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Systems example: farmers are paid per pound for tomatoes. They therefore want to water heavily before harvest so the tomatoes get as heavy as possible. Then the
by abakker 6y ago
Systems example: farmers are paid per pound for tomatoes. They therefore want to water heavily before harvest so the tomatoes get as heavy as possible. Then they ship the heaviest possible tomatoes to a factory to be dehydrated into ketchup, sauce, and other canned goods.
The energy loss comes in 3 different parts - water waste, extra fuel in shipping, and in energy to dehydrate. Everyone pays more.
The system solution would be to price the tomato solids, not the water.
- mschuster91 6y agoHow are you going to reliably measure the solid content without destroying the tomato though?
- evgen 6y agoSampling. It is already the case that grains are tested and priced based on dry weight, it would not be hard to do the same for some of the larger veg crops.
- jelliclesfarm 6y agoThis point is moot. Canning tomatoes are different from market tomatoes grown for weight. Most tomatoes are harvested mechanically while green and unripe. They are gassed to ripeness.
- jelliclesfarm 6y agoI don’t want to derail this thread but I just posted elsewhere(re: tomatoes) this: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23781972 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23781972 And this: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23781897 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23781897