Sep 19, 2012
Shriveled Mich. apple harvest means fewer jobs, tough year ahead

Michigan doesn't have much of an apple crop this year, and that will have an economic impact on the state.

An apple a day might keep the doctor away, but what do you do when there are no apples? It’s a question western Michigan’s apple growers are dealing with this season after strange weather earlier in the year decimated the state’s apple cultivation.

Michigan is the third-largest apple producer in the U.S. after New York and Washington, but the state’s apples will soon be in short supply. Now in the middle of harvest season, growers are picking only 10 percent to 15 percent of their normal crop.

Michigan State University estimates the wholesale value of the missing apples to be $110 million, a hit that is rippling through the regional apple economy. Less fruit means fewer picking jobs and little to no income from apples in storage that growers rely on to get them through to the next year’s harvest. NPR

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