By Dawn Rasmussen
For Columbia Gorge News
THE GORGE — It wasn’t always like this, according to Gordy Sato, owner and pear grower at Sato Orchards, one of the Hood River Valley’s Century Farms.
“As a kid growing up in the orchard, my parents did as much as they could with two to three additional people working,” he said. “But now, the key to the orchard’s success are the seasonal workers, and because we are in such a labor shortage, there is no one left to pick. The labor market has completely disappeared.”
Workforce challenges are just the tip of the iceberg, however. Operating costs and profits, each with its own suite of factors, have been spiraling in different directions for decades and contributing to the decline of pear orchards.
In top-producing years, 250-300 pear grower families across the greater Columbia Gorge area were producing 87% of the fresh pears grown in the United States, based on numbers from USA Pears.
Pricing concerns, the grocery industry and spray houses
In the last five years, downward pricing has shocked the industry after imported pears from Argentina, Chile and South Africa flooded the market while retailers continued to consolidate, according to Annika Forester, executive director of Columbia Gorge Fruit Growers.
The U.S. has lost roughly one-third of its total grocery stores since the turn of the century, resulting in five chains owning 60% of the storefronts nationwide.
“With fewer chains, that means less buyers, and less buyers mean less pricing leverage for growers,” Forester explained. More recent tariffs, fertilizer price increases and spiking diesel fuel prices have exacerbated the financial pain, but grocery conglomerates aren’t the only corporations squeezing orchardists — spray houses are another pain point.
Keeping pear trees disease- and pest-free requires regular spraying intervals. When nearby orchards become abandoned or undermanaged, they often become repositories for pests or damaging diseases, requiring active orchards to spray multiple times to protect their fruit.
Sato said that one round of spraying can cost tens of thousands of dollars; add in the costs of multiple sprays, along with spray houses passing along credit card fees to growers, and things add up quickly.
Some spray companies are also requiring advances on crop payments plus interest. Given the dismal 2025 harvest, that isn’t necessarily feasible for everyone.
One insect, lots of damage
Last year, growers across the Gorge lost an estimated $45-50 million because of damage caused by pear psylla, a long-present but difficult-to-manage pest that excretes a sticky substance, inducing mold growth. Tons of pears were either left on the trees or thrown away when it was time to pack (see related story on A1).
When entire crops are destroyed, orchardists are left holding the bag, responsible for all of the past year’s processing fees, credit card fees, storage fees, and associated expenses for running their operations.
Combined with the broader economic hardships that orchardists were already facing, the 2025 crop prompted Columbia Gorge Fruit Growers to initiate a survey of active and abandoned orchards. The initial findings are “already concerning,” Forester said.
Some growers are simply throwing in the towel, unable to make their operations pencil out profitably. With the average age of growers being over 55 years old, and few family members stepping up to fill their shoes, Forester said that things are starting to look bleak.
“Small family farms are dying. The returns are the same as 20 years ago, and the only thing that has changed are the costs,” Sato said. “Farms are going out of business because they can’t keep up with the expenses.”
Light at the end of the tunnel?
The ray of hope is this year’s harvest. Forester said that efforts to mitigate psylla have yielded positive results, and the overall crop is smaller, which should lead to higher prices. Assistance from the federal government might be coming down the pipe as well.
The Saving Agricultural Workforce Act, a bipartisan effort led by the Agriculture Committee, was introduced in the U.S. House this past June. It’s a H-2A reform proposal that would streamline the burdensome, expensive process required to bring temporary guest workers into the country.
In the Senate, the CHILE Act focuses on disaster relief for specialty crops, including tree fruits. If passed, it would create definitions for the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Farm Service Agency to follow, resulting in more consistent and reliable support to specialty crop producers that are in line with their losses when disasters strike.
On the local level, orchardists like Trina and Kenny Galloway of Mountain View Orchards in Parkdale, have also taken a completely different approach to avoid the risk of the dicey industry grower marketplace.
After getting out of the commercial pear business three years ago, they are now focusing on farm-direct, slimming down their previous 20 acres of pears to only five acres that are U-pick only.
“We’ve planted more things that farmstand customers want to come and pick. After doing the math, we realized that we would never be able to turn a profit on commercial pears, so we took a leap on what made more sense with our farm,” Trina Galloway said. “Now, we are doing what we are passionate about.”
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