You’ve probably noticed high-priced cherries at the grocery store this season due to the drought affecting production numbers. AgNet West’s Taylor Hillman tells us how much they have dropped.
Sweet Cherry Production Plummets
The drought has hit California sweet cherry production hard, dropping the Golden State from the second to third overall in production year to year. Besides a lack of water, reduced chilling hours and poor pollination were factors as well from the drought conditions. Lance Honig of the USDA’s National Agriculture Statistics Service says other states not battling the drought had increases in production, yet the combined numbers still decreased due to California’s drop.