Blueberry growers exploring co-op idea

Some of Maine’s growers of wild blueberries are starting to explore the formation of a grower-owned processing cooperative.

The effort so far amounts to gauging interest among the state’s estimated 500 growers, most of whom are still immersed in the settlement of their class action lawsuit against the state’s four largest processors.

Growers have been asked to return a postcard this month to the University of Maine Cooperative Extension if they are interested in learning more about how such a processing co-op could take shape.

Talk of a co-op is surfacing on the eve of the Maine Superior Court winding up a civil lawsuit that has lasted more than four years. Three processors were found guilty of fixing prices they paid to hundreds of growers for their berries during the 1996-99 seasons.

A fourth processor settled out of court before the trial last November. The settlements for that processor, Merrill’s Blueberry Farms of Ellsworth, plus those for Jasper Wyman & Son of Milbridge and Cherryfield Foods Inc. of Cherryfield, face a final approval before Justice Joseph Jabar in Knox County Superior Court on Friday, June 25.

Growers currently are submitting their claims for their portion of the settlements. Growers who sold to Merrill’s during those years will share in $85,000; others will share in payments from Wyman’s ($1.5 million) and Cherryfield Foods ($2.5 million).

The fourth processor in the lawsuit, Allen’s Blueberry Freezer, has not yet reached a settlement with growers.

The idea to develop a grower-owned processing co-op surfaced during the growers’ mediation sessions with processors in January and February, when growers had time to talk among themselves.

William Jones of Hope is working hard to drum up interest from other growers for a co-op. Jones was one of nine growers who took part in Department of Agriculture-guided mediation last winter.

“There’s obviously a settlement, but growers are still not protected,” Jones said Tuesday. “The reforms in return for which we are being asked to give up money are really trivial.

“It would behoove us to think of how we are going to protect ourselves in the future.”

Jones and some like-minded growers met in April with small-business representatives of the University of Maine Cooperative Extension and the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Rural Development program.

Eighty percent of Maine’s growers, they reasoned, have fewer than 50 acres. The biggest growers are actually the processors, who own more than half of Maine’s 65,000 acres of blueberry land. Seventy percent of the land is in Washington County.

The exploratory group talked about how as few as 50 growers could make the cooperative venture a plausible one. The 50 growers, to start, would agree to financing the building and operation of a freezing facility, then supporting it with sales of their berries.

David Yarborough, UM’s extension specialist for blueberries, is handling the collecting of the cards. On behalf of the growers who initiated the idea, Yarborough included a notice in his office’s monthly newsletter last month.

He pointed out that banks likely would lend money to a new co-op if 35 percent to 50 percent of the capital to establish and operate the venture were raised upfront.

“A blueberry processing co-op is technically feasible,” Yarborough’s notice reads. “It would limit itself to buying, processing, freezing and marketing. It would leave field operations to growers, producers’ co-ops and independent agents.

“Its financial feasibility would depend on a lot of things, one of which is the commitment of a fair number of growers. There is no sense of starting one unless it could be financially strong enough to weather difficult financial times.”

Yarborough works with both growers and processors through his university role. While he isn’t embracing the concept of a co-op that goes up against established processors, he is supporting an opportunity that may give growers an option for their crops.

“Growth and more competition is good,” Yarborough said. “This would be grower-driven; it’s not in my corner. It would be up to them, and I’m just the facilitator right now.”