By Thanksgiving the price for a barrel (100 pounds) of cranberries is expected to fall to around $32. The break-even price needed by the grower to cover the cost of producing the fruit is around $35.

For most of the last decade berries sold for about $60 a barrel. Two years ago the fruit peaked at $80 a barrel. Prices plunged last year to $35–40 a barrel — the lowest return since the early 1980s.

Prices are expected to continue falling this year, perhaps to as low as $25, because the industry enters the harvest season with 2.8 million barrels of berries in storage from last fall. Adding an anticipated harvest of 6.4 million barrels to the surplus, there will be an inventory of 9.2 million barrels in the United States. The expected demand for cranberries over the next year is 5.5 million barrels.

Not everybody breaks even at $35. According to the New Bedford Standard-Times, the Andersen family invested in 26 acres of bogs in 1992, when prices for berries were high. They break even at $50 a barrel. They now supplement their income by logging pine trees from their land and by "working around the clock."

With about 500 growers and 14,200 acres of cranberry bogs, Massachusetts produced 34 percent of the cranberries grown in the United States in 1998. Wisconsin, the largest U.S. producer, accounted for 47 percent, and New Jersey growers were third with 10 percent of the harvest.

Bogs in this area range from a dozen acres to more than 300 owned by the large growers. Usually a grower will have four acres of open land for each acre of bogs. According to a recent article in the Standard-Times the Makepeace family, who were among of the founders of Ocean Spray Cranberries Inc. in 1930, owns 10,000 acres of open land.

It takes about 35 acres to produce a living income for a family. Owners of the larger bogs hire workers beyond the family year round. At harvest time all the family members help out and extra workers are hired.

"If the crop's down [in price], people may be getting laid off, as opposed to having a year-round job," said Don DeGowin, a mechanic who has been working in the cranberry industry for 30 years. Militant reporters talked to him while he was taking a break from a wet cranberry harvest exhibition at the recent Massachusetts Cranberry Harvest Festival in South Carver.

On top of the falling prices, the summer drought in southeastern Massachusetts produced a smaller berry this season.

Massachusetts's growers face additional pressure from real estate developers. Federal laws protect wetlands, where cranberry bogs are located. Under these laws no development can take place on the wetlands. For the wealthy escaping the city, lots around bogs are attractive, because they know there will be no new developments next to them. One acre of land can now sell for $50,000 to $75,000 in southeastern Massachusetts and Cape Cod, the cranberry-growing area of the state.

The development of homes next to the bogs has added to the grower's problems. Many growers contract helicopters to spray fertilizers and pesticides to reduce the damage caused by driving equipment on the bog. Family dwellings next to the bogs place new restrictions on when helicopters can spray, raising the growers' costs for the service.

Another effect of the Wetland Protection Law is that bogs that are "abandoned," that is not worked, for five years cannot be put back into production. So growers do not have the option of not working their land for a few years while the prices are low.

There are a handful a companies the growers can sell their berries to in the area. Ocean Spray, headquartered in Middleboro, Massachusetts, is one of them. Ocean Spray dominates the cranberry industry and sold about $1.4 billion of cranberry drinks and other products last year.

Ocean Spray is a "grower-owned" cooperative. Like all capitalist agricultural enterprises, the cooperative serves the interest of the wealthy growers. "Grower-members" own their bogs, raise their own crops, and market them through the cooperative. Growers pay to become members, then get multi-year contracts from Ocean Spray to buy their berries. The actual price received by the growers and when they receive payment depends on Ocean Spray's profits. It can be up to 18 months before growers learn the price they will be paid for their berries and receive the money.

This relationship particularly hurt some growers this spring who had begun spending for this year's crop anticipating a certain amount of income from last year's harvest. When the checks were less than anticipated, growers had to scramble to mange their cash flow. Planned expenses to repair or replace equipment had to stop.

The combination of sharply reduced prices paid to growers by Ocean Spray as a response to the large number of cranberries in storage, increased competition, and the straight jacket of the contracts dictated by Ocean Spray has made the company increasingly unpopular.

Among growers drinking coffee and talking at Dandy Donuts in Carver, Massachusetts, before they start work, Ocean Spray is a hot topic. "I'm glad I got out when I did," declared Bob Mellville, who owns and works about 100 acres of cranberry bogs in the area. "I used to be on the advisory board [at Ocean Spray], but they never listened to us. The corporate board made all the decisions."

Ted Leonard is a member of the Union of Needletrades, Industrial and Textile Employees. Sarah Ullman, a member of the United Transportation Union, contributed to this article.  
 
 
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