The Blueberry News – July 2019

The Blueberry News | 5

OFFICERS

Brittany Lee, President

[email protected]

Ryan Atwood, Vice President

[email protected]

Michael Hill, Secretary

[email protected]

Bobby Barben, Treasurer

[email protected]

Lindsay Morgan

Administrative Assistant

[email protected]

BOARD OF DIRECTORS

Dudley Calfee, Past President

Wa y n e B a s s

Dan Ebbecke

Gary England

Jerod Goss

Phil Harmon

Gary Smith

Kyle Straughn

Jeff Williamson

P.O. Box 940545

Maitland, FL 32794-

president’s letter

A

notable win was

being included in the

recently signed disaster

relief funds which retroactively

applies to our Blueberry growers

affected by Hurricane Irma.

You will finally be able to apply

for the much needed relief

after suffering losses from the

devastating storm.

This was a record breaking season. Record

amounts of Mexican fruit crossed our U.S.

border during the Florida season and prices hit

record lows during our production peak in April.

While many in the Ag community

consider USMCA an improvement, there

are no improvements for seasonal fruits and

vegetables and like its NAFTA predecessor,

we, the Florida Blueberry grower, remain

vulnerable and unprotected.

Blueberries in the southeast have experienced

normal growth and stability over the last decade but

recent and massive plantings in Mexico threaten the

livelihood of domestic blueberry producers.

The unprecedented amounts of Mexican

fruit in the U.S. during March, April, and May

are absolutely crippling the southeast domestic

blueberry industry. We have suffered under the

current NAFTA and will continue to suffer under

the new USMCA.

Since 2010, more than 25 times the amount

of fruit is now in a three month period directly

competing with our Florida crop.

While our growing costs domestically have

increased because of regulations and other factors,

Mexican growers benefit from hundreds of millions

of dollars of government subsidies each year.

Our harvest cost to pick our crop have

increased up to double in some areas due to the

unreasonably high cost of H2A labor, while other

countries benefit from extremely low labor costs,

paying their harvesters for one day less than what

we pay for an hour.

Your Florida Blueberry Growers Association

Board is working alongside other commodity

groups, such as the FFVA and Florida Farm

Bureau, to continue to advocate for our industry

for trade remedies. The Florida Delegation

in Congress has long been advocating for

reasonable provisions to protect specialty crops.

We remain hopeful that a solution for the

Blueberry industry and other specialty crops is

on the horizon. Our message is that our growers

only want an even playing field, an opportunity

to continue their family operations, to be in

production agriculture and provide a safe and

healthy food source for our consumers.

We are not against Free Trade, but we are

for FAIR TRADE!

Brittany H. Lee

Brittany H. Lee, President

Florida Blueberry Growers’ Association

[email protected]

Reflecting

on the

Highs

and Lows

of the

2019

Florida Blueberry Season