7-19-2018
LYNDEN, Wash. — Lynden’s celebration of all things raspberry is this weekend, but the Northwest Raspberry Festival will be bittersweet for many as Whatcom County’s berry growers struggle with a collapsing U.S. market.
On his Farming Show, Dillon Honcoop spoke with Jon Maberry of Maberry Packing and President of the Washington Red Raspberry Commission.
Maberry says illegal trade practices from countries with subpar working and environmental conditions are devastating local farms, and the U.S. is failing to collect the information farmers need to address the situation in court.
“Mexico is sending barrels and tankers and whatnot over from a truck across the Mexican border and calling it fresh. It’s another spot we’re not catching the data we need,” he says.
Maberry says filing a lawsuit over illegal trade costs $2 million per country, something the local farms and commissions can’t afford to do, and that has bleak implications for our local market.
“We’re gonna lose a big chunk of the industry. In the next two, three years it would not surprise me if fifty percent of the acreage went out,” he says.
Local farmers tell the Farming Show that as buyers backout in favor of cheap product from other countries, many are looking at possibly losing farms that have been in the family for generations.