The current condition of the international trade market combined with a fairly significant amount of inventory, has created a bit a concern for California tomato growers this year. “As far as our biggest challenges right now for this year, probably just dealing with getting a reliable market and a good price set or negotiated with a cannery. We’ve been struggling a lot just because of some of the trade negotiations and not being able to move as much product into Mexico and overseas as we have in the past,” said fifth generation farmer Daniel Bays.
Growing tomatoes in the Westley area, Bays noted that the weather this year has been pretty favorable. The plants appear to be growing strong with the amount of soil moisture in the area and having minimal disease pressure. Despite a positive growing season thus far, there may be some issues when it comes to pricing. “There’s been a little bit of a buildup of tomato paste in inventory at the cannery and different places, and so that kind of puts some downward pressure on the price of what the cannery’s willing to pay,” said Bays.
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