years, but its leaders are optimistic that better times lie ahead. The question now is, will growers see that vision and help bring it about? On the agenda for early 2006 are industry meetings organized by Cherry Marketing Institute (CMI) in which the group will urge growers to approve doubling the check-off from one-half to 1 cent per pound and undertake an aggressive marketing campaign that relies heavily on paid advertising. During the Great Lakes Fruit, Vegetable and Farm Market EXPO in Grand Rapids, Mich., tart cherry marketers and promoters said that the industry is poised to recover from recent events, including the disastrous, record-low production year of 2002. Tools are in place, they said, to restore the industry and make it grow. James Jensen, president of CherrCo, Ludington, Mich., reviewed the “four stages” of the industry…  » Read more

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