Industrial action at ports across the West Coast of the US is threatening to derail the Washington apple season.
Export programmes into key markets across Asia, the Middle East and the Caribbean have been hampered by the slowdown, with the industry baring the brunt of the cost.
“Individual firms have lost millions of dollars a week in orders,” Jon DeVaney, president of the Washington State Tree Fruit Association, told the Daily Astorian. “We’re estimating tens of millions of dollars each week throughout the industry.”
Negotiations between port workers and terminal operators have been progressing slowly since strikes began ramping up in early November.
The timing couldn’t be worse for the Washington industry, which was relying on export markets to absorb addition volumes this season. Estimates have the Washington crop at 155m cartons, up 20 per cent on the record crop of 2012.
According to Daily Astorian, exporters had moved about 10m cartons as of 23 November, with an additional 2m cartons likely to have been shipped had it not been for the port problems.
With around 75 per cent of the crop still to be sold, the industry is hoping to see a resolution to the industrial action as soon as possible.
“The only alternative is to put this fruit onto an already depressed domestic market which doesn’t help at all,” said Keith Mathews, CEO and general manager of First Fruits Marketing in Yakima. “I don’t have any hope it will come back soon. It probably will be this way all year. Unless growers have a pretty diverse portfolio of varieties, it will be difficult to make an income.”
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