MA lawmakers request financial assistance to help cranberry industry stay afloat

PLYMOUTH, M.A. (WLNE) – Massachusetts lawmakers are requesting financial assistance from the United States Department of Agriculture under the “Cares” Act to help the industry stay afloat during the coronavirus outbreak.

Brian Wick, Executive Director of The Cape Cod Cranberry Growers Association says the industry has been struggling for the past few years because of tariffs.

Now COVID-19 is additional burden to the financial stress.

He says as the season gets started, farmers might have trouble hiring workers to harvest the cranberries and could lose their crops and their income.

Wick stated, “So the funding will help growers with access to cash, which they can use to hire more workers. They could use it to put some of the local folks who have lost their jobs could be hired temporarily to work on the farms to help the growers with some of the tasks of farming this growing season.”

Even though the industry employs seven thousand people in Massachusetts, and it is important for the state’s economy, it is still much small than other crops in the United States.

Most of the larger crops throughout the U.S. have been receiving most of the agricultural financial relief under the “Cares” Act until now.