Everybody gangsta about not needing government handouts until it's their own livelihood at stake.
California farmers to destroy 420k peach trees following Del Monte bankruptcy
381–390 of 473 posts
Re: California farmers to destroy 420k peach trees following Del Monte bankruptcy
#382Earlier quoted context omitted.
> Del Monte went out of business because there wasn't enough demand for the peaches They appear to have gone out of business because of massive debt from a leveraged buyout, combined with other issues. https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/when-private-equity-overcooke...
That doesn't change the fact that there isn't enough demand for canned peaches. If there were enough demand for peaches the farmers would sell the peaches, rather than destroy the peach trees.
The wholesale buyer is in bankruptcy, unable to pay the interest on debt inherited from the leveraged buyout.
Re: California farmers to destroy 420k peach trees following Del Monte bankruptcy
#383Earlier quoted context omitted.
I see people finding too often that change is injustice, and this is strange.
I think I just have a strange personal definition of injustice - but the effort put into growing this orchard to destroy is could have gone to better projects. The fact that so much of an investment is being wasted is, to me, a misallocation of resources that were unjustly allotted to this failed venture. A more just outcome would have been these resources and efforts going to projects that actually yielded benefits…
The effort required to maintain the orchard when its fruit would go to waste would be even more destructive and wasteful, no? Which is really the greater injustice?
Re: California farmers to destroy 420k peach trees following Del Monte bankruptcy
#384Farmer here. We would not need these interventions if we simply had high tariffs on food. Farmers produce a commodity product that has to compete on price with food grown in countries with zero labor protections (Mexico cowboys earn $17 per day on average vs WA state cows boys who make $17 minimum per hour) and zero environmental protections (many chemicals are banned from use here and engines need very expensive pollution mitigation devices).
Re: California farmers to destroy 420k peach trees following Del Monte bankruptcy
#385Earlier quoted context omitted.
> Canned fruit, like what these farmers were producing, has been losing popularity for years. You can't force consumers to like it. Has canned fruit actually lost popularity? Or did the grocery stores decide that the shelf space had a higher profit margin pushing something else? The last couple of times I tried to get canned fruit for a recipe I had to actively hunt for the particular cans of fruit I needed (I needed…
> Has canned fruit actually lost popularity? Yes. Global supply chains have improved, so it's easier to get fresh fruit year round (or closer to it) than it used to be. If they can, people will choose fresh over canned, for obvious reasons.
> people will choose fresh over canned, for obvious reasons
Not at all obvious. A lot of "fresh" produce in the US was refrigerated for more than a week before it arrived in the supermarket, from varieties that were designed to hold up to transport rather than flavor. Fruit that was canned at the height of the season is often much more flavorful than "fresh" off-season fruit.
The US has a problem with packing fruit in added sugar, which is sad but not inherent to canned fruit.
Re: California farmers to destroy 420k peach trees following Del Monte bankruptcy
#386Earlier 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…
> if we had forced the peaches to be grown and canned (as many comments are suggesting) then that would be a different kind of waste as they'd sit in warehouses while the land, resources, and labor were used to produce something people weren't buying instead of being used to produce foods they were buying. Worse, the price would have to be lowered to bring up sales, which could put the other peach farmers into bankru…
>Worse, the price would have to be lowered to bring up sales, which could put the other peach farmers into bankruptcy as well.
We run into something similar every year here in India. One recent example [1] This year it is the Middle East crisis. Last year it was probably a glut because there was shortage the year previously.
[1] https://www.ndtv.com/india-news/video-offered-rs-4-per-kg-ma...
Re: California farmers to destroy 420k peach trees following Del Monte bankruptcy
#387Farmer here. We would not need these interventions if we simply had high tariffs on food. Farmers produce a commodity product that has to compete on price with food grown in countries with zero labor protections (Mexico cowboys earn $17 per day on average vs WA state cows boys who make $17 minimum per hour) and zero environmental protections (many chemicals are banned from use here and engines need very expensive pol…
Australia exports ~ 400 thousand metric tonnes of beef into the US per annum.
US cowboys are also competing against Australian working conditions; universal healthcare, guaranteed minimum wages indexed against living costs, greater environmental protections than the US, etc.
* https://www.mla.com.au/news-and-events/us-tariffs/
* https://www.agriculture.gov.au/biosecurity-trade/export/from...
Re: California farmers to destroy 420k peach trees following Del Monte bankruptcy
#388You know something is dark when they had to make it exactly the infamous number 420k. For those who say "California has always had some satanic/dark element to it", they might be onto something huh?
What is dark about the best time to get high?
Re: California farmers to destroy 420k peach trees following Del Monte bankruptcy
#389This is your fault for eating fewer canned peaches. The clingstone variety is bred for canning and not well suited to eating fresh.
Eating canned stuff seems to be going out of fashion as people realize about the Alzheimer's risk. There are basically no "new" canned food brands. People prefer frozen fruit to canned fruit, especially since frozen has gotten a lot of positive PR lately, e.g. "it's fresher than fresh produce at the supermarket!
How do canned peaches cause Alzheimer’s?
Re: California farmers to destroy 420k peach trees following Del Monte bankruptcy
#390Earlier quoted context omitted.
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…
I think that notion is mostly meaningless to actual humans.