50 years of apple industry history

Desmond O'Rourke gives firsthand account

Long-time tree fruit economist Desmond O'Rourke has written a 277-page memoir, Tree Fruit Trade: An Agricultural Economist Reviews Fifty Years of Washington State's Key Orchard Crops, about his experiences with the global apple business. The book, which Desmond recently sent me to read, gives valuable context to fruit industry developments over five decades in Washington state and beyond.

O’Rourke has been a great source for The Packer over the years on production, marketing and international trade issues in the apple industry.

In this book, O'Rourke provides an autobiographical sketch of his unlikely path from a rural village in north Ireland to  Pullman, Wash., where he began a 30-year career with Washington State University as a marketing economist in April 1970.

In 1994, O’Rourke set up a private company called Belrose Inc. to facilitate consulting and research work on tree fruit issues since then.

Soon enough in the book, O’Rourke begins his methodical deep dive on key issues faced by tree fruit industry leaders from when the red delicious variety was king until now.

O’Rourke starts his recollections with the freeze in Washington state in the winter of 1969, which he called in the book "one of the greatest existential crises for the industry in the 20th century."