Why Some Cranberry Farmers Are Giving Up Their Bogs

About this time of the year, Jarrod Rhodes should be checking on the vines of cranberries that have grown on his bog for decades in southeastern Massachusetts. Instead, he is watching a backhoe tear up the cranberry bog, exposing the dark peat underneath that will eventually become a meandering stream through the 32-acre South Meadow Bogs Restoration site. The goal of the six- to nine-month-long, $1.1 million project is to convert this bog to a wetland that should see the return of native plants like steeplebush and straw-colored flatsedge along with providing habitat for wildlife like wood frogs, hawks, and muskrats.

This project is part of a growing push by cranberry farmers in Massachusetts to choose conservation over other options to glean extra revenue like converting a bog into solar farms or housing. The shift comes as the industry is being hit by lower prices for the pinkish crimson berries used in sauce and juice along with the rising cost of producing larger, hybrid varieties. Farmers also are seeing the effects of climate change, which is bringing unpredictable weather like droughts and warmer fall conditions that delay the harvest.

"It's a tough environment right now economically," said Brian Wick, the executive director of Massachusetts Cranberries, the state's growers association. The state started growing cranberries in the 1800s and was the country's top producer until the 1990s. It ceded that title to Wisconsin and now its nearly 300 growers produce about 22% of the nation's crop. Massachusetts is well suited for bog conservation because most sites are built on former wetlands. The push also comes as federal, state, and local funding has increased in recent years for this kind of coastal conservation, reports the AP.

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The state has converted eight bog sites to wetlands at a cost of more than $27 million and has 12 more planned. Wisconsin and New Jersey have done some bog restoration but on a much smaller scale. Most conversions can take several years, with construction teams pulling down gates and berms that controlled water flows, filling in drainage ditches, and removing several feet of sand used in cranberry farming. They also aim to recreate the unique topography of a wetland—sometimes constructing mounds throughout the site.