Reedley farmer gives away 125,000 pounds of nectarines in legal dispute

People were picking up free nectarines at Cesar Mora’s Reedley farm this week, where nearly 125,000 pounds of fruit were being handed out at 21500 E Parlier Ave. from 7 a.m. to 10 a.m. through July 3. Mora said he could not sell a second straight crop and had no other way to market it. He posted a video inviting the community to come take the fruit home, and people began arriving Monday morning.

Mora signed a contract in 2017 to grow a specific white nectarine variety tied to the Monalise White Nectarine. He alleges Giumarra did not have a valid legal patent or proof of ownership for the fruit and that the agreement was built on lies or misrepresentation. Giumarra’s lawyers say the company has the exclusive right to the Monalise White Nectarine and that Mora breached the contract by refusing to sell the fruit to the company.

Giumarra Brothers Fruit Co. filed a commercial contract lawsuit against Mora in Fresno County Superior Court on Aug. 24, 2023, and the dispute remains open. Mora says he is also suing back. Giumarra Bros. Fruit Co.’s wholesale operation was founded in 1922.

Mora is the owner and operator of CLM Farms in Reedley, where a California Department of Food and Agriculture document lists him as managing more than 100 acres of peaches, plums, nectarines, citrus and grapes. Farming has been in his family for generations, and his grandfather came to the United States through the Bracero Program, the wartime guest-worker system that ran from 1942 to 1964 and brought millions of Mexican laborers into U.S. agriculture.