The current glut of wild blueberries in the market has not only depressed prices significantly but is leaving some growers, including the Passamaquoddy Tribe, with no place to sell their berries. With the season set to begin in a couple of weeks, the tribe has decided not to harvest over 1,000 acres of fields centered around Columbia Falls, leaving rakers without that extra income that they depend on every year.
     The tribe's company, Passamaquoddy Wild Blueberry Company, has had a contract since 1998 for Cherryfield Foods Inc. to purchase its blueberries, but in February Cherryfield Foods informed the tribe it would no longer be buying them. Passamaquoddy Wild Blueberry is now suing Cherryfield Foods and its parent company, Oxford Frozen Foods Limited, for breach of contract.
     In a letter to tribal members, Brian Altvater, president of the board of Passamaquoddy Wild Blueberry Company (PWBC), notes that Cherryfield Foods contends that the contract had ended and they have no further obligations to PWBC. "This came as a complete surprise," he notes.
     Altvater's letter continues, "In the meantime, PWBC attempted to secure alternate buyers for our blueberries. Due to the oversupply of unsold blueberries from past harvests being held by processors, none of the other blueberry processors in our region would buy our berries." In an interview, Altvater states, "We're looking diligently for another buyer but to date with no success." PWBC has contacted at least four other blueberry processors about purchasing the 2017 crop but none were interested. If a buyer is found, the PWBC will harvest its fields this year.
     Altvater understands that blueberries that are two years old are sitting in freezers at Cherryfield Foods and can't be sold. "The freezers are full from Maine clear down to New York," he says. "The bottom line is far more berries were harvested than were sold." The glut has caused the price for blueberries to drop substantially in the last few years.
     According to court documents, Ragnar Kamp, president of Cherryfield Foods, stated that there continues to be an oversupply of wild blueberries in the market. He also acknowledged that the company notified PWBC in a September 2016 letter of its intent to terminate the contract.
     In his letter, Altvater states, "Harvesting our berries this year with no one to sell them to would result in devastating financial losses that would bankrupt PWBC. As a result PWBC is forced to forgo harvesting our berries this year. We remain resolved to achieving a solution in future years that will allow PWBC to again farm and harvest its blueberries and to provide support to the tribe with jobs and revenues."
     Altvater also points out that the judge in the case has issued "a critical initial ruling in our favor. In short, the judge agreed that the contract language that we have been fighting Cherryfield about reads as we have always maintained. Because the contract language is consistent with our understanding all these years, there can be no question that      Cherryfield has breached its contract with us. This ruling makes us hopeful PWBC will eventually recover monetary damages from Cherryfield, which resulted from its breaking our contract."
     In an initial ruling on June 20, Justice Michaela Murphy of the Maine Business and Consumer Court in Portland wrote that "the court finds that it is more likely than not that PWBC will obtain a judgment at least equal to $12,667,320."
     Passamaquoddy Wild Blueberry has over 2,000 acres of blueberries in Columbia Falls, Columbia, Centerville and Township 19, with half of the fields harvested each year.      The tribe hires about 600 rakers for each season, which lasts two to three weeks in August. Along with tribal members, local residents and many Micmacs from New Brunswick and Nova Scotia rake the fields, earning extra income to buy school clothes or pay for other household costs. According to Darren Paul, manager of the tribe's blueberry company, some rakers can harvest 60 to 80 boxes a day, earning $2.50 a box. For the season, a raker could then make $2,000 to $3,000. Altvater notes that there are dozens more who also help with the harvest, including loading and driving the trucks.
     "Economically, it will really hurt the tribe," Altvater says of not being able to harvest the crop, as the revenues each year for the tribal governments are substantial. However, he points out, "It's not just the profits for the tribe but the people it puts to work."
     "We're just hopeful the outcome is positive for the tribe and we can get back to work," he says of the court case. "If we're not able to harvest, it will be the first time since we've owned the company for 37 years that there won't be any harvest."

Strategies eyed to address glut
     David Yarborough, wild blueberry specialist with the University of Maine Cooperative Extension, says that other small blueberry growers have had their berries refused by buyers this year. Because of the lower prices, some growers are looking at scaling back on costs, cutting back on the number of bees for pollination to the minimum number and using less spray for pests. He understands that both Wyman's of Maine, based in Milbridge, and Cherryfield Foods may not be harvesting their own low-yielding fields. Altvater says some growers are talking about resting their fields, meaning they won't be investing in spraying and irrigating them.
     Since it's not a good strategy to leave fields with their fruit, the Cooperative Extension is recommending, if the fields will not be harvested, that they should be mowed and left in a vegetative state so that they could return to production later.
     The market glut is being caused by increasing production, with Yarborough noting, as an example, that Quebec increased its blueberry production from 50 million pounds in 2015 to 126 million in 2017, a 120% jump. Also the production of cultivated blueberries has been increasing, including in states such as Georgia and California, with a doubling of the acreage in the U.S.
     Concerning the current situation, Yarborough says, "There are so many berries in the freezers there's no room for any more, and they can't absorb another large crop."
     To help reduce an oversupply of a crop, the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) will approve bonus buys, as recently happened with the USDA purchasing $10 million worth of frozen Maine wild blueberries at the urging of the state's congressional delegation. The blueberries will be distributed to food banks and other charitable institutions. U.S.      Senators Susan Collins and Angus King and Representatives Chellie Pingree and Bruce Poliquin note that the wild blueberry industry has been facing increasing challenges from global oversupply of cultivated berries and steeply declining prices. The price of frozen wild blueberries has dropped below the cost of production by as much as 60% in the last five years, creating an unsustainable situation for Maine growers.
     Last year's production of Maine wild blueberries topped 101.84 million pounds, up almost 1% from 2015 production. However, the price growers received for processing berries in 2016 averaged 27 cents per pound, down 19 cents from 2015 and 33 cents lower than 2014. Value of production of 2016 wild blueberries for processing was a little over $27 million, a drop of 41% from the previous year.
     "It is a point of crisis," Yarborough says. However, in the past he's seen production go up and then the demand catch up later. In the 1970s, Maine produced about 20 million pounds of blueberries on 60,000 acres. Today, only about 44,000 acres are harvested to yield over 100 million pounds. "We're doing more with less," he notes.
     As for longterm strategies for the industry, Yarborough says the idea is "to get the most out of the most productive fields and to improve the demand and get people to eat more blueberries." He notes there is still a long ways to go, as the U.S. annual per capita consumption is nine pounds for strawberries but only three pounds for blueberries. Although he says wild blueberries are of a better quality than cultivated ones, wild blueberry growers may lose their markets to the cultivated berry growers for pie fillings and be left with niche markets. He thus expects the wild blueberry acreage may end up shrinking even more.
     "The world's changing, and we just have to keep up. We've been here over 100 years, and the industry's weathered other downturns. I expect it will still be here, but it may look different than in the past." He adds that in the process "it will hurt some people."