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

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

#181

Post by gorgoiler »

Aurornis wrote: post #57
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…

A situation like this bring out many comments that reveal a very low understanding of basic economics (and a low rate of reading the article). Del Monte went out of business because there wasn't enough demand for the peaches. The company that purchased their assets is continuing to buy 24,000 tons of peaches, but the previous unsustainable business was buying a lot more. It's the excess fields that need to be repurpo…

I don’t know about peaches but ‘round my way the cider apple farmers spank the living daylights out of their high density dwarf trees. They get grubbed up and replanted in under a decade. Fruit trees have a naturally short lifetime but mega yield modern species are something else — the arboreal equivalent of a 40 day broiler.

Ironically, there’s a century year old perry tree at the top of the valley.

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

#182

Post by jnmandal »

toast0 wrote: post #97
trollbridge wrote: post #78

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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?

Placing it at the root of the trees makes a ton of sense as it increases yields and lowers need for inputs. Also helps with the compaction from all the mechanization in the orchards.

Selling it as fuel is maybe some added revenue in the short term but really just doesn't make sense. Now if you were getting a premium (lumber, specialty hardwood, etc), then processing and selling could make sense

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

#183

Post by kshahkshah »

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…

Seems like an opportunity to form a coop. I guess I’m being naive though. I just don’t know how

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

#184

Post by redsocksfan45 »

rf15 wrote: post #107
Aurornis wrote: post #57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A situation like this bring out many comments that reveal a very low understanding of basic economics (and a low rate of reading the article). Del Monte went out of business because there wasn't enough demand for the peaches. The company that purchased their assets is continuing to buy 24,000 tons of peaches, but the previous unsustainable business was buying a lot more. It's the excess fields that need to be repurpo…

> A situation like this bring out many comments that reveal a very low understanding of basic economics (and a low rate of reading the article). And a very low understanding of basic biology. A bunch of rotten fruit is _exceptionally valuable_ in many parts of the world. There's a million things you can do with it, alcohol, fertilizer... edit: me right now I'm in a position where I could really use truckloads of rott…

[dead]

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

#185

Post by nradov »

hnthrow0287345 wrote: post #69
hluska wrote: post #67

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Uh yeah, this was Del Monte’s business model. The issue is that the company that owns the canning plants (Del Monte) went bankrupt. There is no canning capacity available to do this. How did you possibly miss the point by this far? It’s like trying to drive to Los Angeles and ending up on Pluto.

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).

When governments take over food production the people starve.

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

#186

Post by watwut »

lifis wrote: post #131
BloondAndDoom wrote: post #100

If 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.

Why? From searches and LLMs it seems it costs $50-100 to move a tonne 1000 km via truck, giving 0.05-0.10 $/kg for a supermarket 500km away. Fruit prices at at least $4.5/kg for peaches, 3.75$/kg for apples 1.45$/kg. So transport cost seems negligible and if fruit is given away for free, it seems it would be very profitable for any supermarket in region to show up with a truck. What's missing in this analysis?

Reality is missing from that LLM analysis.

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

#187

Post by alnwlsn »

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…

One time, I was driving on a highway, and every now and then I'd see a tomato on the side of the road. At first it was one every couple minutes, but as I passed more vehicles the rate increased. 10 per minute. 30 per minute. Then, hundreds. Every mile, I passed more tomatoes than my household would eat in a year (and it's probably a household that eats an above average amount of tomatoes).

This went on for about an hour, but finally, I made my way up to the truck that was carrying the tomatoes. They were pouring out of the open top. Other vehicles kept their distance in the right lane so as not to be pelted with tomatoes. But the thing was is that the truck was still full. And the road was isolated, so it must have been driving along like this for several hours. All those tomatoes we passed on the road - decades worth for a single family - just an irrelevant minor leak. It wasn't even a leak, someone just filled the truck a tiny, probably imperceptibly small bit too much.

If one truck carries that much food, and then there's however many other tomato trucks each day, then that's a lot.

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

#188

Post by toast0 »

jnmandal wrote: post #182
toast0 wrote: post #97

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A lot of people are using pellet stoves/bbq; seems like you could sell the chipped wood to someone?

Placing it at the root of the trees makes a ton of sense as it increases yields and lowers need for inputs. Also helps with the compaction from all the mechanization in the orchards. Selling it as fuel is maybe some added revenue in the short term but really just doesn't make sense. Now if you were getting a premium (lumber, specialty hardwood, etc), then processing and selling could make sense

The parent suggested it would be discarded; chipping it for mulch to be used on site isn't really discarding and I agree it's most likely better than selling it.

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

#189

Post by recursive »

toast0 wrote: post #97
trollbridge wrote: post #78

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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?

"Could" is different than "will" or "would" which seems to be the point here.

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

#190

Post by kstrauser »

quotz wrote: post #179
kstrauser wrote: post #156

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I’m glad we don’t have to decided between fat, bland berries and small, tasty ones. The fist-sized berry was as good as I’ve ever had anywhere.

I dont know if where you live you have access to areas where wild berries grow by themselves, not with agriculture. But I highly suggest to try to find something nearby, go for a hike, and specifically go looking for the berries and forage. Theyre so delicious its honestly not even anyhow comparable to the ones us humans grow. Its insane how delicious they are. Like doesnt even come close.

OK, here's the deal: I grew up in the countryside. Our "garden" was basically the square of wilderness we'd clawed back into semi-civilization, and it was thick with the gnarled blackberry vines my mom had transplanted. I grew up playing in the woods every single day, munching on wild berries that my parents had taught me to eat, from sweet little raspberries to gooseberries (my personal favorite!) that popped when you bit them and made your mouth pucker.

I tell you all this in hopes you'll understand what I mean when I say that the strawberries you can buy along the northern California coast are freaking amazing. I don't say that because I don't know any better. I say that because I've had S-tier wild fruit, and know from personal experience that these were every bit as delicious.

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