|
       Letters to GrowersJanuary 16, 2007 Mother Nature is once again reminding us all that agriculture is a precarious business. The freezing temperatures of the past few nights have caused significant crop damage in all growing areas, on all varieties. And the cold temperatures are still with us. Sunkist is working daily with packinghouses industry-wide to assess the damage. We are also working daily with the California Department of Food and Agriculture and with the County Ag Commissioners on inspection procedures to assure that damaged fruit does not reach the market, making a difficult situation worse. Damaged fruit can ruin the market for the good fruit that remains – and that bad taste can stay with consumers, influencing their purchase decisions next season as well. The clock is running on timely delivery of damaged fruit to the juice plant. The value of the damaged crop derived from sending to the juice plant is over and above crop insurance recovery and is not counted against the insurance award, which is based solely on fresh market value of the fruit. We want to remind growers planning to send fruit directly to juice that you must first contact your insurance company in order to ensure that you do not compromise your insurance claim. If the insurance adjustor can’t inspect the damaged grove promptly, the insurance company may direct the grower regarding marking of sample trees that must remain unpicked until after internal damage and drop becomes evident. They will make their appraisals from these sample trees. Additionally, the Risk Management Agency of USDA, the organization that manages the federal crop insurance program, will shortly be issuing a bulletin that will also authorize the insurance carriers to accept the determination of your packinghouse in assessing whether your grove is so damaged by frost or freeze that it is a loss for the fresh fruit market. That determination should be documented and the carrier can accept that as validation of grove condition for the insurance claim which RMA will accept. Sunkist is already working with our Congressional Representatives, the House & Senate Appropriations Committees and the USDA to prepare the foundation for requesting federal disaster assistance to further help mitigate grower losses. We will be asking you and your packinghouse for definitive information on losses to support our case for disaster assistance. The strategy proposed by CDFA is that the County Agricultural Commissioners will be the depository of this collective information, in turn reporting the data to CDFA and ultimately to USDA. We are in constant communication with customers, shippers, the industry and the government. Cost reduction programs are being implemented. The Board of Directors will meet next week to review the current situation, assess losses and put new plans into effect which address these new conditions. Chairman Nick Bozick will report board actions to you following next week’s meeting. During our 114-year history, our Sunkist cooperative has faced many difficult times and we are well positioned to weather this one. During the aftermath of earlier freezes, we saw a level of cooperation between growers and shippers, employers and workers that was without parallel. We expect that same spirit of cooperation, combined with good planning and hard work, will see us through the coming months. As our late Chairman Emeritus Jim Mast said after the 1998 freeze, “The truest test of an organization is how it deals with and performs in adversity.” We met the challenge then and we will meet it now.
Sincerely,
 |
 |
   |
||||
|
