Earlier quoted context omitted.
Christopher Alexander figured this one out in A Pattern Language: https://www.patternlanguageindex.com/patterns/city-country-f...
Why didn’t we do this? Seems cool.
Because of perverse incentives
California farmers to destroy 420k peach trees following Del Monte bankruptcy
91–100 of 473 posts
Re: California farmers to destroy 420k peach trees following Del Monte bankruptcy
#92Earlier quoted context omitted.
When I moved to the US from southern Europe I was so horrified by the lack of taste of any fruit I tried, particularly the peaches and plums. I moved back to Europe and not a small factor was the lack of good produce and food in general. Its just mind boggling how Americans dont revolt against this, stop buying shit produce and suppliers will notice.
That's so odd to me. You can buy cheap, cost-optimized fruit in the US. You can also buy amazing produce that would blow your mind. My wife and I look forward to our annual road trip to Monterey partly because of the fruit stands we pass along the way where we'll get cherries so dark they're nearly black, and strawberries the size of my fist (no, really, I have pictures) that are sweet as sugar and incredibly delicio…
Strawberries are not the size of fists. Ever wonder what they put in those?
Re: California farmers to destroy 420k peach trees following Del Monte bankruptcy
#93Earlier quoted context omitted.
The government would step in and take over operations. This is why we don't need profit-driven companies responsible for food supply. By all means let Del Monte's managers try their hand in some other industry if they couldn't make it work (or not, because they couldn't make it work).
What makes you think the government is remotely qualified to run a canning operation, a logistics operation, a warehousing operation, an HR operation, and a finance operation for peaches? Also which government? Because there are at least 3-5 relevant ones here, maybe more.
>What makes you think the government is remotely qualified to run a canning operation, a logistics operation, a warehousing operation, an HR operation, and a finance operation for peaches?
That'd actually be quite easy for this particular federal government actually (current administration aside). And probably California too.
Re: California farmers to destroy 420k peach trees following Del Monte bankruptcy
#94Earlier quoted context omitted.
The government would step in and take over operations. This is why we don't need profit-driven companies responsible for food supply. By all means let Del Monte's managers try their hand in some other industry if they couldn't make it work (or not, because they couldn't make it work).
Do you really want a world without any fast food or snack foods? I mean, I think we consume way too much as a society, but I'd rather not have the government decide what I'm allowed to eat. Have a conversation with someone who grew up in communist USSR/Russia sometime... It definitely isn't cool. If we had govt controlled food supply, we'd never have the likes of hot sauce (sriracha, pace, etc) and would likely never…
>but I'd rather not have the government decide what I'm allowed to eat.
I don't know how it'd get to that if we had even more supply. I'm saying we'd be better off dealing with the problems of overproduction rather than the problems of unprofitable businesses and killing production capacity because it isn't profitable in the short-term.
I also never said you couldn't have non/not-for-profit food production, just that they shouldn't be for-profit.
Re: California farmers to destroy 420k peach trees following Del Monte bankruptcy
#95Earlier quoted context omitted.
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.
A big part of the problem here is that Del Monte was the victim of several leveraged buyouts that had executives walking away with millions while the company was saddled with debt.
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Re: California farmers to destroy 420k peach trees following Del Monte bankruptcy
#96Earlier quoted context omitted.
When I moved to the US from southern Europe I was so horrified by the lack of taste of any fruit I tried, particularly the peaches and plums. I moved back to Europe and not a small factor was the lack of good produce and food in general. Its just mind boggling how Americans dont revolt against this, stop buying shit produce and suppliers will notice.
That's so odd to me. You can buy cheap, cost-optimized fruit in the US. You can also buy amazing produce that would blow your mind. My wife and I look forward to our annual road trip to Monterey partly because of the fruit stands we pass along the way where we'll get cherries so dark they're nearly black, and strawberries the size of my fist (no, really, I have pictures) that are sweet as sugar and incredibly delicio…
IME there is a large difference in quality in what is available at the super market. Sure I can do a once a year road trip to Monterey. The average organic heirloom tomato at Whole Foods or Trader Joe's is worse than the average organic heirloom tomato at Spar
Re: California farmers to destroy 420k peach trees following Del Monte bankruptcy
#97Earlier quoted context omitted.
There's a good chance of that, yes! Farmers tend to be very good at getting every bit of value out of things. I live in the Sierras, uphill from many of these peach trees. Near the peach trees are lots and lots of almond trees. Almond trees are rotated (removed and replaced with young trees) every couple of decades or so, so 3-5% are taken out every year. A lot of the removed almond tree wood is sold to people like m…
This is rapidly changing. As almond orchards get taken over by corporate farmers instead of smaller family farmers, they just chip the almond wood and discard it instead of dealing with waiting for various people to come in and get the almond wood. (Source: my relatives in the Sac. Valley don’t heat with almond wood anymore.)
A lot of people are using pellet stoves/bbq; seems like you could sell the chipped wood to someone?
Re: California farmers to destroy 420k peach trees following Del Monte bankruptcy
#98Earlier quoted context omitted.
Christopher Alexander figured this one out in A Pattern Language: https://www.patternlanguageindex.com/patterns/city-country-f...
Why didn’t we do this? Seems cool.
Because it trades most of the benefits of cities for the hassle of suburban life and less efficient food production.
Re: California farmers to destroy 420k peach trees following Del Monte bankruptcy
#99Earlier quoted context omitted.
When I moved to the US from southern Europe I was so horrified by the lack of taste of any fruit I tried, particularly the peaches and plums. I moved back to Europe and not a small factor was the lack of good produce and food in general. Its just mind boggling how Americans dont revolt against this, stop buying shit produce and suppliers will notice.
That's so odd to me. You can buy cheap, cost-optimized fruit in the US. You can also buy amazing produce that would blow your mind. My wife and I look forward to our annual road trip to Monterey partly because of the fruit stands we pass along the way where we'll get cherries so dark they're nearly black, and strawberries the size of my fist (no, really, I have pictures) that are sweet as sugar and incredibly delicio…
> strawberries the size of my fist
No thanks. The most wonderful strawberries I ever tasted were wild ones picked on a disused Welsh railway line, probably a centimetre or so in size.
Re: California farmers to destroy 420k peach trees following Del Monte bankruptcy
#100If you are in agriculture you understand how expensive to move things, as crazy as this sounds it’s practically only option many times.
Easy way to understand, they can announce it’s free come and get it and it wouldn’t have moved. Which clearly shows financially moving these don’t make sense.