MARKET REPORT - JAN. 11th, 2017
Doing our best!As advertised, California certainly got rain! Although the hardest hit areas were north of San Francisco, where total rainfall amounts over the weekend ranged up to 400 cm, there was copious rain in areas we buy from as well. The Monterey and Salinas area ranged from 100 cm to 300 cm, and even 100 cm in the fruit growing regions in the Central Valley. There has been substantial flooding and over 150 highway closures, mud slides and washouts, but our main corridor north, the I5 has not been affected so far. We’re more troubled about the current storm, which is still very large, which is dropping a lot of snow in Northern California including the only highway north through Oregon.
Ski areas in the Sierra’s recorded between 1 and 2 meters of snow on the weekend before it warmed up and turned to rain, and then some areas got 1/3 of a meter of rain on top of that. This new system has closed most ski areas in California, with 2 – 3 meters of snow predicted over Tuesday/Wednesday, and there’s one more storm system aimed California’s way later in the week. That is a LOT of snow! Mammoth – one of California’s largest ski areas is at an amazing 14 feet (4 meters) already of new snow in the last 7 days, with still another meter or two forecast for the balance of this storm alone.No one is really harvesting any citrus – its skin dissolves after a few days if picked sopping wet. Veg growers in all regions except the desert are drowning – places like Coke Farms in San Luis Obispo got nailed quite hard over the weekend, with another 50mm of rain expected from the current storm. Luckily most of our green veg is coming from the Desert areas around Imperial and Yuma, who got nothing, and from Mexico. Now, it’s not all rosy – there have been some substantial price increases this week, considering all of the above, plus growers recovering from the New Year’s rush, but let’s just say that prices have returned to their more normal levels, except oddly on celery. Spinach has doubled – mainly because any coastal crop has been pounded senseless into the mud.And Mexico isn’t without its battles. We see occasional frost at Agrofresco’s location in Guanajuato this time of year because of their elevation at 2000 meters. Santa Amalia is a 45 minute drive south and 500 meters lower, and never gets frost, but it’s been very close this week, and we had healthy ground frost at Agrofresco this morning. It was very brief, but there will be some issues with lettuce.Most growers in Imperial and Yuma especially are advertising their romaine today as “blistered” as well, so have some expectations of mediocre romaine industry-wide for the next week.Of course, all these weather and transportation issues couldn’t have happened at a worse time as we awaken to another burst of increased sales that always ushers in the New Year. We hate shorts on orders, and always gear up for January with increased volumes, but we’re bearing the brunt of prorates and shorts from growers, and trucking delays because of road conditions, or in the case of Mexico, trying to find a trucker willing to deal with protests and closures at gas stations.Now, here’s the weird one – despite a complete wipe-out of the current California strawberry crop because of high rains in Oxnard and especially Santa Maria, the Mexico crop is now on full blast, in all growing areas and prices have dropped substantially – so don’t just glance over those line items, the prices are down to a more reasonable trading range.Our avocados are unloading at this time, albeit a few days late because of the strikes in Mexico, and with really strong sales in the avocado world, we’re also offering 3 California varieties now that we’re at the peak of the California harvest. We have an extra load from Agrofresco arriving in a few days and lots of chard, cilantro and broccolini on a truck from Santa Amalia due in Thurs/Friday. Doing our best!There is a huge positive story to tell this week – many of California’s reservoirs are not only full for the first time in 6 years, some are spilling over. Currently California reservoirs, in total, are at 97% capacity – a dramatic difference for some that were in the 10-20% range just a few months ago. For all producers who rely on irrigation canals and rivers as their source of water, this is incredibly good news. There is also an expectation that this huge amount of rain will work its way into depleted aquifers and help out producers drawing water from wells.What else to talk about? Well, there is a mushroom shortage – we’re getting up to 50% prorates. For those of you who may not be aware, it started getting cold on the Coast on Dec. 4th. At my house I have had at least 15cm of snow on the ground every day since Dec. 8th. That’s nearly 5 weeks. There’s only been a few days where it inched above freezing, and this isn’t going to end until next week. The local mushroom houses do not have strong enough heating systems to kick in on really cold days, much less minus 15C that we’ve seen in the Fraser Valley off and on over the last month.