Is Traverse City at Risk of Losing its Title of ‘Cherry Capital of the World’?

When I was a kid, we took a family trip to Traverse City to go to Great Wolf Lodge and while we were there, we went to the Cherry Festival. At my age, I didn't understand why people were so obsessed with cherries. All I cared about was that there was a tent that let me try spitting a cherry pit as far as possible and I really wanted to win (I didn't come close).

However, in the past couple of years, the cherry industry in Traverse City has seen a couple of hiccups that could have long-term effects on the industry.

Climate Change

Anyone living in this state knows that the weather this winter was anything but normal. While most of us wouldn't complain about not having to be cold for months, farmers and the cherry trees rely on it being cold so trees don't bloom too early.

In an interview with mibridge.com, Greg Shooks, owner of Shooks Farm in Central Lake, discussed the difficulties that come with early warm weather. When a tree wakes up, the tree begins dispersing the water stored inside it to help the buds bloom. When a frost comes through and freezes that water, it can freeze the bud, killing it.

Cherries and other "stone fruits", fruits with a pit, are especially vulnerable to frost damage, so when Michigan experiences 6 inches of snowfall a week after the first day of spring, that doesn't bode well for the trees. While this year was warmer due to El Nino, it isn't an anomaly.  Global warming has seen record high temps in consecutive years, leading to warmer winters.

Foreign Imports

In a post on Facebook, Marc Santucci, owner of Santucci Farms, raised awareness of a program enforced by the Cherry Industry Administration that forces cherry farmers to dump huge portions of their crop to meet a quota of imported cherries from overseas.

These cherries are beautiful! But, we have to dump 14% of our tart cherry crop on the ground to rot. Why? So we can allow the import of 200 million pounds of cherries from overseas! It just doesn’t seem right…

The goal of this program is to support the industry during low-yield years, and while it has proven helpful for big farms, independent farmers who aren't able to process the extra cherries don't benefit from the program and are forced to dump perfectly good loads for overseas imports. In the long term, this could lead to small farmers having to close their farms for overseas cherries.

So bad cherry-growing weather coupled with having to limit the amount of cherries they can sell due to overseas cherries could be leading the Cherry Capital of the World down a dark path. If you're looking for things to do this summer, try going to You Pick days at local cherry farms to help support