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As operations at West Coast ports are returning to normal after a 5-year labor contract deal was made, California agriculture exporters say business won't be back to normal for quite some time, as they deal with an enormous backlog of shipments that have to be dealt with at the ports.
The PMA and the ILWU announced a tentative agreement late last Friday after nearly 10 months of negotiations. The new five-year contract covers 20,000 workers at 29 West Coast ports, which suffered major slowdowns during the prolonged labor dispute.
Ag exporters say they expect it will take weeks to months for the ports to sort out the current backlog of cargo before goods can start to move on a more timely basis.
"Certainly all of our issues and problems with this are far from over," said Kevin Severns, general manager of Orange Cove-Sanger Citrus Association, a grower cooperative citrus packinghouse in Fresno County.
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"Our growers are going to feel the reverberation of this for months to come."
Severns said Sunkist Growers, which sells the association's fruit, are chartering vessels to take some of the shipments to Korea and Japan, but it can’t make up for fiscall losses incurred by slowdowns.
Hay exporter Border Valley Trading, which operates in the Imperial and Central valleys, currently has a backlog of 400 containers that are still waiting to be shipped, according to company President Greg Braun.
"I don't think people realize how big the logjam is — how many containers that are sitting loaded that need to move and/or how many containers that are sitting offshore with ships that need to come in," Braun said. "That all needs to happen first before industry can move on to what we call new business."
For more of the Ag Alert story: www.agalert.com
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