It is shaping up to be a great pear season. The USDA predicts a 1.6 billion pound crop this year. That is up nearly 10 percent from last year.
Ideal growing conditions have boosted Washington production up 18 percent and Oregon is up 6 percent, but California’s output fell 2 percent over last year.
USDA research economics, Jaclyn Kramer says that this will put pressure on prices: “For the consumer prices, I look at the monthly fruit prices that was in the monthly outlook report. They were up 27 percent from, actually, June, and this could be because that there was less supplies. So, with the more supplies it’s likely to put the price down.”
Export demand could be down due to a strong dollar overseas.