Hudson Valley apple growers encountered a late April frost, skyrocketing diesel prices, and a federal crackdown on foreign labor in 2026.
The challenges create uncertain economic conditions for many farmers in the Northeast. We visited Golden Harvest Farms in Columbia County.
Read the full transcript below:
Sam Dingman: This is WAMC’s Northeast Notebook. I’m Sam
Dingman.
It’s early autumn. And in the Northeast, visitors are packing
orchards and picking apples.
But the harvest comes with changing federal regulations, the
impacts of an unpredictable climate, and an uncertain outlook for growers.
Derek Grout: Big commercial apple growers in New York will have to rely on people buying local and eating local.
Sam Dingman: On today’s episode, we’ll explore what farmers are facing and what advocates are doing at a challenging time for agriculture.
Lynsee Gibbons: So, there’s just a lot of unpredictability
associated with it.
Sam Dingman: WAMC's Maryam Ahmad has been following the
issues facing growers.
Sam Dingman: What are the big questions on your mind as you began this reporting?
Maryam Ahmad: Right. Well, I mean, you know, it's apple harvest season. It's the fall. People are going out picking apples, and really, the main question that was driving this was: What are the economic conditions that apple farmers are facing right now?
Sam Dingman: The equipment farmers use runs on diesel, which is at an all-time high due to geopolitical conflicts and trade policies under President Donald Trump.
On top of that, a warm, early spring followed by a late frost
caused problems for many growers this year.
Sam Dingman: This was back in April, and from what I recall, a
lot of orchards lost a significant amount of crops that normally
during that period they're kind of building up their inventory to be ready for the summer rush, right?
Maryam Ahmad: So, in April is kind of the time when the
blossoms are blooming, right? It's springtime, but apples in
particular, they can be particularly vulnerable. So, those blossoms, like if it goes below like 32 degrees, they're dead.
Sam Dingman: In fact, WAMC visited one Sullivan County apple
farmer, Brett Budde, after the April frost. He showed us one of his damaged blossoms.
Brett Budde: If I slice this down the middle, you can look inside.
See, that's dead.
Sam Dingman: In late July, the U.S. Department of Agriculture
granted New York a disaster declaration that allows farmers in
several counties to apply for emergency low-interest loans to
make up for lost crops.
In order to guard against unexpected losses from increasingly
unpredictable spring weather, apple growers do have a few things they can do, instead of waiting for the government to step in.
Maryam Ahmad: Well, some farmers can have the option of
perhaps buying apples from other farmers, as well. Make a few
phone calls and buy some and sell them accordingly. But, you're
not really likely to make a profit that way, right? Because you're
going through that process. But, others also have different kinds of products they sell. So, this farm that I went to, Golden Harvest, also has a distillery.
Derek Grout: I think it’s one of the most innovative places where you can see apples being turned into so many things.
Sam Dingman: Derek Grout moved to his family’s Golden Harvest Farms in Valatie when he was two. The orchard itself opened in 1954. It’s still in business, and in 2007, Grout launched the orchard’s Harvest Spirits distillery. Today, he sells apple vodka, apple jack – apple brandy, not Jack Daniel’s, to be clear – and even vinegar.
Derek Grout: What made me consider distilling it was to find a
shelf-stable use for a perishable product.
Sam Dingman: Golden Harvest Farms, fortunately, escaped the
worst of the late April frost.
Like many orchards, it has leaned into what’s called agritourism to bolster its business. Golden Harvest doesn't offer U-pick apples. But visit and you’ll see their distillery, a barbeque restaurant, and their perennial best-seller.
Derek Grout: So, if there's one thing that I can say that really
pulled the apple farm through thick and thin, over the past several decades, it would be our consistently delicious apple cider donuts…
Sam Dingman: Besides good weather and steady customers,
Golden Harvest depends on another thing – its foreign workforce.
Derek Grout: For our farm, it's been Jamaican workers for
generations, and it's mostly a communication thing because my
dad never spoke Spanish.
