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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

#261

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Exactly. That is what is missing in this discussion. If you want to cut down the trees, fine, but those people who profited should pay for it.

I always wonder where consumer surplus fits into arguments about profit.

Although in this particular situation clearly the consumer surplus wasn't enough to keep consumers buying Del Monte products.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Economic_surplus

If we measure consumer surplus as a percentage, how would it compare to business profits as a percentage?

Edit:

  Nobel laureate William Nordhaus studied the historical data of the U.S. economy and concluded that innovators and corporations capture only a tiny fraction of the total social value they create. Consumers capture ~98% of the value in the form of surplus. Producers capture ~2%.

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

#262
post #76

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 it's like 1000x more efficient to move stuff on water vs land, so industrial cities clustered around ports and rivers since it's way easier to move stuff around.

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

#263
post #206

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't know what you mean by 'injustice' - it seems to be a proxy for 'I don't like it when trees die'. Is there more?

Actually, for me, I primarily dislike needless waste. A bunch of resources were dedicated to growing this orchard which will all go to naught. It's better to destroy the orchard than sink even more effort into it if it'll be wasted in the end but the lack of forethought and planning is concerning. It's a bit awkwardly worded but unjust isn't the word I'd specifically choose, it was inherited from the OP so maybe thei…

The waste would have been continuing to use large amounts of water to grow a crop with declining popularity.

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

#264
post #160

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No one is stopping customers from growing their own food. What's stopping is the lack of expertise knowledge and time commitments it takes to harvest.

Not really. I buy bare-root tree from home depot, throw it into the ground, and get fruit in a few years. No fertilizer, no anything, just give it water and sun. It's not rocket science.

Not just deer, but a number of insects will thank you for your generosity. And you will have to learn when and how to fight them in order to get a decent harvest.

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

#265

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…

Farming history seems to be boom and bust and the golden ages of farming seem to be not quite what they were and surprisingly short.

A local university professor did a study on homesteading in my state and determined that even then the land offered to immigrants was actually to small to regularly turn a profit, to some extent that seems to continue to this day at times.

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

#266
post #202

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Do you see there being a realistic alternative? I realize we can't really go backward in time, but I would prefer if the farmers that lived close to where I am sold to people who live local to me. That can happen to some degree (open yard stands), and I like to do that for some of the smaller farms, but it's really a kind of "nice to have" rather than a "The market stocks stuff that was grown a town or two over" type…

The thing you imagine has never really been true. Rivers, seas and canals and later railroads and highways have always brought food to the city from as far as it could be transported before it spoiled.

Rome got its wheat from Egypt and its olive oil from around the Mediterranean.

Ancient egypt sent food up and down the nile to population centers in Cairo and Thebes.

And so on.

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

#267
post #82

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.

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.

> Its just mind boggling how Americans dont revolt against this, stop buying shit produce and suppliers will notice.

How would most Americans know there's a difference? A large plurality will never leave the country in their lifetime, and many won't even leave the area where they grew up in.

Even for those who travel to some extent, eating as a tourist will rarely give you the experience of going to a grocery store, buying fresh produce, and eating it.

And even if a tourist ends up with some really amazing produce in another country, they'll likely chalk it up to a lucky, isolated incident, and not think much of it. Or it's just the "everything is better when you're on vacation" phenomenon. They'll go back home and be back to eating what they're used to.

To be fair, though, there is plenty of wonderful, flavorful produce in the US. There are a few problems, though:

1. Some areas in the US truly are underserved and have bad produce. And by "areas" that can even mean small pockets here and there, where you may only have to drive an extra 20 minutes to get good produce, but it doesn't even occur to you to try, because you assume it will be the same.

2. In the US we seem to believe that we should be able to get every single kind of produce year-round, regardless of what's in season. So you might see something on the shelves all year, but it's only actually really good for a month or three. The experience during the rest of the year will tend to dominate your opinion.

3. You're more likely to get better quality at a more expensive, boutique-like grocer, or at a farmer's market. Most Americans just don't shop at places like those when there's a cheaper, large chain grocery store available. Farmer's markets can be especially difficult when they're only open a day or two per week, and busy people/families need more flexibility.

For reference, I live in northern California, and there's plenty of fantastic produce here. Yes, when I go to something like Safeway (part of a huge grocery chain), I don't expect anything terribly amazing. It's fine, but nothing special. But I have a small local grocery a couple blocks away from me that usually has great produce (though sometimes it can be hit-or-miss with some items), and they also make an effort to stock many items based on growing season. I've been to various places in Europe many times, and have even been to grocery stores and bought produce so we could cook dinners in an Airbnb. I've generally had a good experience with the produce there, but I wouldn't say it's notably better than where I live in the US.

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

#268
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…

I live in NorCal and agree with you that we have great produce, but it's a little weird to single out Texas and Georgia (the latter especially on an article about peaches!). There's plenty of good produce to be had in both of those places, though I'm sure quality varies across a state as large as Texas (just like it does in California to some extent).

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

#269
post #244

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, I actually have farming experience. Farmers aren't naive about this stuff. They forecast future trends as best they can and will replace trees (or other crops) when it seems profitable. Newly planted fruit trees will generally start producing within a few years and output increases as the trees grow, then eventually levels off and declines as they age. A tree is just another capital asset with a limited lifespan…

Ok, then I'll just reissue my 2 questions > If that were the case, then why are there so many peach trees currently? Why hasn't the entire orchard been replaced with olive trees? I agree, that farmers forecast and switch up crops. But I disagree with you that you have a bunch of farmers that have mixed orchards setup because of that forecasting. It's not like wheat or barely where you could switch between the two eve…

You're not making any sense. I never claimed that a bunch of farmers have mixed orchards. Some farmers have too many peach trees right now because Del Monte got their forecasts wrong so now those farmers will chop down the peach trees and probably plant something else. Olive oil demand is still trending up so that might be a possibility in some cases, there are lots of options. That's just how farming works: you have to place your bets and then work for years to see if they pay off.

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

#270
post #205

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

I visited California a month ago and had some of the best strawberries I've ever had for $4/quart off the side of the road near Bakersfield (best I had was Oshii berries before they started to sell to grocers, but that was at luxury fruit prices). The Sunnyvale farmers market was a different story though. Two of the vendors gave out samples. One of them tasted like Safeway strawberries. The other gave out these small…

> My takeaway from this experience is that America sells bad produce less so due to supply reasons and more so that Americans just have poor taste in produce.

Or maybe you don't generalize about an entire country based on your experience in one small city.

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