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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

#191

Post by realo »

janalsncm wrote: post #135
quotz wrote: post #82

Earlier 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.

You are comparing fruit in a prime stone fruit-growing region to the US. The US is big and fruit needs to be refrigerated to be transported. Refrigeration kills aromatics. I assume you would have a similar experience buying plums in Germany. Similarly, if you bought stone fruit in California where it is grown, it would taste good. > stop buying shit produce and suppliers will notice Unless you are willing to pay $30/…

Fill up the jet with 20,000 tons of peaches ... your price per peach will be different.

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

#192

Post by quotz »

boringg wrote: post #126
quotz wrote: post #82

Earlier 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.

This is a funny statement in that California has probably the best agricultural produce on the planet. If you were in say Texas or Georgia - you could be forgiven for your statement. Bay area produce is unparalleled - Tomatoes, peaches, figs, strawberries, etc. More organic growers if thats what you care about - high quality growers. There is also massive commercial growers doing high volume low cost but you do need…

California maybe has best produce in the US, but far from the best produce on the planet. Not sure how you came to this conclusion. The Mediterranean region is uncontested #1. The cuisines of the mediterranean are so good because the produce we had here was so good, not the other way around.

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

#193

Post by redsocksfan45 »

quotz wrote: post #151
zabzonk wrote: post #99

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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.

Not sure why you’re downvoted. The bigger the fruit the less sugars / nutrition it has per gram. A big reason why wild strawberries are so tasty is because theyre so small. I’ve had the fortune to forage for wild mountain strawberries in my native country in the balkans and their taste is nothing comparable to the farmed ones. Its like two different fruits. Once you try wild strawberries you will remember that experi…

[dead]

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

#194

Post by suzzer99 »

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…

> Del Monte went out of business because there wasn't enough demand for the peaches.

Maybe if grocery store peaches weren't a fibrous, tasteless representation of a real fresh peach, they'd still be in business.

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

#195

Post by bdangubic »

nkrisc wrote: post #45
bdangubic wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

that is the best kind of socialist

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

#196

Post by shadedtriangle »

I know this is naive but I wonder why the CCPA, together with the Department of Agriculture, chose not to purchase the peach canning facilities that Del Monte Foods was running. I suppose that it's more risk for the farmers in a world where canned peach sales are declining. I can't imagine it's easy to just clear cut a ton of trees though. 9 million sounds like nothing when it will take years for whatever new crop they plant to fruit.

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

#197

Post by rickypp »

watwut wrote: post #186
lifis wrote: post #131

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Yeah I got nerd sniped and did actual math... 45k lbs peaches, $2/mile operating cost gets you there at $55/ton. However that's just the truck/driver hire, that does not cover loading/unloading costs or storage logistics. Those are dock to dock prices, no supermarket is buying 22 tons of peaches so you're either driving the semi around to many supermarkets ($$$) or delivering to a central distributer who is brokering sales and last-miling smaller deliveries locally, in which case congrats you've just reinvented existing food distribution.

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

#198

Post by co-ent »

brailsafe wrote: post #134
dylan604 wrote: post #64

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> and call it great injustice. The great injustice is very much me paying however much per pound of peaches when the supply is so great that they should be much cheaper. However, if these are the trees that grow rock hard peaches that never soften as they ripen with no flavor, then bulldoze them all and say good riddance. Hell, might as well take of and nuke 'em from orbit. It's the only way to be sure.

You want BC Okanagan peaches. I've found them to be dramatically better than anything that's come out of the states for some reason. Granted, most of those would probably be coming from the western half of the country

I'll trade you for some Palisade peaches. Looking at year average temperatures the climates seem pretty similar, so I bet they are bomb!

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

#199

Post by creationcomplex »

msarrel wrote: post #108
HoldOnAMinute wrote: post #88

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The new crop will be grapes of wrath

The works of the roots of the vines, of the trees, must be destroyed to keep up the price, and this is the saddest, bitterest thing of all. Carloads of oranges dumped on the ground. The people came for miles to take the fruit, but this could not be. How would they buy oranges at twenty cents a dozen if they could drive out and pick them up? And men with hoses squirt kerosene on the oranges, and they are angry at the…

While SNAP is gutted

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

#200

Post by rayiner »

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…

> Of course, people who never approached agriculture will be appalled at this, and call it great injustice.

Uneducated rice farmers in Bangladesh would understand the problem better than the people complaining about this.

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