USDA opens $9 million clingstone peach tree-pull; growers paid $175 a ton, applications close Sept. 1

Twenty dollars a tree. That is what the California Canning Peach Association (CCPA) estimates it costs to pull a clingstone peach tree, roots and debris included, or about $2,800 an acre^[1]. Starting August 3, USDA will cover much of that bill for growers who lost their cannery: an interim final rule published July 31 reopens the Clingstone Peach Diversion Program with $9 million in federal money, paid first come, first served^{[1, 2]}.

Applications run through September 1. Comments on the rule are due September 29^{[1, 2]}.

The details: $150 a ton from USDA, $25 from the association

The Agricultural Marketing Service (AMS) will pay $150 per ton of verifiable 2025 production from the block being removed^[1]. CCPA has pledged another $25 a ton, for $175 in all^[1]. Per acre, the combined payment cannot fall below $1,500 or rise above $4,000; the federal share alone runs from $1,286 to $3,429^[1]. In practice, a block that yielded more than 22.9 tons an acre in 2025 hits the ceiling, and one at 8.6 tons or less, or one too young to harvest, gets the floor^[1].

The rule spells out the conditions^[1]:

• Trees must be clingstone, and either bearing or non-bearing trees planted under a processor contract before July 1, 2025.
• The orchard must have been under contract with a processor for the 2025 crop. Abandoned orchards and dead trees do not qualify.
• A block must hold at least 1,000 eligible trees or be an entire orchard, and be clearly separated from trees staying in the ground.
• No 2026 peaches may be harvested or marketed from the enrolled acreage.
• Trees come out within 60 days of written approval, and the payment claim, on the Notification of Clingstone Peach Tree Removal form, is due to CCPA by December 31, 2026.
• No one may replant clingstone peaches on the land through May 31, 2036. If anyone does, the participant refunds every USDA dollar with interest.

Two provisions look back. Trees pulled after October 1, 2025, can still be paid if the orchard’s 2025 contract was rejected for 2026 and later and both the crop and the removal can be verified^[1]. And growers who delivered their 2025 crop to a cooperative as members and then sold off their membership rights are shut out^[1].

The paperwork is federal. Applicants need a tax ID or Social Security number and a System for Award Management Unique Entity Identifier (SAM UEI), two of four parcel documents such as a county tax bill or assessor’s plot map, and written consent from any mortgage or lien holder^[1]. AMS says it will pay only through a federal payment system, with no alternative route^[1]. Grafting a non-clingstone variety onto the remaining rootstock counts as removal^[1].

Why California’s cling growers have orchards and no buyer

The rule’s own history is blunt. California clingstone production fell from 530,000 tons in 2004 to 228,250 tons in 2025, and the number of growers dropped from about 700 in 2005 to roughly 450 by 2022^[1]. The state had 11 peach canners in the 1980s^[1]. Del Monte Foods filed for bankruptcy on July 1, 2025, rejected all CCPA contracts for 2026 and beyond, and closed its last California cannery, leaving Pacific Coast Producers (PCP), a grower-owned cooperative with two plants, as the only buyer^[1].

What made the closure hurt more was timing. Del Monte had been offering 20-year contracts, and growers planted more than 4,300 new acres between 2023 and 2025^[1]. AMS counts about 3,500 producing acres with no buyer for 2026, since PCP has contracted 10,400 acres, its full capacity, plus another 1,400 acres of young trees, for 4,900 acres carrying costs without a contract^[1].

UC Davis economist James Sayre put the gap in tons: PCP can take about 24,000 tons a year against the 74,000 tons Del Monte bought. “That 50,000-ton shortfall is why growers are removing orchards,” he wrote^[6]. His report counts about 70 growers who lost contracts^[6].

USDA has done this once before. The 2005 version paid $100 a ton, with payments between $500 and $1,700 an acre, and aimed to clear up to 4,000 acres^[3]. That year’s rule put removal and ground preparation at as much as $2,400 an acre^[3]. The 2026 terms pay $175 a ton combined, against $100 then, and lift the per-acre ceiling from $1,700 to $4,000^{[1, 3]}.

In the field: what a Sutter County block might draw

Production sits in eight counties, including Sutter, Yuba, Butte and Stanislaus^[6]. Sutter grew 106,000 tons in 2024, worth $66 million, according to the California Farm Bureau’s Ag Alert^[4].

At the three-year industry average of 16.6 tons an acre, the combined payment works out to about $2,905 an acre, and the federal share to about $2,490^[1]. Set against CCPA’s $2,800 removal estimate, an average block roughly breaks even on the pull if the association’s $25 arrives; without it, the grower is about $310 an acre short. A 20-ton block would draw $3,500 an acre combined, still under the cap. Young orchards that produced no harvestable 2025 crop get the $1,500 floor^[1].

The rule’s economic analysis sets out the alternatives. Abandoning an orchard still carries about $298 an acre in property tax and insurance, and California’s Assembly Bill 732, in effect since October 2025, lets county agricultural commissioners fine owners of neglected orchards $500 to $1,000 an acre^[1]. Farming on without a contract runs about $8,825 an acre in production costs, based on a 2017 UC Davis study; AMS puts the industry-wide loss under that path at about $35.3 million^[1]. Less than 1% of clingstone fruit sells fresh, so there is little outlet outside a cannery^[1].

The rule is plain that the payment is not a profit. AMS says the program “is not expected to generate positive net returns for growers in the short run”^[1]. Its case is that cleared ground can go to another crop in the 2026 season, and that lenders who financed cling orchards face less default risk^[1]. Commodity Hill covered other USDA specialty crop deadlines in its July 28 report.

On the Hill: a request granted, with the math in the rule

CCPA asked for the program on January 13, 2026^[1]. Rep. Mike Thompson led a bipartisan letter to Agriculture Secretary Brooke Rollins, and on April 28 he, Sen. Adam Schiff and Rep. David Valadao announced USDA had agreed to up to $9 million to remove up to 420,000 trees, about 3,000 acres, before the 2026 harvest^[5]. That release cited a USDA analysis that taking 50,000 tons out of production could save growers about $30 million in projected losses^[5]. “This investment will give producers the time they need to adjust and plan for the future,” Valadao said^[5].

Growers welcomed it in May. “Without it, we were looking at abandoned orchards and generational farming operations coming to an end,” said Ranjit Davit, a Sutter County grower and chair of CCPA’s board, according to Ag Alert^[4].

No vote is needed. The program runs on Section 32 of the Agricultural Adjustment Act Amendment of 1935, which lets USDA spend to restore farmers’ purchasing power, and the statute makes USDA’s judgment of “normal production” final^[1]. AMS skipped advance notice and comment, citing the growing season, and rated the rule not significant^[1].

The rule carries loose ends. It gives current bearing acreage as 13,261, 13,300 and 13,900 acres in different passages^[1]. One section accepts applications “until September 1,” another requires filing “prior to September 1,” and the release says applications must be “received by” that date^{[1, 2]}. And AMS writes that it “has no authority to mandate or effectuate the CCPA pledge,” so the extra $25 a ton is the association’s promise alone^[1].

What to watch

• Sept. 1, 2026: applications close at CCPA, or sooner if the $9 million is committed^{[1, 2]}.
• Sept. 29, 2026: comments due on Doc. No. AMS-SC-26-0496^[1].
• Dec. 31, 2026: removal claims due to CCPA^[1].

AMS expects at least 3,000 acres to come out, about 22% of the acreage in production^[1]. With about $125,000 set aside for administration, how far the rest stretches depends on the yields of the blocks that file first^[1].