|
*
* *
The bog is empty now, just a dark brown thicket surrounded
by a ditch and a dirt road. The harvest is in, the
cranberries carted off, and with fingers crossed, Mary
McCaffrey anxiously awaits the return on her investment.
Some estimate that cranberries will command $25 per barrel
this year. Others hope for as high as $28. Whatever price
McCaffrey gets will be good enough for her she's losing
money on each barrel regardless, and she's accepted
that.
"Emotionally, I've gotten beyond the shock stage, two or
three years of your eyes just rolling into the back of your
head, thinking it can't get any worse," she said, standing
in one of the bogs at her 112-acre East Taunton farm.
Cranberry growers are at a turning point. After years of
boom, then bust, for many it is time to choose whether to
stick it out through several more years of losses, or sell
the farm and bogs for $20,000 to $30,000 an acre.
The exodus began when the bottom fell out of the cranberry
market two years ago. Prices had fallen to 50-year lows,
thanks to a glut of berries on the market. Some farms had
already gone belly-up, and it was expected that the trickle
of Southeastern Massachusetts growers selling their land to
developers would turn into a flood.
To the surprise of all, that hasn't happened. A new study of
200 Massachusetts growers shows that local cranberry farmers
are staying in the market despite losing money every year.
For some, like McCaffrey, it seems watching farms around
them sell out to developers has only strengthened their
resolve to stay in the cranberry business, profit or no.
"My fear is that if things don't return to better
profitability, the bigger developers are going to come in,
buy 500 acres, and the bogs will go back to weeds,"
McCaffrey said. "They're all disappearing, and it's sad. I'm
not going to let that happen here."
They are a resilient bunch, bent on doing whatever is needed
to keep their farms up and running, including and almost
always, the study shows selling off parcels of their land
and getting second and third jobs off the farm to make ends
meet.
Meanwhile, they think they see the light at the end of the
tunnel, and they believe it's in marketing. Sell smarter,
and harder too, and in a couple years growers think
cranberries will be a moneymaker again, according to the
study.
"If we can all just make it through the next five years, if
we can show some continual improvement, I think we'll have
weathered the storm," said McCaffrey, who has recently gone
back to work part- time as a fourth-grade teacher. "When
things are as bad as they were two years ago, anything seems
like an improvement."
Crimson red, the cranberry has been growing in Southeastern
Massachusetts since well before the Pilgrims arrived at
Plymouth. Native Americans brewed cranberries for their
medicinal properties. The berry is so named for the shape of
its blossom, which early settlers thought resembled the
heads of cranes, nicknaming it the "crane berry."
The berries are loved by some for their tart taste; others
like the blended juice cocktail; still more know it
primarily from cranberry sauce, a staple at Thanksgiving and
Christmas dinners.
Cranberries can grow only under a rare combination of
factors: an acid peat soil layered with sand, gravel, and
clay, an adequate fresh water supply, and a prolonged
growing season stretching from April to November.
This combination is found in only a few places in North
America. Small pockets of farms can be found in New Jersey,
Oregon, and Washington, but the market is dominated by
Massachusetts and Wisconsin.
There are just over 1,000 cranberry growers in America, and
nearly 500 of these are in Massachusetts. These are mostly
small farmers, however, with less than 20 acres per farm. By
contrast, Wisconsin has fewer growers with much more acreage
an average of 75 acres per farm. Massachusetts pumps out
roughly 1.7 million barrels of cranberries each year.
Wisconsin, 3 million.
Likewise, the two regions are dominated by the two biggest
players in the industry: the undisputed leader,
Lakeville-based grower-owned cooperative Ocean Spray, and
its rival, Wisconsin's Northland Cranberries.
Northland's growers were once a part of Ocean Spray, but
left the cooperative in 1993 to do business for themselves
kicking off a war for cranberry supremacy that saw the
market rise to unseen heights, then plummet to new lows.
