Editor’s Note: This is the latest report in a series that explores the shifting economic landscape of the specialty crop industry.
When asked to describe the current state of the global fresh produce industry and global trade, those in the fresh produce industry have used words like “uncertainty,” “volatility” and “complex.”
Whether it’s navigating reciprocal tariffs or rising fuel charges during the unrest in the Middle East, produce industry insiders say those issues put the global fresh produce industry in the hot seat.
Jonathan Coppess, Gardner associate professor of agricultural policy at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign, says regardless of the commodity, the current state of growing “is a level of chaos and uncertainty that ... you’re trying to manage in an operation that itself is full of risk.”
“This has been a tough climate to operate your business in,” says Anthony Serafino, president of the Exp Group, a multinational company specializing in the production, importation and distribution of tropical fruits and vegetables from Central and South America. “Geopolitical issues are the biggest headwind you can face in running a business. A lot of things are out of your control.”
Why Export Markets Dictate Domestic Produce Prices
Exports are a critical part of the fresh produce industry. U.S. Apple Association President and CEO Jim Bair says if export markets tighten, more fruit stays in the domestic market; that puts downward pressure on prices, which hurts growers.
“There’s really nothing hidden about the threat of trade volatility for apple growers,” he says. “When markets become unstable, the consequences are immediate and visible: lost sales, lower prices, disrupted customer relationships and even more pressure on already razor-thin margins.”
Washington Apple Commission President Michael Schadler also points out that one state’s exports can impact the country’s other growers who don’t export.
“An economic study from years ago found that if 5 million boxes of fresh apples destined for the export market were instead added to the domestic market, the income loss to growers would be about $55 million,” he says.
Long Road to Market Recovery
Bair says the U.S. apple industry continues to navigate the fallout from 2018 retaliatory tariffs from India, where the country pushed the total duty on U.S. apples to 70%. Before 2018, India was the No. 2 export market for U.S. apples — and growing fast. USApple worked with the Office of the U.S. Trade Representative to lift these retaliatory tariffs, which reopened the market in 2023.
“By 2025, India had climbed back to the No. 5 export destination for U.S. apples, buying roughly 2.2 million bushels worth nearly $40 million in 2024-25,” he says. “That is a meaningful rebound, but it remains well below the predisruption peak, underscoring how difficult it is to regain market share once competitors establish themselves.”
Schadler highlights just how deep that disruption went for Pacific Northwest growers, as the tariff effectively slashed exports from 8 million boxes to virtually zero overnight.
“The global apple market is very competitive, and once you lose market share, it can be very hard to get it back,” he says.
Riley Bushue, vice president of the Northwest Horticultural Council, estimates a $900 million loss since 2018 due to restricted access to China. The industry now looks to unlock expanded access to other markets to fill that gap.
“You’re trying to offset what has been lost and continues to be lost over and over in China every year,” he says.
Navigating High Tariffs and the Race for Global Market Access
Bushue estimates the U.S. exports its apples, pears and cherries to nearly 50 countries around the world, and he says it’s important for the industry to remove trade barriers and expand access.
“We’re looking at places where, as an industry, we can compete and maintain that competitiveness in the face of trade barriers, removing those trade barriers,” he says. “Because at the end of the day, we’re a high-cost-of-production product. We’re not going to be the low-cost supplier in these markets. So, remaining competitive is the important focus point.”
Bushue says the U.S. often has no tariffs on imported produce, but countries such as Thailand put a 40% tariff on imported cherries without a domestic production and a 40-year struggle to get access to South Korea.
He says growers will ask him, “Why is it that the United States can find a way to sell a nuclear attack submarine to Australia, but we can’t sell them an apple? And why is it China has access to Australia, but we don’t?” And they often express frustration at how long it takes to realize trade deals.
“There is a real concern bordering on frustration with, you know, the need for expanding these markets — just the pace of how things have been for a long time,” he says, noting there has been positive momentum with some of the newly announced trade deals. “It’s a robust trade policy from the U.S. to go after these long-standing and unfair trade barriers.”
Schadler points to promising deals with Taiwan, Indonesia, Vietnam, Thailand, Malaysia and Cambodia. For example, the U.S.-Taiwan Agreement on Reciprocal Trade would eliminate a 20% tariff on U.S. apples.
