Mike Pearson says 2023 has been a challenging year for many farmers due to the wild weather. Cherry farmers in the western part of the country are also feeling it.

The good news is that there has been an abundant cherry crop in 2023. Actually, the largest crop in many years.

Cherry producers have experienced substantial labor and shipping challenges because of a late crop harvest in California which impacted the harvest in Washington.

Then the harvest resulted in 22 million boxes of cherries this year. That’s almost double from the 12.5 million boxes of cherry in 2022.

Another issue is large cherries. The problem has been that the biggest cherries have garnered the best prices. And the producers with regular size cherries have been deemed too small and resulted in low prices.

This year, producers were getting $23.75 per box of cherries.

The good news is that cherry sales climbed 70 percent over 2022.

Farm Progress America is a daily look at key issues in agriculture. It is produced and presented by Mike Pearson, a farm broadcaster and host of This Week in Agribusiness.