THE TTALK QUOTES

On Global Trade & Investment
Published Three Times a Week (with occasional bonus quotes) by
The Global Business Dialogue, Inc.
Washington, DC  20006
No. 74 of 2020
THURSDAY, OCTOBER 8, 2020

Click HERE for Tuesday’s quote, also on blueberries, from Ambassador Lighthizer, Commerce Secretary Ross, and Agriculture Secretary Perdue.


BLUEBERRIES AND TRADE, PART II

“The wild blueberry industry has been an integral part of our state's economy and culture for centuries, and today it comprises nearly 500 growers and processors who harvest this iconic native crop across 44,000 acres in Maine.”

Rep. Jared Golden (D)
Rep. Chellie Pingree (D)
Sen. Angus King (Independent)
Sen. Susan Collins (R)
September 17, 2020
CONTEXT
Blueberries. They are good – delicious rather – and they are good for you. So it is probably a good thing that they are grown almost everywhere. Blueberries are a commercially important crop in at least 14 states and in a large number of countries.  In this entry, we take a quick look at blueberries in three states – five if you count Florida and Georgia. Producers in all five support the Section 201 or safeguards case that the U.S. International Trade Commission opened on September 29 at the request of the U.S. Trade Representative. That is certainly true of Maine. The state’s full Congressional delegation wrote to Ambassador Lighthizer last month, not just in support of the investigation, but with two specific requests. Their letter is the source of today’s featured quote, and it includes this paragraph:

The wild blueberry industry has been an integral part of our state's economy and culture for centuries, and today it compromises nearly 500 growers and processors who harvest this iconic native crop across 44,000 acres in Maine. Our state is a top producer of wild blueberries globally, with a 5 year average production of 83.6 million pounds. The harvesters, processors, and other businesses in the blueberry sector contributed an estimated $250 million in direct and indirect economic activity to Maine each year. 

As for their requests. The first was that the investigation include imports of wild frozen blueberries. As the delegation’s letter explained:

Maine’s frozen wild blueberries are now competing with both frozen wild and frozen cultivated blueberries in the U.S. market as foreign producers, including China, have exponentially increased their blueberry production. 

The International Trade Commission describes the subject of their investigation as “fresh, chilled, or frozen blueberries.” So, our assumption is that Maine’s request is being honored, i.e., that the reference to “frozen blueberries,” will be taken to include both “wild” and “cultivated” berries.

The Maine delegation’s second request looked ahead to the possibility of tariffs on imported blueberries and asked for a carve-out for wild blueberries from Canada. As they explained:

These blueberries [from Canada] arrive [in Maine] in a form not ready for consumption and are then processed into a frozen product ready for distribution and sale. These bulk imports do not harm Maine’s domestic growers of wild blueberries, but rather these operations allow many Maine blueberry businesses to survive.

America is the world’s top producers of blueberries, and within the United States Washington and Oregon are ranked first and second. By some measures, they are doing well. According to a recent story by Ana King of The Northwest News Network:

Since 2006, Oregon’s blueberry industry has grown by more than 300% and Washington’s by almost 800%.

And, in the past, it has been argued that fresh blueberries from South America, for example, are a complement to U.S. production as they keep America’s grocery shelves stocked when fresh blueberries are out of season in the United States. That sentiment may be eroding somewhat, as this paragraph from the same Northwest News Network story suggests: 

Now basically, we have Mexican fruit coming in from March all the way to June. We start getting Peruvian fruit come August,” says Rob Dhaliwal, a blueberry grower from Lynden, Washington. “Even in July. Then we start getting fruit from British Columbia. So there is a good 10 months of foreign product coming into the country.
COMMENTS
As we noted earlier this week, the International Trade Commission has scheduled a hearing for January 12, 2021, and a vote on the question of injury for February 11. That being the case, we don’t expect to offer much more on the subject of blueberries – maybe a little, but not much – until next year. In this entry, we’ll keep it to short observations on politics, geography, and China.

As for politics, the administration that makes the final decisions on blueberry imports will be different from the one that has initiated this new investigation. On January 20, 2021, we shall have either the First Biden administration or the Second Trump administration. Either way, it will be a new team in a new environment. And it will be that new team that decides the next step in the blueberry saga, assuming of course that the USITC finds injury. If they decide that U.S. producers are not being injured by imports then, presumably, that will be the end of the story.

That said, how large a role did politics play in the decision to request this investigation? It is impossible to say. Because swing states are involved, notably Florida, one has to assume those involved were aware of the political stakes. By the same token, given the Trump administration’s strong support for domestic industry, the request for the blueberry investigation can as easily be ascribed to their philosophy of government as it can to political calculation.

On the question of geography – and here we are talking about U.S. geography, the administration’s Report on Seasonal and Perishable Products in U.S. Commerce, straightforwardly set out the situation:

Generally, it is predominantly fruit and vegetable producers in southeastern U.S. states who contend that they are adversely affected by import competition from Mexico, whereas producers and stakeholders in California and western states generally consider foreign production to be countercyclical and beneficially complementary to domestic production in their region.

Blueberries from China. As a rule, China does not show up in the list of top blueberry producing countries. Yet, Chinese product is adding to the challenges facing Maine’s producers. An anomaly? Probably not. We should have a better feel for China’s role as an exporter of blueberries once the ITC has concluded its report. Our impression, however, is that this is yet another area where China’s production has expanded dramatically in the last few years. 

We have read, for example, that “China increased from 681 to 31,210 ha, and the total production increased from 342 to 42,344 t between 2006 and 2015, respectively,” much of that in greenhouse and tunnel production in Northern China. Candidly, we are not sure just what that means. But certainly it means, Watch this space.

SOURCES, LINKS & NOTES
A Letter from Maine takes you to the letter to Ambassador Lighthizer from Maine’s Congressional delegation – Senator Susan Collins, (R), Senator Angus King, (Independent), Representative Chellie Pingree (D), and Representative Jared Golden – as published on Rep. Golden’s website.

Top Producers is a list of the major blueberry producing countries. A longer list is included here as well simply because China is on it. 

America’s Crop is a page on blueberries from the website of the Agricultural Marketing Resource Center. 

Blueberries in China takes you to the abstract of an article on this topic, from the International Society for Horticultural Science.  

Perfect Fit is an article from Produce Grower about so-called “tunnel production” of blueberries, included here for those, like your editor, who may be unfamiliar with it.

Report on Seasonal and Perishable Products in U.S. Commerce is a link to this report by the U.S. Trade Representative and the Secretaries of Agriculture and Commerce. It was published on September 1, 2020, and it was the source for today’s featured quote.


The Investigation is the page on the website of the U.S. International Trade Commission that is devoted to the newly opened Section 201 investigation on blueberry imports. 

Blueberry Statistics is a link to some of the statistics referenced above as published by the U.S. Department of Agriculture.

Photo by Mx. Granger, Wikimedia Commons.
‌
TO GET THE TTALK QUOTES IN YOUR INBOX
Or Other GBD Notices, click below.