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California farmers to destroy 420k peach trees following Del Monte bankruptcy

sfgate.com

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Re: California farmers to destroy 420k peach trees following Del Monte bankruptcy

#41

Post by hnthrow0287345 »

clarionbell wrote: post #20

People underestimate how difficult it is to seek buyers for the amount of produce we are talking about here. Farmers are specialists at growing things, not at moving them across great distances, marketing them to dozens small buyers and or starting up packing plants from scratch. They don't have enough trucks, people or packaging machines to move them around. Maybe, they can take some portion for local use. But the r…

In a less profit driven world, we might stockpile these in cans and then later throw them away once they spoil, taking over the canning facilities and paying for the wages via taxes on things not needed for survival. We don't maximize food security though, we prefer profit, up to and including choosing not to feed people.

Re: California farmers to destroy 420k peach trees following Del Monte bankruptcy

#42

Post by busterarm »

Bichote wrote: post #38
Lerc wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My fault? I'm blaming The Presidents of the United States of America.

Millions of peaches, peaches for m̶e̶ no-one -> https://youtu.be/3GCrzjVdmSg

Peaches come from a can. They were put there by a man.

Re: California farmers to destroy 420k peach trees following Del Monte bankruptcy

#43

Post by ErroneousBosh »

ryandrake wrote: post #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.

How many kilos of peaches would you say you get through in an average day?

Re: California farmers to destroy 420k peach trees following Del Monte bankruptcy

#45

Post by nkrisc »

bdangubic wrote: post #14
ch4s3 wrote: post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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.

this is exactly right, all US farmers are basically socialists and they consistently vote for the one of the most socialists parties on the planet - the republican party

They’re selectively socialist.

Re: California farmers to destroy 420k peach trees following Del Monte bankruptcy

#46

Post by munk-a »

fred_is_fred wrote: post #33
oxag3n wrote: post #19

That's what happens when "family farms" rely on a large industrial complex and grow a mono-culture that doesn't have uses other than canning. It was an easy, steady cash-positive business until it wasn't. If those farmers thought what is final product and who benefits from it most, they'd grow diversified crops to sell locally, which many California family farms do.

Farmers care about making money.

And farmers that don't care about making money aren't farmers any more.

Agriculture is a highly competitive business - even large scale agriculture still has very stiff price competition. There isn't a lot of fat to burn on charitable gestures and what is there isn't on the scale of maintaining such a large unproductive orchard.

It sucks - don't misread my statement. It is deeply unfortunate and we should consider mitigations for the future - but the party to throw blame at here isn't the farmers and neither should they be expected to bear the cost.

Re: California farmers to destroy 420k peach trees following Del Monte bankruptcy

#47

Post by [deleted] »

munk-a wrote: post #34
clarionbell wrote: post #20

People underestimate how difficult it is to seek buyers for the amount of produce we are talking about here. Farmers are specialists at growing things, not at moving them across great distances, marketing them to dozens small buyers and or starting up packing plants from scratch. They don't have enough trucks, people or packaging machines to move them around. Maybe, they can take some portion for local use. But the r…

I agree that the tree destruction is a perfectly rationale reaction - but it is still an injustice. This quantity of waste is not free and not fully priced into the cost to produce the fruit. I think the emotional misalignment most people will feel at this announcement is a signal that there's a large missed externality that allowed margins on this produce to get too thin.

[deleted]

Re: California farmers to destroy 420k peach trees following Del Monte bankruptcy

#48

Post by [deleted] »

oxag3n wrote: post #19

That's what happens when "family farms" rely on a large industrial complex and grow a mono-culture that doesn't have uses other than canning. It was an easy, steady cash-positive business until it wasn't. If those farmers thought what is final product and who benefits from it most, they'd grow diversified crops to sell locally, which many California family farms do.

[deleted]

Re: California farmers to destroy 420k peach trees following Del Monte bankruptcy

#49

Post by modeless »

unglaublich wrote: post #32
clarionbell wrote: post #20

People underestimate how difficult it is to seek buyers for the amount of produce we are talking about here. Farmers are specialists at growing things, not at moving them across great distances, marketing them to dozens small buyers and or starting up packing plants from scratch. They don't have enough trucks, people or packaging machines to move them around. Maybe, they can take some portion for local use. But the r…

It's difficult for them because farmers are raised anti-union individualists that are at the mercy of middle-men. If they would cooperate, unionize even, they would be far more powerful than they are now.

I'm sorry, but this is completely wrong. California canning peach farmers are organized and crop prices are set by industry-wide bargaining with processors every year. Additionally, now that Del Monte is out of the business, the only remaining operating canneries are owned by a grower cooperative. It didn't save the industry. In fact, it may have led to the irrational planting of these trees that now need to be pulled. Source: my father was a peach farmer and chairman of the board of the California Canning Peach Association for many years. But he saw this coming and got out of the business.

Re: California farmers to destroy 420k peach trees following Del Monte bankruptcy

#50

Post by munk-a »

unglaublich wrote: post #32
clarionbell wrote: post #20

People underestimate how difficult it is to seek buyers for the amount of produce we are talking about here. Farmers are specialists at growing things, not at moving them across great distances, marketing them to dozens small buyers and or starting up packing plants from scratch. They don't have enough trucks, people or packaging machines to move them around. Maybe, they can take some portion for local use. But the r…

It's difficult for them because farmers are raised anti-union individualists that are at the mercy of middle-men. If they would cooperate, unionize even, they would be far more powerful than they are now.

US farmers are up there in terms of how much business protection exists for them. I do think there were policy issues and recent political extremism has diverted a lot of their political will from the matters that are critical to them - but this sort of an issue is larger than just collectivizing. Agriculture is a global market that is uncoordinateable (at least without massive effort) and so if local protections are to be offered the costs will need to be artificially introduced through domestic price increases that the larger American market finds extremely unpalatable.

This is a failing where a lack of coordinated collectivized action was one contributing factor but there is actually a large collectivized will here - but I think the bigger issue is that it's having difficulty aligning itself in the current political environment.

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