Because of a "glut" of raisins--more than 430,000 tons this year-- the raisin-packing companies are seeking to pay farmers less than their cost of production. The packers argue that there are more raisins than they can sell on the market for a profit, and that a decline in worldwide consumption and increased foreign competition are the reasons they can’t offer farmers a better price. The San Joaquin Valley produces 40 percent of the world’s raisins.

Last year the field price for a ton of raisins was set at $880, but farmers received about $550 per ton because of the amount that goes into a reserve pool. In 1998 farmers received $1,264 per ton. The average cost to produce a ton of raisins is around $800. So far this year, the packers have refused to negotiate a price with the growers.

The Raisin Administrative Committee (RAC), the panel that oversees the inventory and flow of raisins under the federal Raisin Marketing Order, regulates how many tons of raisins are placed on the market and how many are held in reserve. The growers receive money only for the raisins that are put on the market; the big packing companies like Lion Raisins and Sun-Maid Growers control the reserve. The majority of the members of this panel are packers.

The farmers have not received money for several years from the raisin reserve, even when the packers sold off all of it. The packing companies have a huge economic advantage over small raisin farmers, who are reduced to being price-takers. The packers rent out the half-ton bins that farmers use to harvest grapes. While farmers are forced to pay $17.50 a ton to fund the California Raisin Marketing Board, the packers pay nothing. And farmers pay a receiving, handling, and storage fee of $46 per ton to the packers, in addition to an inspection fee of $9 per ton.

The crisis of overabundance is also having an impact on farm workers. The farmers are hiring fewer workers and there is less work.

Elias Zaragoza, who has been a farm worker in the valley vineyards since 1979, said that this year was the worst. "We are told to work fast while we get paid only minimum wage," he explained. He said he works wherever he can now.

"Some pickers won’t get paid if packers won’t pay the farmers," third generation grape grower Mike Jerkovitch said during a phone interview. "This low price has an impact on everybody," he said, "because there are 5,000 growers who won’t buy equipment, or parts to repair, it affects the economy. This is the worst I have ever seen."

Jerkovitch participated in two protests that were organized by Valley farmers in front of E. and J. Gallo Winery in Fresno this past summer. About 60 percent of California’s wine grapes are grown in the San Joaquin Valley. Fifty farmers, carrying signs that read "Gallo wines made with growers’ blood," protested the $65 per ton price that Gallo gave them. It costs farmers about $115 per ton to produce wine grapes. Gallo, with $1.1 billion in sales last year, sets the price for the other wineries.

Grape growers who produce Thompson seedless grapes are able to choose which grape industry to produce for: raisins, wine and concentrate, or table grapes. But now low prices for both raisins and wine grapes have hit small farmers here the hardest.

"The banks have been taking people’s property," Jerkovitch said. "This is happening while poor people are going hungry, and here the grapes are rotting on the vines." His land is now for sale. An estimated 55,000 to 75,000 tons of California wine grapes have not been harvested this year, according to the winery Joseph W. Ciatti Co.

To combat the grape glut, the RAC proposed a crop-reduction plan on October 15 to be presented to the U.S. Department of Agriculture for approval. The plan would encourage growers to pull vines out of production amounting to between 12,500 and 25,000 acres. It also suggests a five-year moratorium before land can be replanted to grow raisin grapes after the vines are pulled.

The RAC, through the Raisin Diversion Program, which is financed by the growers, will also pay growers to prune off the canes that produce the fruit in exchange for raisins from the reserve.

Participating farmers would then pay $50 for a certificate entitling them to a ton of raisins for every ton they do not harvest--harvesting costs average $340 an acre. In 2001 there were 276,000 acres of raisin grapes in California, 480,000 for wine grapes, and 88,000 for table grapes.

Crop curtailment programs benefit wealthy capitalist farmers who unlike smaller working farmers, can afford not to harvest part of their crop. They also reinforce the myth that farmers would rather collect subsidies than produce food for the world.

"Farmers don’t like to cut production," said Greg Patterson, who together with his wife works outside jobs to make ends meet. He explained that his 40-acre vineyard doesn’t pay the bills. "But we have no choice. It’s not that we don’t want to produce, but we can’t keep taking it out of our pockets. I’m not sure how long I can hold out."

Rollande Girard is a sewing machine operator in the Bay Area. Bill Kalman is a member of United Food and Commercial Workers Local 120 in San Lorenzo, California.  
 
 
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