Strong Strawberry Season May Create Oversupply, Low Prices

For weeks now, as the strawberry season in Ventura County has raced along in high gear, hundreds of workers have fanned out across the emerald farmland to bring in what has become the county’s leading cash crop.

Now, with the end of the fresh fruit harvest in sight and the emphasis shifting to cannery production, the county’s top crop is once again poised to bring near-record yields.

Ventura County growers have already harvested more than 16 million trays of strawberries, on a record 7,777 acres, since the start of the year. That amount is slightly lower than for the same period last year, although local production still makes up the bulk of the 26.8 million trays produced statewide.

“We are looking at another big season,” said Dominique Hansen, spokeswoman for the California Strawberry Commission. “There’s no question that consumer demand is there, and the increases in acreage and production in the Oxnard area really speak to that.”

Agricultural officials say it’s too early to tell whether revenue from this year’s harvest will exceed the $221-million crop of 1999, when strawberries for the first time overtook lemons as the county’s leading moneymaker.

At least two months remain in the current harvest, and many growers plant a second crop in the summer that is picked in the fall.

However, some growers worry that the increased acreage and higher yields are eating away at their bottom lines, noting that an oversupply in recent weeks of the sweet, red berries has depressed the market.

“It’s basic economics,” said Christopher Deardorff, a fourth-generation grower who runs a 195-acre strawberry farm near Camarillo.

“With all the expanded acreage over the last few years, we’ve just got too much supply, and we’re not getting the price we expect to be getting for our product,” he said. “We’re going through a phase right now where something has got to give for us to stay in business and make a living at this.”

A survey by the Irvine-based Western Growers Assn. bears that out.

In early February, when the season kicked off in Ventura County and local growers had the market mostly to themselves, strawberries were selling for $3 to $4 a pound in Los Angeles. Growers received anywhere from $1.30 to $2 for each pound sold.

Today, as the Ventura County harvest is at its peak and production in other counties shifts into high gear, a pound of strawberries sells for $2.44. The grower’s cut is 76 cents.

“When it comes to pricing, across the board on everything from artichokes to zucchini, it’s all related to supply and demand,” said Heather Flower, spokeswoman for Western Growers. The trade association represents 3,500 growers, shippers and packers of fresh produce in California and Arizona.

“We’ve heard comments made about how those farmers are really raking it in,” she said. “Come to find out they’re really not.”

At his 88-acre spread on the Oxnard Plain, Cecil Martinez has tried everything he can to beat the market. He’s even developed a tool that allows him to quickly switch from picking fresh fruit to picking cannery fruit, depending on the market.

The tool, attached to the carts used by workers, cleanly slices the tops off berries bound for processing plants. The clean cut brings a higher price for processed berries, Martinez said. And it allows him to move from one form of production to another, depending on which is bringing the best price.

Even so, Martinez said, it’s been a rough year for strawberry growers.

“We’re all praying we break even,” he said. “Then we beat our heads against the wall and start up again for next year.”

Still, despite the headaches and economic worries, strawberries are more popular than ever. Hansen of the Strawberry Commission says surveys show that 94% of Americans eat the fruit on a regular basis.

In fact, thousands of strawberry lovers are expected to turn out for the 18th Annual California Strawberry Festival on Saturday and Sunday from 10 a.m. to 6:30 p.m., at College Park, 3250 S. Rose Ave., Oxnard.