CHERRY CAPITAL OF NOTHING Is northern Michigan at risk of losing its global cherry crown?
By Craig Manning Traverse City has long been known as the “Cherry Capital of the World.” The first National Cherry Festival was hosted here in 1925—known at the time as “the Blessing of the Blossoms”—and the rest was history. Nearly a century later, northern Michigan’s biggest tourist draw and largest annual event remains that same grand celebration of the cherry industry held each July. But have a conversation with a local cherry farmer and you’ll likely come away with a much different portrait of cherry commerce than the festival suggests. Behind the scenes, the local cherry industry is struggling to fight off a slew of threats—from climate change to invasive pests to competition from foreign growers— and those issues are making the practice of growing cherries here a challenging business proposition. All these factors lead to a single pressing question: As farmers sell land or convert crops to make ends meet, are northern Michigan’s days as the Cherry Capital of the World numbered? The Best Place in the World (to Grow Cherries) Local history indicates that the first cherry trees in the region were planted on Old Mission Peninsula in the 1850s. The trees flourished, and cherry orchards quickly became a common sight in northern Michigan. Over time, cherry farming became the area’s calling card, especially tart cherries. The commonly-cited statistic among locals is that the five-county Grand Traverse region (Grand Traverse, Leelanau, Antrim, Benzie, and Kalkaska) produces 100-120 million pounds of tart cherries
each year, some 40-50 percent of the total domestic tart cherry crop. Northern Michigan’s rise to titan-level status in the cherry industry wasn’t an accident, but rather the result of a confluence of favorable growing factors. First, the proximity of Lake Michigan moderates temperatures in a way that is good for cherry growing. In an ideal season, the lake insulates local farms from quick spring warm-ups, scorching summer days, and early fall frosts—all of which can damage cherry trees, blossoms, or fruit. Second, northern Michigan’s lightweight, sandy soils can deliver water to a cherry tree’s roots without saturating them. Cherry trees don’t do well with wet feet, which means they struggle in dense or clay-heavy soils, but are right at home in sandy dirt. Third, the rolling hills that dominate much of the region’s topography keep cooler temperatures closer to sea level and allow warmer and more temperate climates at the tops of hills. Cherry orchards thrive at these higher elevations. According to Isaiah Wunsch, a sixthgeneration farmer who serves as CEO for the Old Mission-based Wunsch Farms, those favorable factors have persisted through the past 170 years. “Tart cherries still do really well up here,” Wunsch says. “We probably have the best climate for growing tart cherries in North America, if not in the world.” A Multitude of Challenges But favorable climate and topography aren’t everything. Recently, multiple roadblocks have been conspiring to make cherry farming a challenging and largely
10 • jULY 04, 2022 • Northern Express Weekly
unprofitable exploit for local growers. Climate change is causing more erratic weather in the spring and fall, which can devastate local cherry crops. Invasive species like the spotted wing drosophila are attacking and damaging fruit while it’s still on the tree. Finally, cherry products flooding into the domestic market from foreign countries are undercutting domestic price points and making it difficult for farmers to turn a profit. At King Orchards in Central Lake, volatile spring weather—including latespring frosts and heavy rain events—has led to four cherry crop failures in the last 20 years. The most recent of those occurred in 2021 and left King Orchards with less than 10 percent of a crop. The second most recent was 2020, when the total cherry harvest was around 25 percent of what it should have been. According to Juliette King-McAvoy, who serves as VP of sales and marketing for King Orchards, there are lifelines that can help farmers in these types of situations. Crop insurance, for instance, is a must-have for local cherry growers and can mean the difference between surviving a crop failure and facing bankruptcy. “But crop insurance does not make us whole,” King-McAvoy says. “With so many years of making claims, the basis [of the insurance policy] starts to decline. So, depending on crop insurance to get us by is not sustainable.” When King Orchards has been able to deliver cherry products all the way to the marketplace, they’ve often been met by foreign competition. Countries like Turkey have cherry growing industries that are government-subsidized, which in turn
allows them to sell their products into the U.S. market at artificially low prices. This practice, referred to as “dumping,” is technically legal under World Trade Organization rules, but can be penalized if the importing country can prove that dumping practices have hurt their domestic producers. A few years ago, several local growers petitioned the Department of Commerce (DOC) and the International Trade Commission (ITC) to investigate Turkey for potentially harmful dumping practices. In an initial 2019 ruling, the DOC ruled that Turkey was undercutting fair market value on dried cherries by as much as 648.35 percent and implemented a preliminary tariff to level the playing field. But the ITC overruled the DOC, deciding that the U.S. cherry industry had not been “materially injured” by Turkish dumping, and lifted the preliminary tariff on dried cherries. There are still small tariffs on some other processed cherry products, such as tart cherry juice. For now, though, the domestic growers have mostly lost the battle against foreign competitors. “The imports have really hurt,” KingMcAvoy says, pointing to the side of the King Orchards business that makes and sells tart cherry juice concentrate. “They’ve driven a lot of cherry products to the point where they’re priced below the cost of production. In 2019, the price of cherries was, on average, 15 to 16 cents a pound. Those are similar to prices we saw in the 1980s.” Looking for Silver Linings Not everything is cloudy for local cherry farmers. For one thing, after a disastrous
