Several local cherry farmers and elected officials gathered Friday for the second stop of the Climate Action Campaign’s Extreme Weather Emergency Tour, a four-state press tour highlighting how climate change is fueling extreme weather, making life increasingly costly for LeelanaufarmersandAmericans in general, at Eckerle Farm in Suttons Bay.
“The response was really good. People can tell that the weather has changed. We’re seeing changes within the cherry crops in the last couple of years,” cherry farmer Leisa Eckerle Hankins said. “It’s been over time. Still, the last two years, we’ve seen huge, huge issues with our crops, with major losses in 2024 in the sweet crop ... We saw quality decline in 2024 and the same thing happening this year. We saw in the very beginning, the freeze out with the tarts, but the quality is declining rapidly currently.”
Hankins is a Leelanau cherry farmer and owner of Benjamin Twiggs.
