Early harvest may harm local growers

Sub-par conditions make for what one CEO calls ‘discouraging’ year

Yuma County produce growers say last fall’s warm weather is forcing an early end to this year’s vegetable harvest, and any price increases related to a gap in supply as production switches to Salinas, Calif., will be too late to compensate for the lousy prices they’ve gotten this season.

Vic Smith, president and CEO of Yuma-based JV Smith Farms said harvest is on track to finish one to two weeks ahead of schedule this month, and “I think we’re going to go straight to the end, with whatever pricing. We’ve had a little bump in pricing, but all in all it’s been a pretty discouraging year from a market perspective, and I think it’ll get to the point where we just run out, and if there’s opportunities it’ll probably come after that.”

Smith said he’s in Salinas this week, and there’s little certainty about how the seedlings just getting into the ground there will profit under the current soaked conditions. “It’s really hard to say here what the total impact will be, just total speculation,” he said. “The thing I have a high degree of certainty with is it’s not a very good year for us in Yuma.”

Early-season warmth made the crops grow faster than usual, which ended up flooding the market and driving prices down, while consumer interest in leafy greens wasn’t high to begin with, growers say. The abundant late-season rains led to big mildew concerns, wiping some plants and making it more expensive to harvest what was salvageable, said Jerry Muldoon, agricultural manager for Dole Fresh Vegetable in Yuma.

“It’s been a really bad mildew year, it’s been so wet with rain that mildew

has been crazy,” he said. “We’ve lost yield, and it takes more work. You have to peel more lettuce leaves off, romaine, same deal, you have to peel leaves off, so harvest costs are higher, your yields go down. It’s a three- or four-pronged deal.”

Supplies of some crops might be tight later this spring, he said. “I’ve heard that different crops might be tight, romaine could be tight. Lettuce probably won’t be that bad, but I’ve heard a lot of people talk about people calling around trying to buy romaine.”

He said a few growers use Huron in California’s Central Valley as a transitional zone between Yuma and Salinas in the fall and spring, because it would have better weather. A lot more companies used to do that, he said, “but the water situation in California, up until this year, there just wasn’t enough water and it was pretty expensive, so a lot of people started trying to the jump straight to Salinas and back.”

Steve Alameda, president of the Yuma Fresh Vegetable Association, said he’s already beginning to see a “gap” when it comes to broccoli and cauliflower, with prices starting to creep up as a result, but that isn’t likely to give him any relief. “I don’t have any. That’s the problem. It could be good for you, if you have it. I just have a little bit of cauliflower left, and all my broccoli is done, like a lot of other people, the broccoli they’re finishing, they should have been cutting two weeks from now,” he said.

Pasquinelli Produce General Manager Paul Muthart said it’s often hard to blame a “bad” season on any one factor, “but I think for the most point the growers and shippers are pretty disappointed with the prices we’ve had during this season, and I think we’ll consider ourselves fortunate if we break even this year, that would be a fortunate event for us. And that’s not why we’re in business, to break even, but some years are like that.”

Smith said there aren’t many summer options in Yuma to try to supplement for a tough winter-spring season. “Alfalfa prices are as low as we’ve seen them in a long time. Wheat’s an option, we could break even or make a little money on wheat right now, but alfalfa’s a losing option,” he said. “There isn’t really much we can do except have faith and try again next year.”

And to keep a sense of humor about a grower’s lot in life, he added, joking, “Do you know the difference between a farmer and a baby? A baby will grow up and quit crying at some point.”