1999 Harvest Update
 
      Massachusetts cranberry growers have more to worry about than losing their long-standing position as the "number one cranberry-producing state" to Wisconsin in 1995.  The bottom of the cranberry market has dropped out, with prices per barrel plummeting from approximately $80 per barrel in 1996 to less than $40 when berries will be harvested this fall (Cape Codder 1999; The Boston Globe 1999).

         Nationwide, the cranberry industry is facing financial hard times due to back-to-back surplus harvests in 1997 and 1998.   Higher yields and more acres under cultivation have produced record national harvests of 700 million barrels of cranberries per year, but consumption of cranberry products has been only 500 million barrels (Boston Globe 1999).  The problem stems from the 1980's when demand and prices were steadily rising, so growers began planting more acreage -- not only in traditional cranberry-growing areas such as Massachusetts and Wisconsin, but in Canada as well.  According to John Decas, one of the largest independent growers in southeastern Massachusetts,  "we overdid it....everyone in the world was planting bogs" (The Cape Codder 1999).

        Approximately half of the cranberry growers in North America are in Massachusetts; the industry provides the Commonwealth with close to 5,500 jobs and a payroll of more than $200 million per year (Cape Cod Cranberry Growers' Association).  As a result of the cranberry glut and depressed prices, Massachusetts growers -- small and large alike -- will be be hit hard.  Ocean Spray Cranberries, Inc., the large cranberry growers' cooperative headquartered in Lakeville, MA, has cut its work force from 2,600 in 1997 to 1,900 employees after  third round of layoffs in the spring of 1999 (The Boston Globe).   Smaller, independent growers face the threat of bankruptcy as they hope to survive the latest crisis in their industry (The Cape Codder 1999).
 Return to Modern Cranberry Cultivation