Farming Is A Risky Business

On Thursday August 16, 2012, the PBS Newshour reported that it was a A Sour Season for Michigan's Cherry Farmers.

Northwestern Michigan is considered by many an ideal place for growing fruit. Located on the 45th parallel, halfway between the equator and the North Pole, the surrounding Great Lakes and rolling hills help create a temperate climate.

But as Pat McGuire walks through his orchards now, they are a haunting green. This year, nature harvested the trees.

Cherry trees remain dormant throughout winter until a spring warming wakes them up. That happened much earlier this year. Temperatures in March shattered records across the country, reaching the mid-80’s in Michigan that month - that’s nearly 14 degrees Fahrenheit above the state average. That pushed the trees to a development stage about 5.5 weeks ahead of normal, Jim Nugent said.

And when temperatures dropped again, the trees’ early buds were vulnerable. From late March through May, there were 15 to 20 nights in which temperatures fell below freezing. Farmers tried using wind fans to keep warm air circulating around the fruit trees, but it was little help.

The cold snaps killed not only cherries, but also juice grapes, peaches, and apples. Losses across the state are estimated at $210 million.

As the Earth warms, extreme weather events become more frequent. The March heat wave was one such event. Most of us "weathered" the unseasonal warmth and moved on, but it was devastating for fruit farmers in Northwestern Michigan.

The McGuires are trying to stay positive and focusing on selling cherry products from past seasons to get through this one. “We try to constantly think creatively about how we can do things differently to reduce costs. That’s been our strategy since we got started, but this year it’s become more important,” Sara said.

Pat admits that they haven’t ruled out putting the ‘Out of Business’ sign on the door. They knew when they started that farming was a risky business, but the odds of crop loss feel stacked against them now, he said.  

“What if we don’t have fruit next year?“ Pat said. “How do you plan for that?”

Good question, Pat. How do you plan for that? And the obvious answer is: you don't.

Farming is a risky business. And now it's riskier than ever before.

 

Comments

[Wanooski]

Don't worry Dave, We'll just start living in giant climate controlled glass domes. We'll just pave paradise and put up a dome.

[Ben]

Homo sapiens sapiens has really fucked up. I mean the climate change fuck up, along with the peak oil fuck up, is orders of magnitude greater than any fuck up in recorded history. We not only fucked over our species with the destructive power we have over the biosphere--the biosphere is the global sum of all ecosystems--but most, if not all, sentient species on this planet as well. Sigh, I guess the destruction of the biosphere was inevitable, the logical result of a species of heterotroph using extrasomatic energy to recklessly modify more and more of its environment. Destroyed by our modus vivendi - ha!

RATM's Sleep Now In The Fire perfectly expresses how I feel about the future: http://youtu.be/3ITF4HoRZRY

[Ben]

Modus operandi*

[Randy]

It has been a difficult season this year. As a grazing dairy/cheese maker located in the Blue Ridge Mountains, we managed better than most, we only grow an acre of dent corn and a garden and the cows do the rest themselves. This year has been wet enough here to keep the grass/clover/weeds growing, but it has been difficult to get in hay and now it is the 20th of August and it looked more like late October this morning. Lows around 59F and very wet out. If we were trying to grow cereal grains, they would have rotted in the field this summer. Farming has always been risky, and the deck was always stacked against us, but with a changing climate it is going to be a lot worse than it was before. We have put a lot of effort this past three years into transitioning away from purchased feed and fossil fuels having replaced the two tractors with draft horses but I know that the coming years are going to be a bumpy ride. I hope you like corn bread because it may be the only grain crop that will consistently grow this side of the Mississippi in the coming years. Wheat and oats can't take this wet late summer weather.

[James]

Ah but corn is taking a huge hit nationally and ethanol mandates mean almost half will end up in fuel. So fuel prices rise and so do food prices.

Sucks to be poor!

[nate]

Cherry farmers need to diversify to stabilize income