Agriculture

The district's specialty-crop economy and the agriculture record

Allegan and Van Buren counties sit inside what growers call the Southwest Fruit District, and it's not a marketing term — it's most of the reason Michigan leads the country in blueberries and tart cherries. This piece covers what that economy actually looks like, what the trade war has done to its export markets since 2025, and a bill Huizenga put his name on that's actually worth crediting him for.

Context: "specialty crop" is USDA's own term for fruit, vegetables, and nursery products, as opposed to commodity row crops like corn and soybeans. It matters here because specialty-crop growers are exposed to international trade in a way a lot of Midwest agriculture isn't, and that exposure shows up directly in the export numbers below.

The fruit belt, by the numbers

Statewide, tied to counties in this district

$118.7M

Annual contribution of Michigan's blueberry industry to the state economy, grown across more than 600 family farms concentrated in Allegan, Berrien, Van Buren, Muskegon, and Ottawa counties.

Source: Michigan State University Extension

77%

Share of the nation's tart cherries grown in Michigan's Southwest Fruit District — Allegan, Berrien, Cass, Kalamazoo, and Van Buren counties, nearly all of which sit inside MI-4.

Source: USDA / Michigan State University Extension

The trade war's cost so far

First half of 2025

This connects directly to the tariffs covered in the Trade & Manufacturing piece. China's retaliatory tariffs, imposed in response to the 2025 U.S. tariff actions, hit fruit exports specifically, and Michigan's own agriculture department has the numbers to show it.

-62%

Decline in Michigan's fresh cherry exports, first half of 2025 versus the prior year.

Source: Michigan Department of Agriculture and Rural Development, via FreshPlaza

-58%

Decline in Michigan's fresh apple exports over the same period.

Source: Michigan Department of Agriculture and Rural Development

Neither figure is broken out by county, so I can't tell you what share of that decline landed specifically on MI-4 growers versus the rest of the state's fruit belt. Given that this district holds most of the acreage those statewide numbers are describing, it's a fair bet the district absorbed a real share of it. That's an inference, not a measurement, and I'm labeling it as one.

Where the record holds up

Legislative record

Huizenga isn't on the House Agriculture Committee — his committee seats are Financial Services, where he's vice chairman, and Foreign Affairs. But he's introduced specialty-crop legislation directly relevant to this district's orchards anyway. With Rep. Jimmy Panetta (D-Calif.), whose own district grows a lot of the country's produce, Huizenga has repeatedly sponsored the Protecting America's Orchardists and Nursery Tree Growers Act, most recently as H.R. 8251, introduced April 13, 2026. It would strengthen USDA's Tree Assistance Program, the disaster-recovery fund that helps orchard and nursery growers replant after storms, disease, or infestation wipe out their trees and vines. An earlier version, H.R. 4739, went nowhere in the 118th Congress. As of this writing, H.R. 8251 has been referred to the Agriculture Committee and hasn't had a floor vote, so there's no roll call to report yet — but a bipartisan bill written specifically for orchardists, in a district full of them, is worth naming as exactly what it is.

What's not measured yet: a county-level breakdown of the export decline above, and whatever happens to the Tree Assistance Program bill once (or if) it gets a committee markup. The farm bill's own stalled status is already covered in the Voting Record piece rather than repeated here. See Methodology for the sourcing rules, or the Articles index for what else is planned.