In the mid-1990s, Cranberries were the hottest item on the
market. A 1994 study showed that cranberries were useful in
fighting urinary tract infections, along with a raft of
other health benefits, and sales of both the juice and
berries took off.
In response, established growers expanded their farms,
letting contractors cart off excess gravel and sand and
setting up new bogs in the empty holes. New growers were
setting up bogs weekly, most in the burgeoning cranberry
farms in Wisconsin and Canada. Cranberry acreage nationwide
went from 22,000 acres in 1980 to 37,000 acres in 2000.
The supply was mounting, production increasing unchecked -
but no one seemed to notice that demand was not catching
up.
Growers like the McCaffreys sold 100-pound barrels for
upwards of $80 from 1995 to 1997. At an average production
cost of $33 a barrel, cranberries were considered red gold.
Ocean Spray and Northland pressed their growers for a
seemingly limitless supply of berries in the push for more
market share, and growers were all too happy to stretch
production to its limits while the prices were good.
Then it all came crashing down.
In 1998, with cranberry stockpiles filling warehouses,
prices fell to $30 a barrel. In 1999, it dropped further to
$15. And finally in 2000, prices hit rock bottom, averaging
$10 to $12 a barrel.
Stunned and reeling from the hit, growers began taking
second jobs to stay afloat, closing bogs, and skipping
harvest seasons.
"We were making money, but we as farmers left the barn door
open, and then the fox came in. And we've got to pay the
price," said Billy McCaffrey, Mary's husband, a full-time
carpenter in addition to running the farm.
Industry heads scrambled for ways to stop the bleeding. They
managed to get the U.S. Department of Agriculture to make
purchases equaling more than $50 million in 2001, while
mandating that growers cut production that year down to 65
percent of normal levels.
This year, production was allowed to resume at normal
levels, but the summer's severe drought and the resulting
insect problems hurt Massachusetts growers even further.
Prices nationwide close to breaking even, but much of that
is the result of the worst Massachusetts crop seen in years,
according to Jeff LaFleur, executive director of the Cape
Cod Cranberry Growers Association.
"The drought really took a toll on us. I just wish it had
happened in Wisconsin," he said, laughing, but not entirely
joking.
LaFleur and the CCCGA have tried to bolster cranberry
growers by pushing them in a variety of new directions.
Primarily, they have encouraged them to diversify their
crop, perhaps growing strawberries and blueberries on their
land, or setting up for agro- tourism: letting school groups
come in, pick their own berries, and explore the
environment. One Wareham grower is raising fish in his
bogs.
But some farmers worry that all the effort may be too
little, too late. Al Robichard operates a farm in Acushnet.
He spreads the blame for today's problems around, faulting
the small farmer for being greedy, and the large players
like Ocean Spray for failing to combat the market trends
until the industry had hit rock bottom.
"The value of cranberries has gone down so bad. We're all to
blame, putting in more bogs. It's all gone to hell,"
Robichard said. "The industry itself backed down on doing
new research, diversification, marketing, product
development."
He doesn't want to leave the business, but he feels the
small farmer's time in cranberries is coming to a close. The
big Wisconsin farms are more stable, and developers are
banging down the door to get to some of the valuable land
around the bogs.
"We're an endangered species. The full-time farmer is a
dying breed. The whole scheme is changing, the whole way
it's done," he said. "And when they're talking $20,000 an
acre, you really have to stop and listen."
Everyone expected the growers to sell out, tired of losing
$10 a barrel even during the current "recovery." But no one
knew growers' plans for sure how many would stay in, how
many want to diversify, how many think this downturn is just
temporary.
To that end, the Slade's Ferry Bank Center for Business
Research at UMass Dartmouth began a study this past summer
to determine the long-term wants and needs of Massachusetts
growers.
The study consisted of hour-long interviews with more than
200 local growers, asking them 30 questions about the state
and direction of the industry, and their plans. The results
shocked both industry heads and those conducting the study,
which concluded in late October.
