Maine’s Wild Blueberry Commission has created a new program offering $1.3 million in emergency funding to keep growers in business after serious crop losses in 2025.
The commission looked for options to offer emergency funding last fall after a season that began with a wet spring reducing pollination and then moved into a summer of high heat and fast-onset drought, leading to an estimated $28.1 million in lost revenue.
The season was one of the industry’s most challenging in decades, according to the commission’s executive director, Eric Venturini, who last fall told the Bangor Daily News that it had seen a crop failure.
The commission announced Tuesday it was opening applications for a new Industry Emergency Viability Grant, which aims to provide “limited financial relief” and help growers stay viable financially. But the commission’s offering “falls far short” of the amount of relief growers need to be able to tend to and harvest a crop this year, Venturini said.
The challenging season came at a time when growers in the state’s iconic industry were struggling with higher costs of production and increasing competition from cultivated blueberries, often already running on thin margins or below profitability. Some growers have reduced the number of acres they harvest as a result.
Overall, about 54.9 million pounds of berries were harvested in Maine in 2025, almost 30 million pounds less than the year before. Production costs per acre have also increased by about 50 percent since 2023, according to Venturini, partly because of the lower yields last year.
The commission is continuing to advocate for the USDA to release assistance funds for specialty crops from its Farmers’ Bridge Assistance Program, according to the commission. It is also urging Congress to direct at least another $5 billion in emergency relief money across the nation.
Specialty crops — such as fruits, vegetables, nuts, herbs, flowers, trees and nursery plants — make up a third of the country’s crop sales. But they haven’t had the same level of access to disaster assistance compared to other agricultural sectors, according to the commission, a concern that’s also been raised by other industry groups.
The impacts of a serious drought also can linger in the crop for years, Washington County grower and commission member Lisa Hanscom said in November. Her family lost 28 of the 32 acres they planned to harvest last year because the drought “burned up” the berries.
The commission has also pushed for longer-term funding solutions to manage the effects of drought, such as irrigation and water retention.