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International News Title: Apple growers fear China Gettysburg, Pa. - Farmers have been growing apples here since before the Civil War, and as times have changed, they have changed with them, planting smaller trees to speed up harvests and growing popular new varieties to satisfy changing tastes.But the growers who have made this mountainous region the core of apple-growing in Pennsylvania worry that they face a new challenge that may be too big to overcome and could change their way of life. Like farmers in the bigger apple-producing states, they are becoming increasingly anxious about the prospect of China flooding the U.S. market with their fresh apples - an event many believe is inevitable, even if it could be years away. They saw what happened in the 1990s when Chinese apple juice concentrate made it into the United States. Prices got so low, some U.S. juice companies were forced out of the U.S. market. Growers could no longer afford to grow apples just for making juice. With the Farm Bill up for renewal this year for the first time since 2002, apple growers are pressing for an unprecedented amount of federal funding to develop technologies to make harvesting less costly, and aid to develop overseas markets. Even before new questions were raised this year about how well China enforces food safety rules, some growers were also pressing the U.S. government to require country-of-origin stickers on all apples. "We're facing a threat that we've never faced before in terms of their ability to come in and essentially replace every apple that we produce in this country numerically and at a much lower cost," said John Rice, a seventh-generation grower whose grandfather made money in the Depression era by gathering apples from area growers and shipping them to England in 100-pound barrels. Rice's family today owns 1,000 acres of orchards and packs and markets apples for 50 area growers primarily in Pennsylvania's historic growing area in Adams County, on the Maryland border. "We have to lower our costs, and we have to do what other successful businesses have done in the face of Chinese competition, and that is to innovate, to stay ahead, to either grow new varieties that they don't grow in China, or whatever it takes," Rice said. Much cheaper labor Fifteen years ago, China grew fewer apples than the United States. Today, it grows five times as many - nearly half of all apples grown in the world. China's advantage is its cheap labor. A picker makes the equivalent of about 28 cents an hour, or $2 per day, according to the U.S. Apple Association. In 2005, workers in Pennsylvania made about $9 to $10 per hour, and those in Washington state about $14, the association said. Discussions between the U.S. and China over whether its fresh apples can be brought into the United States have been going on since 1998. To gain access to the market here, China must prove that it meets U.S. standards for pest and disease control. The U.S. Apple Association said the Department of Agriculture's Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service sent a list of more than 300 insects and diseases of concern to the quarantine inspection agency of the Chinese government in 2003. The Chinese government responded the next year, and then the United States asked for information on 52 pests from the list. The value of U.S. apple production was estimated at more than $2.1 billion last year. About 60% of the apples are sold as fresh fruit, and about 25% are exported. Pennsylvania ranks fifth behind Washington, New York, California and Michigan in the number of apples grown. After Chinese juice concentrate entered the U.S. market, the average price for juice apples fell from $153 per ton in 1995 to $55 per ton in 1998. The industry filed an antidumping case, but lost on appeal with the U.S. Commerce Department. Today, more than half of imported concentrate comes from China. Like in many areas of farming, many U.S. apple-growing operations have been absorbed by bigger ones. Some smaller remaining operations have survived by selling directly to consumers at farmers markets or developing niche markets selling organic or specialty apples. Researchers have been working to develop technology and practices that will help cut labor costs. Among the concepts under development are machines that will allow apples to be mechanically picked without bruising, and platforms that lift up pickers so they don't have to climb ladders.
Poster Comment: What kind of country has this become. I mean making your people compete with people making 28 cents an hour. Tariffs should be put on all imports. Tariffs to make them equivelant to what it would have cost to produce in this country. This is also dangerous on another lever in that we are losing our food independance. This interdependance crap has to go.
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