The year's British Columbia blueberry season has been marked by big volumes of fruit. But lots of fruit, both domestically and from the United States, has made for another year of low prices. Hot weather on the horizon also threatens to soften fruit firmness on what has been a year with excellent quality of fruit.“This has been a season of high volumes,” said Humraj Kallu, operations manager for Canwest Farms in Richmond, British Columbia. Estimates from earlier in the season predicted this year's crop would surpass last year's production of 120 million pounds, and the way this season has progressed has lent credence to those early predictions. Kallu noted that 2014 production for the region could top last year's production by as much as 30 million pounds, though not all of those gains would necessarily be due to increased yields.
“There are a lot of amateur fields coming in,” explained Kallu. “There's a lot of stuff that's just coming into production.” This marks another in a string of years with strong production coming out of British Columbia, and combined with increasing production in berry-growing states in the U.S., prices have suffered.
“The last couple of years have been pretty bad for pricing because of a glut of production from the United States at the same time we're in full production, in July,” said Kallu. “Prices are about half what they used to be a few years ago, so a lot of guys are breaking even or doing just a little better than that.” He noted that prices are about $0.90 per pound for fresh berries right now, which is a far cry from the $1.60 or $2.00 per pound he saw in 2007.
A bright spot this season has been the quality that fruit growers have churned out, though an expected spell of hot weather could soften up berry firmness, which has been very good up to this point in the season.
“The things that have stood out this season are an early start due to a mild spring as well as good-sized fruit,” said Kallu. “We started around the end of June and it's projected we'll go strong for another three or four weeks.”
For more information:
Humraj Kallu
Canwest Farms
+1 778 898 3179