According to Dr. Nora Ganim Barnes, director of the Center
for Business Research, the biggest surprise was growers'
desire to stay in the market. Only 2 percent said they
planned to sell their farm within a year. Nine percent said
they would likely sell within three years. Barnes and
Lafleur were expecting numbers far higher, fearing that as
much as a quarter of all state farmers would look to get
out.
"We expected a mass exodus, and we have not seen it,"
Lafleur said. "The vast majority of folks want to stay in
this business."
But there is troubling news, as well. A quarter of the
farmers are older than 65, and the average age is 55. By
contrast, Wisconsin's farmers are young, most in their
mid-30s. Even worse, growers say their children are not
following them in to the family business.
"What we have is an older grower population that has farmed
a long time," Barnes said.
In addition, the study showed that very few farmers were
interested in the CCCGA's ideas on diversifying the crop or
investing in agro-tourism. They simply want to hunker down
and grow their berries, without trying any schemes that
might involve a new learning curve.
But there is one area where the growers, the juice
distributors, and the cranberry organization heads are in
total agreement: the need for more and better marketing.
Almost three quarters of growers surveyed said they felt
marketing was the best way to break out of the slump.
Ocean Spray is well ahead of them. After years of being
criticized by growers for not selling the product hard
enough, the cooperative is touting the medical benefits of
cranberries like never before, and is vigorously hawking a
new white cranberry with some success.
"We've come more and more to find out how the cranberry
works," said Ocean Spray spokeswoman Sharon Newcomb, adding
that they're discovering new health uses for the cranberry
that were never anticipated, such as its use as a supplement
to combat heart conditions and aid memory retention in
seniors.
"We're trying to market our way out of this," Newcomb
said.
But Ocean Spray is not without its own share of problems,
and is facing attacks from both inside and out.
Although profits have been up over the past few years,
growers have been unhappy with the percentage of returns
they receive on their berries. On Nov. 6, CEO Robert
Hawthorne turned in his resignation, and the company said
that under interim CEO Barbara S. Thomas, increasing returns
to the Ocean Spray's 800 cranberry growers will be a top
priority.
Before the dust had settled, Ocean Spray was struck yet
again, this time by a Nov. 11 lawsuit filed by archrival
Northland Cranberries. Northland accuses Ocean Spray of
fixing prices, pooling profits, and boycotting customers,
including rival independents like Northland. They were
joined in the suit by Duxbury, Mass.-based Clermont Inc.,
the second-largest cranberry processor in America until it
left the business in 1999, blaming Ocean Spray.
Ocean Spray said it competes fairly, and would defend itself
in court.
Mary and Billy McCaffrey don't sell through Ocean Spray.
They contract with local independent grower Decas , which
sells its berries on to juicers like Veryfine.
The returns are better than what they'd get at Ocean Spray,
but they don't harbor the resentment against the giant
cooperative that some other farmers do. Rather, they are
simply resigned to the fact that it may never be that good
again.
"Things are not going to be the same. It's because of the
actions of people, individuals. People say it's Ocean Spray,
but that's not necessarily it," Billy said.
Mary shakes her head. Spring Rain Farm raises sheep and
chickens, sells bales of hay, and is now growing
strawberries. They'll survive, thanks largely to the size
and diveristy of the farm. But she looks back on those boom
years with what seems like regret, or perhaps a twinge of
guilt for not appreciating the good times before they were
gone, possibly forever.
"At one point, we were actually naive enough to think
cranberries could be the only thing," she said.
* * *
BOGGED DOWN: Mary McCaffrey carries off a box full of fresh
cranberries from her bog at Spring Rain Farm in Taunton.
JOURNAL PHOTO / BOB THAYER
* * *
STAYING PUT: Mary McCaffrey, of Taunton, plays with her Jack
Russell terrier, Sugar. Despite some lean years, most
cranberry farmers in Southeastern Massachusetts don't plan
to sell their bogs, a new survey shows.
JOURNAL PHOTO / BOB THAYER
KEYWORDS: PICTURE; FARMING
|