Container Port Chaos Takes Light Toll on Agriculture

The region’s biggest cash crop, strawberries, is fairly insulated from the West Coast container port disruption.

The California Strawberry Commission says most of the berries are sent by truck or rail to locations across North America and Mexico and sent by air-freight for overseas shipments as are other popular, locally grown exported crops like broccoli, cauliflower and wine grapes.

Frozen berries sent by container ship may be affected.

Avocado and citrus growers are also getting hit with harvested exports sitting in containers waiting to be put on ships due to a backlog at the Port of Los Angeles and Oakland caused by the now resolved dockworker labor dispute.

The National Retail Federation says among the largest exports from California ports are meat, dairy, produce and canned foods.

Dairy farmers and producers export billions of dollars of milk products to China, Japan and other Asian countries every year. Much of it is powdered milk that has a longer shelf life, but its also cheese products that can spoil quickly.

Local companies and small businesses that import products from the Far East such as electronics, raw materials, clothing and automobiles are getting hit the hardest by the port disruption.

One Santa Maria manufacturer and distributor of women’s shows tells Central Coast News it has about a thousand pairs of women’s shoes made in China that have been sitting on a ship off the Port of Los Angeles waiting to be unloaded.

The company says it working with retailers to discount their orders for the shoes but it says its likely it will have to write most of the shipment off as a business loss.