As US president Biden visited a cherry farm in Antrim County this weekend, he learned that many Michigan cherry farmers are having a tough season because of volatile weather. The president made a roughly four-hour trip to northern Michigan, where he toured King Orchards and bought cherry sodas and a variety of fruit pies.
At Juliette King McAvoy’s cherry farm, she told Biden and other attending officials about the drought and recent heavy rains that have damaged the cherry crop. King McAvoy told him that the trees would normally be “laden with fruit,” but some of the branches came down.
Michigan’s tart cherry crop for this season is estimated to be 65.6 million pounds, a 5% drop from the 69.3 million pounds harvested in 2020, according to the U.S. Department of Agriculture. But both years marked a two-thirds drop from the 201 million pounds harvested in 2018 and a lesser but substantial decline from the 170 pounds in 2019. Michigan is the dominant state in the US for producing tart cherries.
Source: eu.detroitnews.com