Sam Dingman: Many of the workers at Golden Harvest Farms
have returned to the orchard for decades. But while his workforce is predictable, labor costs are not.
Derek Grout: So even though you think you can predict your labor costs as being such, it could be a ruling by an appellate judge in Kansas that the Department of Labor in Washington then sends a memorandum to Department of Labor in New York State that then makes it hard for apple growers. So, it's hard to trace back who to point the finger at when labor costs are going up. It’s not just economics, it could be from a regulation point of view.
Derek Grout: Foreign seasonal workers require what's called an H-2A visa. And that requires paperwork. Lynsee Gibbons is Vice
President of Communications at the U.S. Apple Association...
Lynsee Gibbons: Growers having to think about and submit their petition for how many workers they want to come in without necessarily knowing what Mother Nature has in store that next year. Whether, you know, October 1 is early enough, or, in the inverse, have them come in at the end of August and harvest actually starts two weeks later. So, there's just a lot of
unpredictability associated with it.
Sam Dingman: Gibbons supports a bill in Congress that would
extend guest worker visas beyond seasonal work for all kinds of
farms.
Lynsee Gibbons: Cows need to be milked every day, so they've
never been able to use the H-2A program because they're not
seasonal in nature, and this would start to allow entities like that who also have a big labor challenge to be able to use the program.
So, I don't think we've ever seen such a broad swath of agriculture from just every corner, again, from the row crops, to dairy, to apple growers be so supportive of legislation that would reform this program.
Sam Dingman: And while agricultural groups are pushing for ways to reform the farm worker visa program, there is worry about actions by the federal government against immigrants.
Sam Dingman: How much has Golden Harvest, and maybe H-2A
workers more broadly, been affected by the immigration policies and enforcement activities of the Trump administration?
Maryam Ahmad: Right, Golden Harvest, because Jamaica
necessarily hasn't been such a specific target of these ongoing
changes, hasn't been wildly impacted. Derek Grout said that
there's been workers there who've been working there for years.
They come every year, but it is broadly a concern across farms in
North Country as well as in the Hudson Valley, and there is this,
you know, ongoing changes. TPS (temporary protected status) is ended now for most nationalities, and H-2A also is changing. They might be extending the period for which workers can come or shortening it. It kind of depends.
Sam Dingman: Oh, I was going to say extending is a little
surprising given the way most of these policies have taken shape.
Maryam Ahmad: Right, but it's also it is definitely a concern, and also for people who are hearing from immigrant laborers
themselves, conditions in which they are able to perhaps talk
about difficulties in working on farms in the area are harder
because they might be more afraid to speak out with ongoing
changes.
Emma Kreyche: If people are afraid to come forward for any
reason…
Sam Dingman: Emma Kreyche is Director of Advocacy, Outreach & Education at the Worker Justice Center of New York.
Emma Kreyche: …whether it's because they fear retaliation from their employer, that they could be fired, that they could lose their job, and they could lose their housing.
Sam Dingman: Kreyche is pushing for a bill in New York called the Empire Worker Protection Act, which would expand enforcement of labor laws for low-wage industries. But the bill, introduced last year, is currently stalled in state Assembly committee.
Sam Dingman: What do you think is next for you in your
reporting on this story, what did it make your curious to pursue
further?
Maryam Ahmad: I was trying to reach out through a bunch of
different channels to see if I could talk to a farm worker
themselves, an immigrant farm worker, in particular. Because
there's a lot of these people talking about them, but it's really
difficult for them to feel safe talking about any kind of experience, good or bad, right? Because it's drawing attention to them and their status. But that is definitely something I want to continue to pursue.
Sam Dingman: Northeast Notebook is a production of WAMC
Northeast Public Radio. It was produced by our Executive
Producer, Lucas Willard. Our editor is Diane DeVore. Music by
Eduardo Rivera. Consider subscribing to Northeast Notebook wherever you get your podcasts. If you like the show, take a second to rate and review. It really does help others find the show.
I'm your host, Sam Dingman. Thanks for listening.
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