On evening of Monday, March 4th, I started getting some troubling phone calls and text messages. The first was from the labor contractor I use to prune olive trees in the spring and harvest in the fall. He asked me if I had heard anything about Bell-Carter canceling contracts to buy fruit from growers. He was actually in an olive orchard that day with a crew pruning when the grower came out said, "Stop work. We are done." The grower had just gone to get his mail and had a contact cancellation notice from Bell-Carter.

I was scheduled to start pruning my orchard within the next two weeks and my contractor was calling to find out if we would be cancelling the work. We have since cancelled our plans to prune.

The next thing I received was a text from my ag consultant. He was asking a similar question: had I heard and did I get a letter, too. Well I was starting to hear, but I didn't have a letter yet.

I went online at about 6PM that evening and posted on the My Job Depends on Ag FB group, and my own feed later that night, to see what was happening out there. There have been many replies, and people started to connect the dots on what just happened to the California Olive industry. Bell-Carter had cancelled almost all of the contracts they had with California Olive growers. Farmers were already starting to schedule appointments with bankruptcy attorneys.

The next morning I e-mailed my field representative from Bell-Carter, Jacob Peters, asking about my letter. Is it coming? He replied shortly and apologetically broke it to me: I would be receiving a letter soon. I had been cancelled. I told my wife and kids. We were done.

As I started to talk with folks from around the area, I found out that all but about 7 growers in Tulare County had had their contracts cancelled. Bell-Carter is only keeping 1,500 acres in the Tulare County area and 1,500 acres in the Corning area under contract for the 2019 season. Tulare County Ag and livestock Report, 2017, shows that there are 10,600 acres planted to olives. As growers, we estimate that Bell-Carter had contracts with approximately 6,000 of those acres. It is a difficult number to know from our perspective, but Bell-Carter could provide an accurate total of acres cancelled.

These cancelled contracts will have many impacts. With an average annual production of 7 ton per acre, we estimate that 31,500 tons of Tulare County olives will not be harvested and brought to market this year. A conservative estimate based on the average price per ton (after grading) paid to growers is a loss of gross revenues totaling $37,800,000 in Tulare County alone. That total loss will be realized across the county as lost income to the region. It will not be paid out, in turn by growers, to other supporting sectors. Olive growers operate on very, very tight profit/loss margins and the majority of their gross income is paid out in costs. The largest portion (between 55-60%) being paid to labor just for harvest. That labor percent does not include other cultural costs like pruning, general orchard maintenance, or other farming costs. We harvest in September and October. This means that right before Christmas time, Tulare County workers will lose an estimated $21,735,000 in income from the growers they have worked with for years. All of this is exacerbated by the natural alternated bearing cycle of olive tree fruit production. #CAoliveFarmers

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https://m.facebook.com/story.php?story_fbid=2367638073456298&id=100006303846220