There’s a market for pesticide free cherries but not the same market for pesticide free beans. So you divide your crop into two piles and one sells into a channel where your extra labor isn’t a differentiator.
Were we quoted the price for organic coffee beans or conventional?
For comparison, fair trade ranges from $1.40 to $1.90 (organic on the higher end). Direct trade starts at $2 or so at the low end, averages around $3.50 or so and can approach double digits for top-end specialty coffee.
Afaik the quality of the cascara is even more sensible to farming and processing conditions that the bean, so I'd expect a large part of the cascara production to come from higher-end farms anyway.
On some quick research, apparently on the extreme high end, lots can go for as high as $600 per lb.
https://dailycoffeenews.com/2017/07/26/record-coffee-earns-6...