April’s heat-freeze sequence cost farmers $300 million, New Jersey officials say
In all, growers in Pennsylvania and New Jersey may have lost $500 million.
The final damage estimates aren’t complete, but that heat-and-freeze sequence in April evidently has been profoundly costly to farmers in the Garden State and Pennsylvania.
New Jersey officials said Wednesday that “at least $300 million” in crop losses have been reported so far by growers and farmers. Earlier this month, Keystone State officials said they expected loss totals up to $200 million.
Both states are seeking federal disaster relief.
Growers throughout the region have warned that if available at all, apples and peaches will be scarce — and pricey — this summer and fall. Other fruit crops suffered serious damages.
New Jersey growers have suffered “extensive or near‑total losses” of other fruits, including “grapes, blueberries, pears, cherries, plums, and strawberries,” U.S. Sen. Cory Booker and U.S. Rep. Andy Kim, both Democrats, said in a letter to the U.S. Department of Agriculture appealing for federal help.
The losses were the result of record heat on April 15 and 16 that induced the tree-flowering process to pick up the pace, setting them up for the kill that came with the freezes of April 20 and 21.
On the 21st temperatures tumbled into the 20s in some farm areas.
“I’m not going to be a complete prophet of doom,” Lisa Specca, owner of Specca Farms in Burlington County, said earlier this month, “but farmers are pretty upset right now.”
Gov. Josh Shapiro described the Pennsylvania damages as “unparalleled.” Ben Casella, national policy director at the New Jersey Farm Bureau, said he could not recall losses “this bad, this extensive.”
April hot spells in which temperatures reach 90 or higher aren’t all that unusual, said Bob Oravec, a lead forecaster at the Weather Prediction Center in College Park, Md.
Rarely, however, have they been followed by freezes of such magnitude.
