The USDA forecasts the U.S. cranberry harvest will be up slightly this year, raising prospects for prices to fall.

Farmers in the four leading cranberry states will produce 824 million pounds, up 2% from 2023, USDA predicts.

Wisconsin bogs will yield 490 million pounds, more than half the total, but that would be less than last year’s crop of 500 million pounds, the USDA anticipates. The other three states and their predicted yields are Massachusetts, 220 million pounds; New Jersey, 58 million pounds; and Oregon, 56 million pounds. USDA discontinued forecasts for Washington several years ago.

Long Beach, Wash., cranberry farmer Malcolm McPhail said he anticipates prices will drop.

“It’s going to go down because Wisconsin had such a good crop (in 2023.) We have more berries than we need,” he said. “Here comes Wisconsin again with another large crop, not as big as last year, but still quite big.”

Prices declined a decade ago as a cranberry surplus grew. Growers approved volume controls in 2017 and 2018. The surplus went down and prices rebounded.

Cranberries sold for an average of 37.2 cents a pound last year, compared to 30.2 cents in 2017, the year the surplus peaked, according to USDA.

The average price has dropped the past two years. It was 39 cents a pound in 2021. Volume controls, however, are no longer an option to boost prices. Volume controls did not apply to imported cranberries or small cranberry handlers. Farmers, with the support of the Ocean Spray cooperative, voted to disband the marketing committee last year.

“You just produce as much as you can for your farm. That’s the way it is,” McPhail said. “Our aim is to make our farms better.”