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U.S. apple growers brace for China rivals
United States
Friday 29 June 2007
Farmers have been growing apples here since before the Civil War, and as times have changed, they have changed with them, planting smaller trees to speed up harvests and growing popular new varieties to satisfy changing tastes.
But the growers who have made this mountainous region the core of apple-growing in Pennsylvania worry that they face a new challenge that may be too big to overcome and could change their way of life.
Like farmers in the bigger apple-producing states, they are becoming increasingly anxious about the prospect of China flooding the U.S. market with their fresh apples - an event many believe is inevitable, even if it could be years away.
They saw what happened in the 1990s when Chinese apple juice concentrate made it into the United States. Prices got so low; some U.S. juice companies were forced out of the U.S. market. Growers could no longer afford to grow apples just for making juice.
Fifteen years ago, China grew fewer apples than the United States. Today, it grows five times as many - nearly half of all apples grown in the world.
China's advantage is its cheap labor. A picker makes about 28 cents an hour, or US$2 per day, according to the U.S. Apple Association. In 2005, workers in Pennsylvania made about US$9 to US$10 per hour, and those in Washington State about US$14 per hour, the association said.
Discussions between the U.S. and China over whether its fresh apples can be brought into the United States have been going on since 1998.
But the growers who have made this mountainous region the core of apple-growing in Pennsylvania worry that they face a new challenge that may be too big to overcome and could change their way of life.
Like farmers in the bigger apple-producing states, they are becoming increasingly anxious about the prospect of China flooding the U.S. market with their fresh apples - an event many believe is inevitable, even if it could be years away.
They saw what happened in the 1990s when Chinese apple juice concentrate made it into the United States. Prices got so low; some U.S. juice companies were forced out of the U.S. market. Growers could no longer afford to grow apples just for making juice.
Fifteen years ago, China grew fewer apples than the United States. Today, it grows five times as many - nearly half of all apples grown in the world.
China's advantage is its cheap labor. A picker makes about 28 cents an hour, or US$2 per day, according to the U.S. Apple Association. In 2005, workers in Pennsylvania made about US$9 to US$10 per hour, and those in Washington State about US$14 per hour, the association said.
Discussions between the U.S. and China over whether its fresh apples can be brought into the United States have been going on since 1998.
