Disaster Declaration Could Be A Fruitless Effort Okanogan County May Be Too Late With Its Plea For Financial Help

Blaming a damaged apple crop and weak market, Okanogan County Commissioners have declared a state of emergency.

Last week commissioners in the North Central Washington county of about 38,000 asked the governor to support the declaration and help Okanogan County farmers obtain government aid.

They say much of the 1998 apple crop was sunburned. The skin-toughening sun damage, coupled with poor prices for apples, resulted in much of the fruit being left on the trees. This spring, several orchards went out of business and uprooted their trees, said Okanogan commissioner Dave Schulz.

“It not only affects the farmers. It affects all avenues of business in the county,” Schulz said. “The spinoff is absolutely phenomenal.”

Restaurants are hurting. The motels are hurting, and even the gas stations are running into trouble, he said.

But if the commissioners pin their troubles on a weather event that affected last year’s crop, Okanogan growers may be too late for help. Farmers usually have up to 90 days from the time of crop damage to declare disaster, according to the U.S. Department of Agriculture. Even then they have to prove they lost at least 30 percent of their crop.

Still, a USDA decision Wednesday to accelerate a large purchase of fresh apples offers some hope. The purchase could raise prices for farmers throughout Washington state.

The tree fruit industry is Okanogan County’s largest private employer. In their resolution, the commissioners cited “this extraordinary economic disaster.”

By the end of July, Gov. Gary Locke had already signed state-of-emergency declarations for 10 Eastern and Central Washington counties, but Okanogan County was not among them, said Rob Harper, spokesman for Washington State Emergency Management. The other petitions were forwarded to the U.S.D.A. to be considered for federal aid.

“This basically was dealing with weather-related production losses,” Harper said. By declaring the disasters, farmers in these counties are eligible for some federal support such as farm loans.

Those 10 counties include Chelan, Grant, Yakima and Columbia, where the soft tree fruits such as peaches were damaged by cool weather this spring. The others are Asotin, Benton, Franklin, Garfield, Lincoln and Walla Walla.

Before Locke will consider Okanogan County’s petition, he will have to hear the crop-loss results from the local USDA Farm Service Agency office. The county is looking for data to back up the state of emergency proclamation, said Melissa Cummins, a farm loan specialist for the Farm Service Agency.

“The problem is that they’re way late,” she said, explaining that the farmers should have made their request for federal aid around harvest time last year. “I hate to say it, but I think perhaps their chances of getting anything are about nil.”

What Okanogan County farmers seem to be facing is an economic disaster, not one caused by the weather, she said.

Their problems are real, though, Cummins said. For some farmers “their fruit wasn’t worth enough to sort it and pack it,” she said.

But there may be some hope for struggling Okanogan County farmers in the USDA’s plan to purchase nearly nine million pounds of fresh apples for school distribution. By taking that quantity of apples off the market, the USDA may cause fruit prices to rise. That will help growers in Washington, who produce 50 percent of the nation’s apples.