Too much of a good thing

In August 2023, Katy Orr-Dove—a third-generation apple farmer in Martinsburg, West Virginia—heard her husband, Don Dove, say there wouldn’t be buyers for their juice apples that fall. 

Juice apples, a byproduct of fresh apple packing, are typically sold to processors who make them into apple juice or applesauce. Most West Virginia apple farmers don’t have formal contracts with the handful of juice apple processors in the region, but their informal agreements have been in place so long that growers were stunned to learn on the brink of last year’s harvest that processors wouldn’t buy their seconds.