Devastating cherry season, the impact on Fresno County farmers

FRESNO COUNTY, Calif. (KSEE/KGPE) – You may have a hard time coming across cherries this season as farmers across California are seeing a historically awful cherry season. Just this week, San Joaquin County announced a disaster declaration for the crop. 

From too much rain to too much sun, valley farmers aren’t too sure what to blame. But what they do know is that their cherry trees aren’t producing enough cherries.

“The crop right now is looking like it could be the shortest crop we’ve seen in about two decades,” said Ryan Jacobsen, CEO of the Fresno County Farm Bureau. 

Jacobsen says it’s a catastrophic loss, statewide. The hope now is for the federal government to call for a declaration to bring assistance to farmers.

As to why this happened, he says there’s no clear answer.

“There’s a couple guesses. I mean, first and foremost, it could have been related to last year that bud fruit was developing, that’s for this year’s crop. So it could have been to a higher temperatures. We could have had not enough hours under 45 degrees Fahrenheit, or just a ton of other environmental factors,” Jacobsen explained. 

At Fresno State, the trees are practically bare. In a normal season, they could produce about 25 pounds of cherries from one tree. This year, however, they’re only getting about a pound.

“So these are pretty, but it would not be economically feasible to go in and pick 6 cherries off each tree,” said Robert Willmott, Fresno State’s Orchard & Field Crop Manager.

He shared that this season, the university will not be picking or selling cherries at the campus market.

“It’s not going to work out for us this year. It’s very unfortunate,” Willmott added.

Down the 99 in Kingsburg, farmer and owner of Swedest Fruits, Daniel Jackson, was able to harvest a few pounds of cherries, but it wasn’t ideal.

“We sell our pound of cherries for $5. So it’s a really great price for the people around here. I try not to change that too much, even though there’s fewer cherries. I think where the price is very expensive, is going to be in your retail stores,” Jackson added.

“I would definitely say shop local because this is your community, and you’re basically helping your community grow because the money staying here where we are,” said Kingsburg resident Jennifer Huerta-Soil.

If we think we have it bad here in the Central Valley, the President of the California Fresh Fruits Association, Daniel Hartwig, says the South Valley has it even worse.