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This week's announcement that the U.S. Department of Agriculture will be spending $20 million to purchase grape juice from area farmers is welcome news for the region.
Just last week, U.S. Sen. Chuck Schumer was trying to make juice out of sour grapes with his proposal to use the Section 32 funds provided by the Agricultural Adjustment Act of 1933 to purchase grapes from local growers hurt by the cancellation of their purchase contracts with Refresco.
The same mechanism was used in 2025 to stabilize prices through a similar request through utilization of Section 32 funds, with so-called "bonus buys" used by the U.S. Agriculture Department in the past to stabilize agricultural markets, support communities and deliver food to those who need it. Using Section 32 money is something that should be considered in short-term emergencies like the one that is confronting grape growers this year.
What happened with Refresco must also make clear that we rely too heavily on one purchaser and need to diversify the end products that are using grapes from the Lake Erie region. The Lake Erie Regional Grape Program has known since after the 2025 harvest that there were storm clouds on the horizon. The storm just came sooner than anyone expected.
“The grape industry as a whole is struggling globally,” Holden said. “Low demand and high production, paired with high input cost have caused low prices for most growers. Increases in grape and wine products will be needed to help bring back prices and keep our region's grape industry healthy,” Andrew Holden, LERGP Business Management Extension Educator, told The Post-Journal earlier this summer.
It's interesting that Electrovaya, which had been known as a maker of lithium-ion batteries for forklifts prior to locating a manufacturing plant in Ellicott, is actively looking to diversify its revenue stream. Amazon is the company's biggest customer, but Electrovaya is also actively trying to diversify both purchasers and new uses for its Infinity battery line. It's an attempt to avoid the manufacturing equivalent of what happened to grape growers when Refresco decided to buy a lot less grapes than it used to. County officials have tried to provide one new end user of when the IDA approved a $200,000 loan to WMC Grape Juice LLC, which wants to use locally made grapes in 4-ounce Concord grape juice packages called “Good n Grapey.” The start-up wouldn't replace Refresco, but it's a start.
This was an emergency. According to the Cornell Cooperative Extension, Chautauqua County is the leading grape-producing county in the state and the largest grape-growing county in the nation outside of California. Every year, about 800 growers produce 150,000 tons or more of grapes on more than 22,000 acres on the Lake Erie Plain across western New York and northern Pennsylvania. The Lake Erie Grape Belt region supports approximately 2,000 jobs, contributes upwards of $300 million in economic impact, and supports a fruit and vegetable processing industry that employs over 5,000 workers.
The grape industry is, for Chautauqua County, too big to fail. That makes us grateful for the lifeline from the federal government.