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By DAPHNE HUTCHINSON
Rappahannock News Staff Writer
The countdown has begun for Rappahannock apple growers. On Tuesday, September 4, National Fruit Products Company, Inc., the makers of White House apple products, will announce what they’ll pay in Virginia for this year’s crop.
Local orchardists aren’t optimistic.
National Fruit processes more apples than any other company in this part of the country. According to orchardists, this buying power gives National Fruit leverage to be THE price setter in the Virginia marketplace. Based on last year’s record, the company gets low marks from growers on the pricing example it set for other smaller processors.
Virginia orchardists were paid the lowest price in the nation for their crop. The season average processing prices received by growers here was $4.95 per hundred pounds of apples.
Washington state growers drew top dollar for their apples at $8.15 per hundred pounds. West Virginians received an average of $5.25, New Yorkers and Pennsylvanians got $5.55. Michigan orchardists, helped by a form of binding arbitration between growers and processors in the state, were paid $6.20 for the same apples that brought $4.95 irf Virginia.
Judging from National Fruit’s performance to date this year, the outlook isn’t good.
North Carolina apple growers were receiving between $100 and $110 per ton from processors until just a few weeks ago, according to Sam Snead, Washington orchardist and chairman of the Virginia Farm Bureau Apple Marketing Association. “Then National Fruit came in and offered $80 per ton. The rest of the processors immediately dropped their prices to
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