California farmers to destroy 420k peach trees following Del Monte bankruptcy • Hacker News Board

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

#221

Post by BlueRock-Jake » Tue, May 05, 2026, 9:21 PM UTC

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…

Great point, hoping whatever replaces them uses less water. Ag pulls ~40% of California's water and it feels like 3 out of every 4 years is a drought

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

#222

Post by cpursley » Tue, May 05, 2026, 9:22 PM UTC

1970-01-01 wrote: post #70

GenerocUsername wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I agree in principle that reuse is the best imaginable outcome... but You underestimate the labor and cost of machines. I bet it costs $200 to pluck a single tree let alone ship it somewhere else usable.

Why would they pay to ship it anywhere? Set the auction date and mandate the buyer brings a flatbed. All sales final. The work to remove the dead tree stump isn't going to be cheaper.

Unfortunately it’s way more economical to chip them over spaying out a full sized tree then meshing and wiring it, lifting the heavy thing with roots and soil onto a flat bed for one off transplant - every step requires heavy diesel fueled equipment. Plus, older trees have higher risk of dying and you really need to do it in the winter.

It’s actually cheaper just to buy new fruit tree stock and you can get better quality (ie flavorful varieties vs mass farmable ones). Source: worked at an ornamental tree farm, done the math in spreadsheets and have planted peach trees in my yard as well - once loaded a trailer wrong and did a 180 in a loaded flatbed with trees, which went all over the interstate.

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

#223

Post by peyton » Tue, May 05, 2026, 9:23 PM UTC

cogman10 wrote: post #163

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…

The big thing I fear about this sort of destruction is that it takes a very long time for tree bearing fruit to start turning a profit. That means someone that wants to plant new trees needs to do so with the notion that they won't get any sort of return on investment for a decade. My fear is that institutional farming does not have the long term fortitude to ever start growing a tree bearing crop. Once these trees a…

TFA mentions 20-year contracts between Del Monte and farmers. That seems to have worked so well that we have too many peach trees. Like, to me the present situation itself should assuage your fears. Are you thinking another processor/distributor won’t come along in the future with long-term contracts? Where will they get their peaches?

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

#224

Post by TimorousBestie » Tue, May 05, 2026, 9:23 PM UTC

nradov wrote: post #202

TimorousBestie wrote: post #56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Christopher Alexander figured this one out in A Pattern Language: https://www.patternlanguageindex.com/patterns/city-country-f...

Bullshit. Christopher Alexander didn't know much about farming. I actually read his whole book. Most of his "patterns" are kind of quaint and twee, the sort of things that seem superficially attractive to people with no real domain knowledge. Highly overrated.

Utopian optimism really has fallen out of style, I suppose.

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

#225

Post by yvsong » Tue, May 05, 2026, 9:23 PM UTC

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…

Peaches are from the great country of China. Very popular and important in culture. Export may be the best solution. However, cultivar matters, and it may be too late in this case.

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

#226

Post by kelnos » Tue, May 05, 2026, 9:23 PM UTC

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…

> The comments talking about farmers not being organized enough or powerful enough must be unaware of how powerful the farm lobby is and how much money they're able to secure from the government every year.

Most people don't realize how powerful farmers are in the US. We (rightly!) complain about Wall Street and bank bailouts when they happen, but I'd wager that we've given significantly more money to farmers over time, through bailouts (like this one) and regular subsidies.

Maybe that's a good use of tax dollars, maybe not. It feels bad, but I'm not an economist.

(And before anyone says that farmers are much more sympathetic characters than bankers, remember that "farmers" in the US overwhelmingly means gigantic corporate farming conglomerates; the individual family with a few hundreds or thousands of acres of land and hearts of gold is sadly increasingly uncommon.)

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

#227

Post by ErroneousBosh » Tue, May 05, 2026, 9:23 PM UTC

munk-a wrote: post #53

ErroneousBosh wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

Ah so the real problem here is the loneliness epidemic. If yall were less shy and came over more often to share my home baked peach cobbler then this wouldn't be an issue!

I think you'd face the same problem with peaches as I do with laugenbrötchen, or more specifically sodium hydroxide.

It's hygroscopic as all hell and I can only buy food grade stuff in 10 kilogram quantities. But I need like half a gram per dozen rolls, so I'd have to make around 50 batches of rolls a day to use it up before it goes off.

My electric bill is going to be hellish.

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

#228

Post by throwup238 » Tue, May 05, 2026, 9:27 PM UTC

suzzer99 wrote: post #194

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…

> 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.

Del Monte sells mostly canned peaches and those plastic snack packs so they’re picked a lot riper than fresh peaches at the grocery store.

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

#229

Post by kelnos » Tue, May 05, 2026, 9:28 PM UTC

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…

> A bunch of rotten fruit is _exceptionally valuable_

> right now I'm in a position where I could really use truckloads of rotten, inedible peaches if I could get them for free.

These two statements contradict each other. If you are pushing to get something for free (and seems like you wouldn't pay for them, or wouldn't pay much for them, instead opting to do without), then they are absolutely not exceptionally valuable from the sell side.

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

#230

Post by kelnos » Tue, May 05, 2026, 9:37 PM UTC

dylan604 wrote: post #64

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…

> 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.

There's a floor on what they can charge, though: the cost of maintaining the land, the cost of labor to harvest, the cost to process the peaches and package them, the cost to ship them to the store, and the store's cost to hold them in inventory before you buy them.

A business cannot stay in operation if the only way to sell the product is to sell it below cost[0]. Having all this excess production is exactly why Del Monte failed as a company. There's no point in building a business to provide people with below-cost food; it's not sustainable and is ultimately wasteful.

Find a way to get the peaches from the trees to people's homes cheaper? Great, do that, and maybe you can sell more at a lower price.

Or produce fewer until you can sell at a price above cost without much waste. We don't wring our hands at factory owners when they don't manufacture a huge surplus of toys that no one wants to buy. We shouldn't be upset when farmers decide to stop growing as much of a certain crop because they can't sell it all. I get the visceral reaction against killing trees. But that's an emotional response that has nothing to do with the reality of the situation. I would much rather that land be used for a more productive crop that people actually want to buy, at prices that reflect what it costs to produce.

[0] Cue VC-funded startup jokes.