Fruit for Thought: Don’t Look Back; Believe in Growing Forward

Corey McCleaf took the podium at the Mid-Atlantic Convention in February and gave his second and final “state of” speech as President of the State Horticultural Association of Pennsylvania. For the next 6 minutes, the apple grower from Lancaster addressed the realities facing today’s farmers.

“One more year has come and gone,” he said. “Some may say they had a wonderful year. And some may say it could have been much better. All I can say is, ‘I’m glad it’s over.’”

Many U.S. growers can relate. In Pennsylvania, tariffs and labor issues hit hard, McCleaf said. The apple market in particular, he added, “seems to be all over the place.”

The weather hurt as well, certainly at Cherry Hill Orchards, owned and operated by McCleaf and his brother, Craig, since 2020. The season started with continuous rain destroying around 90% of their 24-acre sweet cherry crop. A major hailstorm then hit the largest peach crop Corey McCleaf has ever harvested — after just one pick of Rich May.

“You can imagine what it took to keep the rot out and try to move a very large crop that had marks. Craig and I worked and worked, calling people, trying to do whatever we could to move the crop,” Corey said. “And then the very large marked-up apple crop as well. I thank God that the public is very forgiving to our operation.”

Not mentioned during his speech, the year had begun with news that Cherry Hill would be losing 80 acres of leased property. It ended with the Dec. 25 passing of Corey McCleaf’s mother-in-law. “I was sitting in the hospital Christmas Day,” he later said. “What a very high-stress year.”

HAVE FUN WITH IT

With a new year comes fresh optimism — which happens to come easier to the McCleaf brothers than most.

“Every year you have problems; they’re just different problems,” Corey says in a March interview with American Fruit Grower. “You just face them, and you move on. It’s one reason why I love to be diversified. Usually, you have a problem with one crop, but the rest of the crops are OK. Last year was just one of them years that it was almost every single crop.” And then he remembers, “We had a good strawberry crop!”

“Overall, when we look at it at the end of the year, we did well,” he adds. “We lowered our prices, and our customers really responded to us here at our market. And then they bought other things. When we looked at it financially at the end of the year, we had a successful year.”

High hopes are nothing new to the McCleaf boys, the family’s fifth generation of farmers. “Our grandfather was just always happy,” Corey says. “When he walked into a room, the atmosphere just changed, and we really do strive to be the same way. The key is just having fun what you’re doing. And that is me with the fruit industry. I have just always loved it.”

Adds Craig, who spent 23 years in the power industry before returning to farming in 2020: “I always heard that if you enjoy what you do, you never work a day in your life.”