Michigan cherry growers are sounding the alarm about imports they say could put many cherry operations in the state out of business.
Marc Santucci is a Traverse City cherry grower. He said the problem has been a long time coming - and stems from the cherry industry’s decision to keep a percentage of cherries from going to market so they can inflate prices.
“So as we attempt to keep the price up by holding cherries off the market all that does is encourage more imports.”
Santucci raised concerns about imports hurting local cherry growers back in 2016.
Now, he says those fears have come true.
Santucci said imports, particularly from Turkey, have started to have a harmful impact on local growers.
“Turkey over the last 20 years has really dramatically increased it’s cherry production while our production has been pretty stable or even declined over the years.”
Santucci said imports have claimed roughly 40 percent of domestic markets - and he doesn’t expect that number to go down.
He said he feels a little vindicated by what’s happened.
“I guess I feel vindicated to some extent because a lot of people felt I was doing things that were not good for the industry but all I was trying to do was show people what the long-term consequences of our actions were going to be.”
Santucci said the best solution is to allow growers to sell all of their cherries - it’ll lower the price of cherries but he thinks, in the long run, that will be better for the industry.
The Cherry Industry Administration Board and the Cherry Marketing Institute did not respond to our request for comment.