Cherryfield Foods to end its cranberry farming
Flickr / Liz West
Maine’s largest grower of cranberries is leaving the cranberry business, following a season with prices so low that some growers didn’t even bother harvesting their crop.
David Bell, spokesman for Cherryfield Foods Inc., told the Bangor Daily News that no workers will be laid off as a result of the decision. Bell said the business could sell its roughly 100 acres devoted to cranberries, which represents about half of the total acres in Maine. But he doesn’t expect anyone to want that acreage because of the low prices for cranberries, he told the paper.
The price for wet harvested berries, which involves flooding the cranberry bog and collecting ripe berries that float to the surface, was at times less than half the price needed for farmers to break even this season.
However, because Canadian-owned Cherryfield Foods doesn’t purchase or sell cranberries in the United States, the departure shouldn’t affect local markets or growers, a cranberry specialist for the University of Maine Extension told the Bangor Daily News.
Read more
Low price for cranberries keeps some Maine farmers from harvesting crop
Most Recent
Most Recent
Comments