Fruit Growers Association to close after 80 years

After nearly 80 years of playing an integral role in Winchester and Frederick County‘s apple industry, the Frederick County Fruit Growers Association — best known for housing the seasonal workforce that harvested apples for the region’s fruit growers — is preparing to close down.

In March, the agricultural cooperative‘s remaining members voted to dissolve the association, which was founded in 1945 to support the area’s orchardists. This fall harvest will be the last for the association’s Fairmont Avenue migrant labor camp, marking the end of an era.

“Back in the day, there would have been at least a couple hundred members,” recalls longtime fruit grower Diane Kearns, a former president of the association. At the start of this year, however, she reported that membership had dwindled to about 20.

Members cited fiduciary duty, shrinking orchard acreage, declining membership and challenges facing the apple industry as factors that led to the vote to dissolve the organization.

Kearns cited “a perfect storm of bad things” making the apple industry unsustainable for many growers, including changing consumer habits and processors stating that there is softer demand for products that use apples, such as applesauce and pie filling. Other hurdles included an oversupply of apples being grown, competition from a more global economy, increased expenses fighting regional fungal diseases and rising labor costs. Kearns said last year, “you couldn’t even sell all of your apples.”

“So, the bottom line is, too much fruit, terrible, terrible prices,” she said.

Association member Scott Johnson, a trustee involved in the dissolution, said one of the only ways to make a living in the industry today is a direct-to-consumer model. He said small and midrange orchards are vanishing throughout the country, with only the large orchards surviving “simply because the economies of scale work out for them.”

As the county’s apple acreage fell, so did bed needs at the co-op camp. Despite having a capacity for 2,000 harvesters, the camp is hosting little more than 100 this year, most of whom are from Jamaica or Mexico.

“We had a tremendous amount of assets and infrastructure that we just couldn’t support any longer,” Johnson said.

The workers are expected to depart by the end of December. Johnson said the association remains in dissolution until all of its assets, including about 11.4 acres in the city of Winchester and 27.2 acres in Frederick County, are sold. A petition outlining the plan was filed in the Winchester Circuit Court this summer.

Without the association’s migrant camp, Johnson notes it will be a challenge for most fruit growers to be able to house workers, although he believes those determined to stay in the business will find solutions, potentially taking advantage of grant programs.

“I will say that farming is something that most people do, not because it is always lucrative, but because it’s something you’re passionate about,” Johnson said. “And anybody who is really passionate about the industry that they’re in is going to find a way to make it work.”

What’s lost, Johnson adds, is more than the camp. Without the co-op, growers lose a built-in forum for swapping ideas and coming together in one room.

“In my opinion, the biggest detriment that this will cause to the industry is just that camaraderie and community piece will be missing,” Johnson said.

Kearns described the cooperative’s dissolution as “really unfortunate,” as it had played a significant part of her life. While she wasn’t surprised by it ending, due to the state of the industry, she said she was “sorry to see it happen.” Nevertheless, she hopes area fruit growers can continue to find ways to survive.

“Agriculture also has, in the past, found ways to hang on or reinvent itself,” she said. “So, I’m sort of hopeful that we can do that.”