FoA 333: Farm Labor Challenges in Specialty Crops with Mike and April Clayton of Red Apple Orchards

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April Clayton Twitter: https://twitter.com/AppleApril111

April the Apple Gal YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC2DOJG_0BOYGv00KAw-CuxQ/videos

April on “Real Food, Real People”: https://realfoodrealpeople.org/april-clayton-002/

April on “The Farm Traveler”: https://thefarmtraveler.com/2020/04/22/podcast-episode-53/

April on “What The Farm”: https://farmercitygirl.libsyn.com/144-april-clayton-organic-orchardist 

I’ve been following April Clayton on Twitter for a while, she is @AppleApril111, and she puts out some great content about their life and work at Red Apple Orchard, where they grow organic apples and conventional cherries. She also has a PhD in Analytical Chemistry from my alma mater UC Davis, so she’s actually Dr. April Clayton farm. Her and her husband are the second generation on their Washington fruit orchard. 

A recent exchange on Twitter with April prompted me to reach out to her for this interview. She shared a video of a block of organic apples that she said they were considering not harvesting, due, in part to the labor situation. I wondered, just how expensive does labor have to be to make it not worth it to harvest certified organic fruit? Or was it that the labor was simply non-existent? Or were there other factors at play here I wasn’t aware of? I also wondered if this meant the futuristic looking robotic apple pickers that I always see demo videos of might just be close to being an option for farmers like the Claytons. 

These are the types of questions you’re going to get some answers on today. I really enjoyed this conversation with April and Mike. These are the types of conversations that really help to provide the depth and nuance and complexity of an issue like farm labor.