A warming trend coming on California's central coast is expected to help production on celery, an item impacted recently by weather. "About three weeks ago, we had extremely high winds coupled with heavy rain. I drove by 100 acres of celery that were just knocked over by the wind because the ground was so saturated with water," says Russ Widerburg of Valley Produce.
The timing was unfortunate because it was likely that that celery was ready to be harvested going into the Christmas holiday. Even if those fields were harvested after being knocked down, the yields would have been low.
That's a tough development on celery which Widerburg says is already seeing reduced acreage this year. "Last January until August, the celery market was $7 to $10. It was extremely bad," he says. "When it's that bad for that long, it forces growers to cut back on plantings. They just don't have the money to reinvest in that crop. That seems to be the cycle–a really good year is followed by a really bad year and then another year of being okay. Celery is coming off a really really bad year."
Changes in production
That has left markets very strong in the mid-$40s to mid $50s following good demand. "However there's a little bit of product starting to come out of Mexico via McAllen and Baja. Production on most of this should pick up a little bit, at least in the next couple of weeks," he adds. It's anticipated that that should bring markets down somewhat.
© Valley Produce
Also seeing a strong market recently is the green onion market which hit a historic high of $60. That's much higher than the roughly $40 markets seen the year before.
Widerburg notes that generally during the holidays, the green onion market is strong. "A lot of it has to do with labor shortages on production out of Mexico. It's stymied by the lack of labor taking the holidays off. Growers try to get ahead of it but it seems like they never can," he says, noting cold weather in Mexico also impacted already tight production.
That means if the market is spiking already leading into Thanksgiving, it pretty much holds all the way through the New Year.
Contracts and demand
Part of the issue is also the fact that many of the larger retailers order green onions on contract. "So they get to the holidays and have increased demand anyways because of the holiday demand, it helps create a shortage on open market onions so the market can move up to $60.00 and people still pay it," Widerburg says.
That said, full labor forces resumed this week and it's anticipated that the pipeline will refill and subsequently, markets should ease back down.
For more information:
Russ Widerburg
Valley Produce
[email protected]
