Issue link: http://read.dmtmag.com/i/56260
Orchardist John McQuaig hopes hisbook will help people hold onto their dreams and keep heading upward in their business pursuits. He's seen the fruit business wax and wane over the past 30 years. The Alar crisis almost drove him under and forced him to sell some orchard, but he still thinks it's a good, solid business to be in. "You think you come back a little bit smarter and work at it," he said. "You're producing food for people—that's definitely a draw." Investments As far as investments go, an orchard is no different from many other ventures, he said. "There are lots of other investments, but there are plenty that people—including myself—have lost money on. Nothing's perfect. It's a righ-risk business, though it's getting better from the risk standpoint." There's better crop insurance available than there was 20 years ago. Now, instead of banking on losing a crop once every five to seven years, cherry growers can buy insurance to mitigated the risk. "That's a huge change," McQuaig said. "One year we walked away from our crop." When he buys orchards, he looks for property that has other potential uses in the future, such as view sites that could be developed for housing. He's diversified to reduce his marketing risks and now has many differ- ent apple and cherry varieties. "We've got almost all the varieties of apples except Honeycrisp and club varieties, and not a lot of Red Delicious," he said. McQuaig has taken the additional risk of growing some of his fruit "The market's up and down, and I should be able to pull up on my smartphone exactly what my fruit's selling for and where it's going." —John McQuaig organically and noted that there's been a recent decline in organic tree fruit acreage in Washington State, with very few acres in transition to organic, which should improve his competitive position. He offers housing for orchard workers. "I think it's going to become more and more important to have housing, and we're going to have to find other ways to attract workers and get more creative about it," he said. "When you talk about all the risk areas that are outside the business, that's a huge one. That's probably the biggest that's out there." McQuaig said, as a grower, he's frustrated by the lack of information from the packer about how his fruit is sold. For example, with specific and immediate information about what their fruit is selling for, cherry growers could decide if it's worth harvesting the rest of their crop and save money they would oth- erwise spend on harvest—which is one of their biggest expenses. "I think that information is probably available, and it's something that needs to be shared more openly so that you've got access," he said. "The market's up and down, and I should be able to pull up on my smartphone exactly what my fruit's selling for and where it's going. In most businesses, you have access to that information. I think there's too much of a disconnect between the market and the produc- tion." Vertically integrated companies—packers and marketers that have their own orchards—have that information and are able to make better decisions, he said, but for the independent grower, it's much harder to find out what's going on. It's possible that growers don't expect to receive that kind of information, McQuaig said, but if they ask John McQuaig (in back), pictured on Mount Orizaba in Mexico with friends Dan Rothrock (center) and Albert Rookard (foreground), says in mountaineering the vision is always to reach the summit. In a business, the owner or manager needs to define what the summit is. for it, there should be a way that the warehouse can supply it. "There needs to be more integration from the grower all the way to the market, so we know what's going on at that end." Managing the risks of mountain climbing is another of his passions. He started about 20 years ago by climbing Mount Rainier in Washington State. He went on to climb all the major volcanoes in Washing- ton, as well as two mountains in Colorado. He has scaled Kala Pattar in Nepal, whose 18,192-foot sum- mit provides a spectacular view of Mount Everest and surrounding 26,000-foot peaks. "People ask why I climb mountains," he said. "It's no Disneyland. There's no back door. It tests you in all dimensions, mentally and physically. It's not a fun endeavor at all, but it's a challenge that's out there that we don't see every day." The paperback book Parallel Peaks: Business Insights While Climbing the World's Highest Mountains, was published by HRD Press, Inc., in 2008, and is available from www.amazon.com. • GOOD FRUIT GROWER MARCH 1, 2012 25 courtesy of john mcquaig geraldine warner