Bushue agrees, noting, “It’s a direct result of the U.S. trying to increase leverage on these to get these things resolved.”
Protecting the North American Supply Chain
Mexico and Canada remain the U.S. fresh produce industry’s most vital partners. Mexico accounts for approximately 40% of all U.S. apple exports; combined with Canada, it represents more than 50% of the export market. And as Mexico, Canada and the U.S. come together to renegotiate the United States–Mexico–Canada Agreement, any disruption to that tariff-free framework could harm U.S. exports.
“The biggest risk is any disruption to the stable, tariff-free framework that has allowed Mexico and Canada to become our top two export markets,” Bushue says. “Even the introduction of uncertainty creates a risk. Once buyers begin to question whether the North American market will remain stable and tariff-free, purchasing patterns can shift quickly.”
It was a tough year for the watermelon industry last year, says George Szczepanski, executive director of the National Watermelon Association. Cold weather leading into Memorial Day 2025 meant people weren’t necessarily thinking watermelons. And, he says, the industry also faced pressure from Canadian tariffs.
“If we are pushing Canada to the point where they are saying every watermelon costs 25% more, it’s hurting this domestic industry,” he says.
Watermelon exports to Canada are an important part of trade for U.S. watermelon growers, some of whom import melons from Mexico and Central America. This global watermelon industry means trade dynamics can be high stakes when it comes to fresh produce.
But Szczepanski says he sees the reasoning behind this volatility.
“We all think that what we’re doing now is just really counterintuitive and does not make sense the way that traditional trade economics have been taught and delivered and structured,” Szczepanski says. “This more aggressive setup — really trying to protect the domestic industry — there’s a logic behind it.”
And the aggressive trade strategy might have a different impact on manufacturing or other items traded on the global stage, but the volatility might be a valuable tool in negotiation; it’s not always the best for fresh produce, which has such a short life cycle.
“When changes in trade dynamics happen, and things are already planted and it is harvested and cut, and you have a ticking time bomb — in terms of what revenue you can or you cannot capture from the minute that it’s cut from the vine or plucked from the bush or the tree — the uncertainty is, it’s just one more problem for produce that we just don’t have the bandwidth for,” Szczepanski says.
Rising Costs and the Threat of Imports
Beyond trade policy, growers and importers are facing higher costs. Serafino of Exp Group says fuel expenses are increasing month over month, adding that bunker fuel prices are up, and that also hits imported produce, and large multinational companies are all increasing fuel surcharges.
Serafino says as diesel prices increase, his company now has to calculate weekly freight charges, which it has never had to do. He says fuel expenses have increased month over month by thousands of dollars, and that’s just not something his company can absorb.
“For the first time in our company’s history, we’re adjusting logistics costs weekly — not monthly, not quarterly, weekly — and that’s how we’re operating,” he says. “Our delivery costs are switching on a weekly basis.”
On top of rising fuel charges, the unrest in the Middle East also affects fertilizer prices, plastic packaging and more.
“I guess if there’s any silver lining in this situation, [it] is that if you can operate a business in this type of environment, you’re Teflon,” he says.
Coppess says those rising costs of fuel charges come at a cost.
“You got all the diesel you need to ship,” he says. “You got all the fossil fuels that go into fertilizer and chemical production. Everything is wrapped in plastic, which is made from oil.”
Coppess says he’s also concerned that as the industry struggles to break tough inflationary pressures, chaos will become quid pro quo.
“I also worry that we’ll normalize it,” he says. “We only outrun the pain of that for so long, yeah — and it’s usually not very long.
Balancing Year-Round Availability With Domestic Survival
Coppess notes that even if the U.S. successfully negotiates better trade deals, the domestic grower might still end up as the casualty. He warns that focusing solely on the “balance of trade” can be a deceptive metric if it ignores who is actually growing the food.
“While the balance of trade might improve, it might have more dire consequences for growers and the domestic fresh produce industry,” Coppess says. “If the balance of trade overall is better ... but we’re importing more food, that may not be an ideal situation.”
Schadler says that as production costs continue to rise, it puts the U.S. apple industry in a vulnerable position.
