ROCKLAND (AP) – Fewer than 200 blueberry growers have filed claims for a share of a $5 million settlement in a landmark price-fixing lawsuit.

As many as 800 growers could have been damaged by the price-fixing, according to the growers’ attorneys.

“The pool of growers gets smaller once you peel off those who opted out of the suit in the beginning,” said attorney William Robitzek. “Then there are growers who are still scared to death to be identified with this lawsuit, because the list of payouts will be published.”

The number of claims – 176 statewide – was disclosed Tuesday by Justice Joseph Jabars. The 4-year-old case is nearing an end after Allen’s Blueberry Freezer of Ellsworth agreed to pay $1 million as its share of the settlement.

Growers who can show how many pounds of fruit they sold in each of the seasons between 1996 and 1999 have until Dec. 23 to join the lawsuit.

Now only formalities remain before growers begin recovering their losses, incurred during the years when processors colluded on the prices they would pay for the fruit each August.

The case, Maine’s first-ever class-action lawsuit, was decided last November when a civil jury awarded an $18.6 million judgment against Allen’s, Cherryfield Foods of Cherryfield and Jasper Wyman & Son of Milbridge.

Because the case involved antitrust issues, the damages were automatically tripled, raising the total to more than $56 million.

In a settlement, Cherryfield Foods agreed to pay $2.5 million, and Wyman agreed to pay $1.5 million, reducing the processors’ payout to a more manageable $5 million once Allen’s fell into step.

The fourth and smallest processor sued, Merrill’s Blueberry Farms of Ellsworth, reached its settlement with the growers for $85,000 last October, days before the case went to trial.

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KAILUA-KONA, Hawaii (AP) – Lovers of Kona coffee should expect to pay for their morning java because the current crop has been reduced by heavy winds and rains last spring and in late 2003.

With a smaller crop has come an increase in cherry prices from about 90 cents a pound to $1.15 a pound, which should lead to higher post-holiday retail prices. It takes about 5 1/2 pounds of cherries – beans are the pits of the fruit, called cherries – to produce one pound of green coffee.

Growers will be watchful to find out what effect, if any, the expected price increase has on sales.

“Historically in the past when prices go up, consumption, to some degree, goes down,” said Jim Wayman, president of Hawaii Coffee Co.

But demand has been strong this year.

Coffee giant Starbucks has offered Kona beans at all of its stores in North America for the first time in seven years. Farmers say that will mean even more demand.

Big Island coffee fields covered 3,500 acres last year, up from 2,800 acres in 1998, with 93 percent of the acreage in Kona, according to estimates by the U.S. Department of Agriculture.

As recently as August, the Hawaii Agricultural Statistics Service had expected the Big Island’s coffee crop to equal or exceed last season’s yield of 4 million pounds.

“It probably looked like it was going to be a pretty good crop, and it just didn’t materialize,” Wayman said. “The season is not over yet, but at this point it does appear to be a smaller crop.”

A key question is whether the coffee season, which typically ends around February, will be more drawn out, officials said.

Wayman said it is unlikely a longer season would boost production enough to drive down prices.

AP-ES-11-25-04 0632EST