Crops in Crisis: Concord Grapes

International trade hits close to home on the coast of Lake Erie. For generations, Concord grapes have been the lifeblood of farmers in New York, Pennsylvania, and Ohio providing 30,000 jobs and $1.2 billion/year in economic activity.

Now, things are changing, with devastating effects. Over 40 farms, owned by families that had grown grapes for 4-5 generations, are now up for sale. Three recently went bankrupt.

“Things are going to hell very fast around here,” said grape farmer Hal Lilley, of North East Pennsylvania. “It’s very dismal. I don’t know what our country is doing.”

Cheap grapes from Argentina and Chile are slashing the prices that juice companies will pay to local farmers. From 2002-2005, the price that farmers could get for their grapes dropped from $317 per ton to $118 per ton. With prices that low, they cant even make the $180/ton that it costs to produce the grapes. Lilley‚ farm loses $50,000 per year.

In March 2005, the U.S. Department of Agriculture granted Trade Adjustment Assistance to Concord grape farmers, admitting they’d been seriously hurt by imports. The payments, a mere $3 per ton, will do little to keep farmers afloat.

Lilley wonders what will happen to the schools in his town, where Concord grape growers make up 59% of the tax base: “I have three daughters. They’re bright, honor roll students, highly respected by all their teachers. Don’t tell me they’re expendable. Don’t tell me they’re collateral damage of the World Trade Organization.”