Sunday, July 31, 2016

Cherry-picking the Cherry Pickers. Should this grower be angry?

A bit of a internet storm over a photo a Michigan cherry grower posted to Facebook.



 A Michigan tart cherry farmer is leaving 14% of his crop this year to rot on the ground to comply with an industry marketing agreement intended to keep cherry prices stable. And he's not happy about it.
A frustrated Marc Santucci, who grows about 30 acres of cherries on his 80-acre Traverse City farm, put a photo of the dumped cherries, thick on the ground, on Facebook Tuesday — and the photo had been shared nearly 38,000 times as of Thursday afternoon. (From USA TODAY)


He is lamenting the fact that he is required to destroy a portion of his cherry crop in order to meet supply requirements of the Cherry Industry Administrative Board.  His method of disposal was to dump it on the ground (a common way).

The Cherry Board is charged with stabilizing the price growers receive for their cherry harvest.  The main tool to accomplish this is controlling the supply of cherries that make it to market.

Here is a series of slides I created to explain in Supply and Demand terms what I believe is going on.

   







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