Local apple growers losing ground

When Carl Hills looked out over his Pepperell farm in the 1970s, he saw nothing but frayed tops of apple trees, dotted with Macintosh and Cortland apples. These days, the picture has changed drastically.

Trees once laden with apples have been leveled, their roots torn up and replaced with patches of exotic tomatoes, raspberries, eggplant, and rows of corn. Hills still has 40 acres of his farm in apple growing, but the other half of his once 80-acre orchard has been opened up to new niches in the farming industry.

Hills continues to sell a small percentage of his apples to wholesale markets, but most of his profit is made through his pick-your-own operation and at farmers markets across the state. Selling locally cuts out the middleman and continues to be a popular draw for buyers across the region, he said.

Such a transformation is hardly uncommon in New England these days, as apple farm ers face a stark reality. Quality apples are flooding in from China, Washington state, and South America, keeping local apple growers at bay, excluding them from the wholesale apple market, said Hills.

"The writing was on the wall for a grower like me," said Hills. "You'd be on your knees begging for someone to take your apples."

It's not surprising then that, according to federal agriculture statistics, the number of acres in Massachusetts on which apples are commercially produced declined from 4,900 in 1998 to 4,000 in 2007.

But while some involved in the region's apple growing industry see a steady decline in the future, others, like John Clements, an extension educator for the University of Massachusetts at Amherst, are predicting a turnaround driven by a surge in demand for locally produced food and the effect of higher fuel costs on the price of imported apples.

"We have been losing wholesale-only orchards because the wholesale market is extremely competitive," said Clements. "But I think it's a mistake to say the [New England apple industry] is going south. It would be wrong to say it's all gloom and doom."

Yet Hills's operation, called Kimball Fruit Farm, is not the only one in Pepperell affected by the struggling Massachusetts apple industry.

In an act of resignation, the Conservation Commission recently shifted the focus of the town-owned Heald Street Orchard, also an 80-acre apple farm, from wholesale apple growing to recreation. Conservation administrator Ellen Fisher said the orchard has languished since 1999, when an apple grower backed out on a lease and never returned. The commission has been ardently seeking a replacement for a number of years and even advertised nationally for an apple grower, but no one came forward with a formal proposal.

"We never found anyone who wanted to take it on," said Fisher.

The trees have been fallow for a number of years, since they need regular pruning to keep producing quality apples, Fisher said. The plan is to cut down some of the apple trees to help diversify the landscape for hikers, cross-country skiers, and other recreation uses.

Legalities surrounding the 1979 conservation purchase prohibit the commission from erecting a building on the site, which would be necessary for a local retail apple stand, said Fisher.

Meanwhile, in nearby Hollis, N.H., Steve Lievens has had a different problem. Most of the trees on his farm, known as Woodmont Orchards, are so tall that the idea of a pick-your-own orchard is perilous. And Lievens said the cost of planting shorter "dwarf" apples trees to make such an operation work would prove too costly.

Years ago, the situation in the wholesale market prompted the brothers' plans to sell 180 acres of their land to a developer, spurring Hollis officials and voters to step in and buy the property in 2006. The town didn't want to see the land developed and now leases the land for $1 a year back to the Lievenses, who continue to work the orchard.

But Lievens says he won't keep farming the property forever. He predicts the wholesale market will continue to gouge their finances to the point where, even with the land owned by the town, selling apples wholesale won't make much sense, he said, adding that the brothers may also have to sell off other portions of their remaining land.

"At some point, you have to sell your land to cover your losses. But you can't keep doing that forever."

Clements, the UMass extension educator, is optimistic about the future, however.

Though the wholesale apple industry remains extremely competitive, demand for locally grown fruits and vegetables seems to be blossoming, opening up new niches for local orchards, he noted.

Locally grown apples, such as Macintosh, can also taste better than a wholesale-sold Red Delicious, which may have a better appearance, Clements said. And New England offers an ideally cooler climate than some countries and states for growing alternative varieties.

Clements said the volume of state apples grown last year probably didn't meet the sales demand for locally grown fruit. And with gas prices soaring, the price of wholesale apples may also increase, putting added pressure on remote locations like Washington state to deliver their apples to New England, he added.

"I just see it as the evolution of the industry."