“It’s not that hard to imagine a scenario in the future when the high cost of U.S. production creates an opportunity for imported apples, which could eventually pose a meaningful threat to domestic apple production,” he says. “I’m not forecasting that, but there are certainly other fruit and vegetable crops in the U.S. that have experienced that dynamic over the last few decades.”
And it’s happening in other commodities. Bret Erickson, senior vice president of Business Affairs for Little Bear Produce, points to USDA Economic Research Service data that reveals that domestic specialty crop production has declined from 193 billion pounds in 2012 to 155 billion pounds just 10 years later. He says the data also shows that fruit and vegetable exports from Mexico to the U.S. have increased from $4 billion to $20 billion over roughly the same period.
“That growth has fundamentally reshaped the U.S. produce market,” he says. “That’s not a coincidence; it reflects a policy environment where domestic production is becoming less competitive, and imports are replacing domestically grown.”
Little Bear Produce imports greens, onions and melons from Mexico to complement its domestic programs in Texas and New Jersey. Erickson says these imports help the company serve as a year-round supplier to retailers.
“Having reliable suppliers who deliver on quality, strong food safety and consistency is efficient and good business sense,” he says. “Buyers want a trusted source for their product.”
Erickson says while consumers have high expectations of produce availability year-round, regardless of the crop, this fuels the need for imports to balance out domestic production. But, he says, the cost of production and the regulatory burdens growers face have made it a challenge to profitably grow produce in the U.S. (Future stories in this series will look at both the cost of production and regulatory burdens on growers.)
“I think we should all be worried that we are more reliant than ever on other countries to supply our food, particularly healthy, whole foods like fruits and vegetables,” he says. “Nutritional security and food security is national security. That phrase has almost become something of a cliché, but clichés exist for a reason; there is typically a lot of truth to them.”
Nick Oomen’s family business grows organic cabbage, zucchini, yellow squash and bell peppers, as well as conventional asparagus, butternut and acorn squash, broccoli, green beans, carrots, potatoes and jack-o’-lantern pumpkins.
Oomen, a fourth-generation specialty crop grower with West MI Produce in Hart, Mich., says his family has struggled to compete with Mexican and Peruvian asparagus imports.
“My family owns an IQF freezer for frozen vegetables,” he says. “We just can’t compete with them on the price, because they can deliver it cheaper than we can. … They can pay their labor force 10% of what I have to pay mine. They’re just at a competitive advantage with their cost of labor compared to what we’re doing.
“All we can do is try to put a product in the store as cheaply as we possibly can, and hope that we can hang on,” he adds.
Oomen says he’s not advocating for the banning of imports but rather to have a level playing field for domestic commodities.
“It does get to a point where there’s certain advantages other countries have that we don’t have here,” he says.
Marc Arnusch, a third-generation seed wheat, barley, craft grains, silage corn, alfalfa and former onion grower in Prospect Valley, Colo., says he used to see imported onions at his local grocery store right down the road.
“That was a tough, tough pill to swallow,” he says. “The overwhelming majority of our onions were shipped outside of the state. There were very few that actually stayed in the state. So, to have these low-cost and, in some cases, different kinds of offerings coming from out of the country is tough to compete with.”
Sixth-generation grower Lisa Tate, managing owner of Rancho Filoso, says the market has changed rapidly for lemons, with Argentinian lemons flooding the market and putting extreme pressure on U.S. growers.
Tate, who grows citrus, avocados and pomegranates in Ventura County, Calif., says when the U.S. opened lemon imports from Argentina in early 2018, the market deteriorated rapidly. However, 2019 was when the volume really impacted U.S. growers.
“If the lemons get here and they don’t have a good price for it, they’re not going to turn around and ship them back,” she says. “They’re just going to dump them here in the market. That’s going to lower the price for everybody.”
Tate says it’s time for consumers to understand where their fresh produce truly comes from and decide to support domestic production.
“If the United States is the biggest consumer and everybody wants to import their stuff, then there’s got to be some way that we can help support locally grown stuff,” she says. “We have to look out for our farmers if we as a nation decide that this is valuable.”
Tate says this might mean consumers have to pay more for domestic produce, with the understanding that it benefits U.S. growers. She says something as simple as a few more cents per lemon is all it would take.
“I really do believe people would be willing to pay that amount,” she says. “I think we can do it as a country. It’s a solvable problem.”
