USDA announced July 7 that a proposed amendment to the federal marketing order for cranberries grown in the states of Massachusetts, Rhode Island, Connecticut, New Jersey, Wisconsin, Michigan, Minnesota, Oregon, Washington, and New York (Long Island) did not pass in a referendum held from Jan. 23 through Feb. 13, 2017.

As a result, the amendment proposed to allow the Cranberry Marketing Committee to receive and expend voluntary contributions from domestic sources will not be implemented. 

Producers and processors of cranberries were notified that the referendum voting period and advised of the method of ballot distribution and voting procedures. In addition to the publication of a referendum order in the Federal Register, two Notices to Trade were issued by USDA on Dec. 21, 2016, and on Jan. 18, 2017. 

In order to be eligible to vote, a producer must have produced cranberries in the designated growing areas during the representative period between Sept. 1, 2015, and Aug. 31, 2016. Processors conducting business during the same period also received ballots.

The proposed amendment was favored by 89% of the producers voting in the referendum, which represented 96% of the total volume. Of the processors voting, 89% voted in favor of the proposed amendment. However, those processors only represented 18% of the total volume. As a result, the referendum failed to achieve the minimum of 50% of the total vote volume required by the marketing order for implementation of the proposed amendment.

While this amendment did not gain enough votes to pass, the original cranberry marketing order, first established in 1962, remains in effect and authorizes research and promotion programs and volume control for producers in the designated states. 

Source: USDA AMS