The Militant (logo) 
   Vol.65/No.27            July 16, 2001 
 
 
California raisin farmers confront low prices
(front page)
 
BY ROLLANDE GIRARD AND NED MEASEL  
FRESNO, Califonia--Raisin growers in central California have announced the organization they recently formed to defend their interests against the big packing companies will also serve as a bargaining association.

Many growers face ruin due to rock-bottom prices the packers are offering for the raisin crop.

At a meeting of 150 growers June 5 in Kerman, California, Marvin Horne, a member of the board of directors of the California Raisin Reform Association (CRRA), announced "we are now a bargaining association."

The association will set the price its members receive from the packers.

The CRRA was formed last fall by growers who wanted to reform the Raisin Administrative Committee (RAC) because they felt it represented the interests of the packers over those of the growers. It had proposed reforms to the RAC's board of directors, including that it be limited to growers. Growers have organized meetings, mobilized at RAC hearings, and set up picket lines at the state capital as part of their fight against the squeeze the big companies are putting on them.

The RAC regulates the marketing and inventory of raisins according to a Federal Raisin Marketing Order. CRRA members decided to form a bargaining association after they realized that if they followed the procedures to make changes to the RAC it would take two to four years to win any reforms.

There are around 5,000 raisin farmers in California. Until now, some 2,000 raisin farmers have been represented by the Raisin Bargaining Association, which bargains with 16 companies, including Sun Maid, California Packing Co., and others.

Horne explained to growers at the June 5 meeting that the association will be negotiating a price of 85 cents per pound for organic raisins and of 55 cents per pound for regular raisins. The association will demand this price for 100 percent of the crop. The meeting was covered by several local TV channels.

Last year's crop was the largest in California's history at 427,396 tons, and the RAC figured that only 53 percent of the crop could be sold on the market. The rest of the crop, although delivered to packers, was put into a "reserve" that the packers control. This means that although Raisin Bargaining Association members eventually received $877.50 a ton, they were paid for only 53 percent of their crop. It costs about $700 to produce a ton of raisins. One of the reforms sought earlier by the CRRA was the establishment of a central storage facility owned by the growers, to be able to hold their crop rather than turning it over to the packers.

Horne said to the participants at the meeting that the growers should let the packers "deal with the reserve. We will be bargaining for 100 percent payment," he continued. "And we will not deliver the 2001–02 crop" until the price is settled on. "If you give your raisins up you can't bargain," he added.

At a June 20 meeting in Selma, Horne announced that farmers growing 80 percent of the organic crop had signed on with the CRRA and expressed confidence that they would get what they are asking for. Mike Jerkovich, president of the CRRA, said at the June 20 meeting that farmers growing 50,000 tons of raisins had signed on and the goal was to represent 80,000 to 100,000 tons.

The organization will also work on acquiring a line of credit to provide loans to farmers. Some of the leaders of the organization went to Washington at the end of June armed with petitions signed by raisin farmers asking members of Congress and senators to write an appropriation bill that would help the raisin farmers.

Three meetings were held in June to explain the new bargaining association and recruit members. Farmers at the meetings signed bargaining authorization forms and took more to give to others.  
 
 
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