Farm-Level Price Formation for Fresh Sweet Cherries

We estimate price formation in the sweet cherry market using an inverse demand system with farm-level price and quantity data from states in the Pacific Northwest and California. Between 0.60 and 0.78 of the variation in annual cherry price is explained by the states’ production, domestic consumption, and exports. Washington and California prices are most responsive to their own quantity. Output flexibilities indicate that Oregon is responsive to a change in quantity supplied to the domestic market. Results also indicate that cherry price is most sensitive to quantity supplied to the export and domestic markets