ROCHESTER, MA -- A pale pink pile of cranberries sits rotting beside one of Brad Morse's bogs, a bitter reminder of the slump that has plagued the industry.
This is fruit Morse must throw away to reduce a surplus that's led to critically low prices. Morse would have had a bumper crop this year, if he didn't have to trash his own berries.
''There's the sadness, right there,'' Morse said, eyeing the pile. ''I'm dumping food up there. ... It's against what we do.''
Morse is hoping another crop he wants to grow near his bogs will help turn things around for him and other cranberry farmers: fish.
Morse has agreed to build a prototype aquaculture system at one of his unused bogs. The system will use the bog as a filter for largemouth bass and yellow perch, which will be raised in a concrete structure next to the bog.
If successful, state officials think aquaculture can be a lifeline for cranberry farmers who are trying to keep their farms afloat. Morse, a fifth-generation cranberry farmer, sees it as a way to help him preserve the open space and peaceful way of life that's part of his heritage.
''You've got to try everything ... to keep the land, to harvest the land,'' said Morse, 35.
Established farms like Morse's have not always been touch-and-go operations. In the mid-1990s, prices rose as high as $60 per barrel and cranberry farmers everywhere expanded production. But demand fell, creating a glut that caused prices to drop as low as $11 per barrel.
At the current price of $20 per barrel less than the $24 farmers say it costs to produce a barrel growers will sell at a loss for four straight years. In addition, the federal government mandated a 35 percent cut in production this year.
For many farmers, it's either sell their land, diversify their business, or go broke.
A switch from fruit to fish might seem too dramatic, but Jeffrey LaFleur of the Cape Cod Cranberry Growers Association said the fundamentals of farming remain the same with either crop.
Cranberry farmer Matt Beaton said fish are actually a good fit for cranberry farmers because of their access to water.
''We've got water, that's our biggest resource,'' said Beaton of Cranberry Grower's Service in Wareham. ''Somehow, that has to fit into our diversification.''
The cranberry-aquaculture project was born two years ago when Hank Bergstrom of the Western Massachusetts Center for Sustainable Agriculture at Hampshire College in Amherst approached growers about aquaculture as a way to alleviate their financial woes.
The system, developed at Clemson University, had led to exponential increases in catfish production at facilities in the South. But it has never been tried up North, and Bergstrom thought it could work in bogs.
Cranberry bogs are dry most of the year as the berries grow on short vines. When they're ripe, the bogs are flooded and motorized pickers knock the hollow berries off the vines, and they float to the water's surface for easy harvesting.
Morse's aquaculture system will require the bog to be filled year-round, and will kill the vines. No fish live in the bogs. Rather, its water will be continuously circulated through the adjacent fish pens, keeping the water quality high by removing fish waste.
''The pond becomes the filtration system,'' Bergstrom said.
Bergstrom said the bogs could be an excellent water source because they're shallow, and sunlight can penetrate to the bottom, preventing the growth of algae in the water that give fish a bad taste.
And the fish pens can be removed from beside the bog if a grower wants to farm cranberries again, Bergstrom said.
The system is expected to produce 10,000 pounds of fish per acre of water per year. The species grown will depend on the market, but they could be used as food, to stock ponds, or as bait. With largemouth bass being sold for as much as $4 a pound, for instance, income from the operation could be significant, Bergstrom said.
But the strength of the market won't be known until the pens are producing. The system's effectiveness in the cold New England weather, where the growing season is a relatively short March to November, is unknown. The highly acidic and iron-rich water in the bogs is another variable.
Even if the system is flawless, the idea of growing fish instead of berries could be a mental obstacle for some farmers, said LaFleur, of the growers association.
''It's certainly a philosophical difference,'' he said. ''It's a mindset. You've got someone whose grown cranberries for three generations, and that's all this family has done.''
Morse's 20-by-60 foot prototype will cost about $56,000. A state grant will cover $32,000, and the rest will be made by the grower's association and Morse. It should be producing fish by spring.
If his system proves profitable, other growers will drop any reservations they have about trading cranberries for fish, he said.
''I think right now everybody is doing everything they can,'' Morse said. ''I do love growing cranberries, but money is money.''
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