Dennis Burreson grows table olives in Northern California. He is also a field representative for Musco Family Olive Company, who last year gave contracts to many former Bell-Carter growers who had their contracts suddenly cancelled. Those cancellations threatened to leave fruit unharvested at the end of the growing season, and growers without the income from that fruit.Todd Fitchette
California table olive production received a breath of life last year when the U.S. International Trade Commission agreed with American growers that foreign subsidies were unfairly harming the U.S. industry. This led to a 37.5 percent tariff on imported olives.
Musco Family Olive Company in Tracy, Calif. benefitted from this, and shortly thereafter gave new contracts to California growers who had their contracts from Bell-Carter suddenly terminated at the beginning of the 2019 growing season.
Musco is working to grow the California industry by offering a limited number of nursery trees at no cost to growers willing to engage in mechanical harvest practices and other modern practices within their olive orchards. The comnpany is also embarked on the expansion of their Tracy processing plant.
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