California farmers to destroy 420k peach trees following Del Monte bankruptcy
1–10 of 473 posts
Re: California farmers to destroy 420k peach trees following Del Monte bankruptcy
#2[flagged]
Re: California farmers to destroy 420k peach trees following Del Monte bankruptcy
#3So, they cut down the trees and do what? How is this supposed help anything?
Re: California farmers to destroy 420k peach trees following Del Monte bankruptcy
#4[flagged]
> The impacts pushed a delegation of California lawmakers to ask the U.S. Department of Agriculture to provide financial support to the fruit growers.
Seems like the opposite of the free market. Large farmers are usually the first people lining up for a government handout, and their representatives are regularly anti-market types.
Re: California farmers to destroy 420k peach trees following Del Monte bankruptcy
#5[flagged]
The Free Market magic hand™ does not apply to those who have capital and are facing losses. That's only when you don't have capital and are facing losses.
Re: California farmers to destroy 420k peach trees following Del Monte bankruptcy
#6While SFGate probably isn't renowned for its agricultural coverage, it'd be nice if there was at least a little context in their story. Is the demand for canned peaches dropping, or is production from other regions or countries displacing the California production, or what? What new crops might the farmers replace the trees with? Are there Peach Festivals or other local cultural events which will be impacted?
Re: California farmers to destroy 420k peach trees following Del Monte bankruptcy
#7This is your fault for eating fewer canned peaches. The clingstone variety is bred for canning and not well suited to eating fresh.
Re: California farmers to destroy 420k peach trees following Del Monte bankruptcy
#8Clingstone peaches are best used for canning and this is one of the last canneries shutting down. The remaining CA cannery is buying what it can. This helps them remove now worthless trees and plant new crops. But it will take a generation to recover.
Re: California farmers to destroy 420k peach trees following Del Monte bankruptcy
#9> When a processing facility closes and 55,000 acres of fruit suddenly have nowhere to go — that’s not something a family farm can just absorb
Won't they at least sell the fruit to customers through grocery stores, where possible? I can see replacing the crops based on reduced future demand from the canneries, but surely the current fruit is usable.
Re: California farmers to destroy 420k peach trees following Del Monte bankruptcy
#10So, they cut down the trees and do what? How is this supposed help anything?
The problem for the individual farmers is that they own a farm covered in peach trees, but they can't profitably sell peaches. The money will let them remove all the peach trees and then develop the land for some new crop.
This is also good for the remaining peach farmers because it keeps peach prices high, and also because massive forests of unattended peach trees leads to pest problems.