Country Life
4-H • A8 Dairy • A9 Gardening • A9
A7 • Wednesday, December 9, 2015
Raspberry crop insurance being looked at But it won’t be available until 2017 harvest at earliest
Slated for Ferndale Crossing, store will also have a Greek yogurt bar By Brent Lindquist news@ferndalerecord.com
By Calvin Bratt editor@lyndentribune.com
LYNDEN — The prospect of crop insurance for raspberries is being explored, although certainly nothing will be in place before the 2017 harvest year at best. “It takes a while to go through all the hoops,” said Henry Bierlink, executive director of the Washington Red Raspberry Commission, during last week’s Small Fruit Conference on the Northwest Washington Fairgrounds. The look at caneberry crop insurance — nothing exists now — started before this year’s bum harvest, which turned out to be the lowest for yield in many years, due mostly to summer drought. But the current situation highlights the need. The raspberry commission, along with the Oregon Raspberry and Blackberry Commission, has asked Dave Paul — now in private insurance with Watts & Associates of Billings, Montana, after spending years with the USDA Risk Management Agency — to develop a proposal for revenue protection for caneberry growers. It would be set up very much like insurance already covering the sweet cherry industry in eastern Washington — “for low yield, low price, low quality, or any combina-
Edaleen opening Ferndale location
FERNDALE — Not so long ago, Edaleen Dairy had just one flagship store, located out in the country on Guide Meridian Road near the Aldergrove border crossing north of Lynden. Now, Edaleen has another Lynden store, a Sumas location and, opening in fall 2014, a spot in Blaine. But the company isn’t stopping there. Edaleen plans to open a new store in Ferndale, as was announced at the city-wide community meeting on Nov. 19. “We’ve been looking at it for quite a while,” Edaleen general manager Mitch Moorlag said. “We were looking at it kind of concurrently with looking into putting a store in Blaine, and obviously that one took off a little faster.” Edaleen signed a lease agreement in November for
Littau Harvester, with a sales and service operation on Pole Road, was one exhibitor at last week’s Washington Small Fruit Conference and Lynden Ag Show. (Calvin Bratt/Lynden Tribune) tion of those,” Paul said by phone on Monday. “It’s the concept the growers wanted,” he said. It’s different from the strictly yield-based approach available for blueberries, which are not a cane type of plant. Both berry crops are huge drivers of the agricultural economy in Whatcom County, with harvests usually
topping 60 million pounds per year. Paul said he has been working on the complex process for caneberry insurance since spring 2015 and has already gained approval of a concept proposal from the Federal Crop Insurance Corporation of USDA. Now he needs to develop a full package plan and clear it through both the caneberry commis-
sions and back to FCIC for final approval. Having gathered a lot of broad data on the commercial raspberry and blackberry industries, Paul said he now mostly seeks specific information from individual growers to build his picture of what will work in a revenue protection program. He termed his progress “very promising,” although
slow. Even with the outside chance of being available for the 2017 crop year, all would have to be ready for a grower sign-up period ending on Nov. 20, 2016. Paul is also the national director of Multi-Peril Crop Insurance. Jo Lynne Seufer, a USDA Risk Management Agency specialist at the Lynden fruit conference, emphasized that the government relies upon private companies to devel-
the Ferndale location at Ferndale Crossing near Anytime Fitness. Moorlag said the new store is definitely a response to the success seen at the company’s other locations. Similar to Edaleen’s Grover Street location in Lynden, there will be a soup and sandwich bar to accommodate the lunch crowd, as well as ice cream. The company is trying something new in Ferndale. “We’ll also have a Greek yogurt bar with yogurt made down in Seattle by one of our wholesale customers,” Moorlag said. “We’ll have a bunch of different sizes, for immediate consumption or takehome.” Moorlag said the Ferndale Crossing location was a very deliberate choice on the company’s part. “Right by the freeway for the on-and-off traffic was definitely nice,” he said. “But also, we’re trying to be not right on Main Street. We’re more looking to be by the high school and residential areas.” It’s all tentative right now, but Moorlag said the Ferndale Edaleen Dairy location is slated to open around March 1. op insurance programs for specialty crops such as berries. In short, the government provides a floor of protection against losses that fall below a five-year average. There are different levels at which growers can buy into the insurance, she said. Seufer led a session on “Managing Your Price and Yield Risks with USDA Subsidized Insurance Programs.”
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