Agronometrics in Charts: US fresh fruit imports up 69 percent since 2010, domestic production falls by 32 percent

Each week, the series ‘Agronometrics In Charts’ examines a different horticultural commodity, focusing on a specific origin or topic and visualizing the trade market factors driving change. Check out our entire archive.

Measured against a 2010 baseline, United States fresh fruit imports are up 69 percent by volume while domestic fruit production has fallen 32 percent. The two curves cross in 2013 and have not converged since, says an analysis published by the American Farm Bureau Federation (AFBF).

This is not a demand story: the US population grew roughly 10 percent over the period, far short of import growth. What changed is the cost of growing fruit domestically.

Between 2020 and 2025, pesticide costs rose 25 percent, fuel 31 percent, fertilizer 37 percent, and labor close to 50 percent, while average cash expenses on specialty crop farms passed $466,000 in 2023, up 47 percent from 2021.

Fruit offers few tools for absorbing that: crops are perishable, harvest windows are short, storage is rarely an option, and there is no futures market to hedge a price collapse.

Fresh fruit imports take a bigger bite

As domestic volume has contracted, imports have taken the space. Figures from the US Department of Agriculture (USDA) show imports supplied 59 percent of US fresh fruit availability in 2023, up from 50 percent in 2007, leaving domestic sources at roughly 41 percent.

Much of that growth still fills genuine seasonal gaps, but the report's crop-level analysis finds imports increasingly arriving earlier and staying later, a pattern USDA economists call market window creep, which concentrates competition in the early and late weeks when domestic growers have historically earned the prices that carry a season.

The AFBF's conclusion is that trade remains necessary, but a shrinking domestic base leaves US fruit supply more exposed to weather, political instability, and food safety events abroad. 

* Images are referential via Unsplash | Graph courtesy of Agronometrics

Related stories

Chile asks USTR to exempt its fresh fruit imports from Section 301 tariffs 

Saudi Arabia’s growing fresh fruit market is ripe with opportunities