Venting won’t solve the long list of challenges facing the cherry industry, but it was a start.
Some 60 growers, mostly from Leelanau and Antrim counties, Monday took up an invitation issued by a Suttons Bay resident and fifth-generation orchardist to come together, chat, and start a process aimed at putting the cherry industry back in the black.
“Some were afraid that it was going to be a complaint session,” said Leisa Eckerle Hankins, owner of the cherrybased Benjamin Twiggs retail store in downtown Traverse City. “That was never my intent with the meeting. In talking over the last year with people in the industry, we needed to move away from the negativity and toward solutions. We needed to move toward a starting ground for the future, and that’s what we did.”
The gathering, hosted by Townline Ciderworks co-owner Brian Altonen in Elk Rapids, turned out to be timely as the ink was drying on the resignation of the highest administrator in two state cherry organizations. Julie Gordon, president and managing director of the Cherry Marketing Institute (CMI), resigned following a special meeting held Feb. 28. She was also executive director of the Michigan Cherry Committee (MCC).
Emily Miezio spent Tuesday at a hastily called CMI meeting in DeWitt, where the cherry organizations share office space in the same building. The Suttons Bay resident, who is receiving station manager for Cherry Bay Orchards, is treasurer of MCC and a CMI board member.
“The CMI board wishes Julie the best on her future endeavors. Julie was with us for 22 years. She has seen us through many ups and downs. She’s guided us and was an extremely dedicated employee,” Miezio said.
On Monday Miezio served as a representative for both organizations at the grower meeting.
“I thought it was very healthy. We have to work together. We are a small commodity. If we work in silos, we aren’t going to accomplish anything,” Miezio said.
The cherry industry, which has been stung by a succession of low-profit years due to low prices paid to growers and processors, may be at an inflection point. Some growers have removed producing tart cherry trees rather than harvest fruit at a loss.
Those stories needed to be heard and acknowledged, Hankins said. But she’s hoping an open discussion will allow cherry growers, most of whom were born into farming legacies, to chart their own course for the future — one with a rosier bottom line.
“We committed to meeting sometime in the future, and we’ll continue to meet. We’ll invite other cherry farmers that didn’t have an opportunity to attend. We just feel that the more growers come together and have a common voice, the more impact they can make,” Hankins said.
A number of challenges were discussed that generally fell into three main categories:
• Low prices. Growers have been paid less for their cherries than the cost to grow them. A MSU study found that, including land purchase, cherries cost about 40 cents per pound to grow. While amounts paid for cherries vary by processor, prices of half that amount or less have been common.
• Lack of leadership. Growers do not feel that their voices are being heard by processors and even boards established to help the industry. And some pointed blame at themselves, acknowledging that grower complacency has not helped, Hankins said. The resignation of Gordon did not garner attention, she added.
• The federal marketing order, which was established to allow the industry to withhold some of bumper harvests from markets in an effort to balance supply with demand and elevate prices. The Cherry Industry Administrative Board controls a formula that can force growers to destroy a portion of their own crop.
But don’t think all in attendance opposed the order.
“There is still a large percentage of the industry supportive of it, and there are a lot of growers not in support of it. People have to come together. Michigan is not the only state that’s part of that marketing order,” Hankins said.
Full agreement wasn’t necessary, she added. It was more important that growers took advantage of an open forum. Many were in search of accountability and transparency within their industry, Hankins said.
Her life story is representative of family farming in Leelanau, which grows more cherries than any other county in the nation. At harvest she pitches in with her husband, Andrew, a full-time employee of the Eckerle farm and receiving station, and their two grown children. In 2019, she purchased the Benjamin Twiggs retail store in part to vertically integrate fruit grown by her family into the cherry market.
“When I looked around the room I saw a lot of young people who want to farm, to do what they love, and to do what their fathers and grandfathers did,” Hankins said.
Life coach Shea Petaja moderated the discussion.
The gathering harkened to the now-defunct Cherry Growers co-op, which provided orchardists with a voice in pricing. Cherry Growers, which was established in 1939 and filed for bankruptcy in 2017, had 53 grower- owners. It was based in Grawn and operated a receiving station in Elmwood Township.
Juliette King McAvoy, who is secretary of MCC, had a valid reason for missing the grower meeting — she checked herself into Munson with pregnancy contractions. Still, she was back at work Tuesday and answered the phone as vice president of sales and marketing at King Orchards in Antrim County “I’ve heard from several people at the meeting. I think it’s a good place to start, and it’s long overdue to get growers together to discuss things.
“I think as growers, we need to take back some power,” McAvoy said.
