LAS VEGAS (FOX5) — Tomatoes have become the latest target of the ongoing trade war.
As of Monday, the U.S enacted a 17% tariff on tomato exports from Mexico, the country responsible for about 70% of America’s tomato supply.
This comes as Gilcrease Orchard in Las Vegas is relishing its largest tomato crop in over a decade.
“We sell about a ton of tomatoes every day that we’re open. So like three tons a week,” Gilcrease Orchard director Mark Reuben said.
“By this time last year, all the tomatoes were dead because we got to 120 degrees and they just cooked and we didn’t have any shade. This year is so much better.”
Roughly six thousand tomato plants line the orchard’s farm, just trying to beat the heat and the impending tariffs.
However, as a domestic grower, Reuben isn’t concerned about a tax on produce coming into the country.
Rather he feels it could lead to higher demand of his homegrown produce.
“When your transporting tomatoes, they usually pick them green and then they gas them to turn them red. Usually in the store they’ll have not a true red but kind of a pinkish red hue to them,” Reuben said.
“A homegrown tomato is just so much better.”
According to a CNN report, domestic farmers and growers were commenting on the new tomato tariff being a positive as a possible deterrent to “dumping.”
Dumping is the selling of cheaper exports into a foreign market to undercut the domestic product.
Reuben told FOX5 while that may be a factor for larger farming operations, it’s not a big an issue at his small orchard.
“The commercial growers will harvest the whole field all at one time and looking for a market for them,” Reuben said.
“That might be a problem but we rely on people to come pick their own. We don’t really have that dumping problem, we’re not a big enough farm for that.”
According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, the average cost of a pound of tomatoes was $1.70 in May 2025 with these tariffs projected to spike prices by about 10%.
While Reuben stays the course, selling his produce for under that May 2025 rate.
“We won’t change our price. It’ll stay $1.50 a pound is what we charge for tomatoes.”
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