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California farmers to destroy 420k peach trees following Del Monte bankruptcy
- bestouff 6mo ago[flagged]
- ch4s3 6mo ago> The impacts pushed a delegation of California lawmakers to ask the U.S. Department of Agriculture to provide financial support to the fruit growers. Seems like the opposite of the free market. Large farmers are usually the first people lining up for a government handout, and their representatives are regularly anti-market types.
- bdangubic 6mo agothis 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
- nkrisc 6mo agoThey’re selectively socialist.
- ch4s3 6mo agoWe have 2 anti-capitalist parties right now that shower largess on on their favored interests.
- bdangubic 6mo agoonly one is pretending not to be one though… during the NYC mayoral election there was a single GOP politician who wasn’t publicly crying about mamdani (as if anyone cares what congressman from some shithole state thinks about it) which is just so comical. republican party is more socialist (when it needs to be) than china
- lenerdenator 6mo agoThe Free Market magic hand™ does not apply to those who have capital and are facing losses. That's only when you don't have capital and are facing losses.
- skybrian 6mo agoDid Del Monte's investors and lenders lose money? It would be strange if they didn't.
- lenerdenator 6mo agoThis is more in reference to the farmers.
- bestouff 6mo agoExactly. (I wonder why my comment has been deleted)
- bell-cot 6mo agoThe U.S. has not had any sort of Free Market in agricultural products since at least 1942 - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wickard_v._Filburn https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wickard_v._Filburn Sure, there's plenty of puffed-up talk about having one. That's kinda like the talk about Santa bringing toys for good little girls and boys.
- baggy_trough 6mo agoIsn't that what is happening, minus the government assistance?
- scherlock 6mo agoSo, they cut down the trees and do what? How is this supposed help anything?
- CobrastanJorji 6mo agoThe problem for the individual farmers is that they own a farm covered in peach trees, but they can't profitably sell peaches. The money will let them remove all the peach trees and then develop the land for some new crop. This is also good for the remaining peach farmers because it keeps peach prices high, and also because massive forests of unattended peach trees leads to pest problems.
- fred_is_fred 6mo agoSignificantly reduced water usage for one. The water is the limiting factor.
- hparadiz 6mo agoIt's really not. https://droughtmonitor.unl.edu/ https://droughtmonitor.unl.edu/ California is not in any drought right now and our reservoirs last 10 years in the absolute worst case. Most of our water goes into the ocean. I have no dog in the race in terms of what trees there are but if you take them down it'll be invasive South American pepper trees or mustard grass. As long as it's used and sequestering carbon it's all gravy.
- bix6 6mo ago10 years? Says who? I’ve heard 2 years in a worst case.
- hparadiz 6mo agoWith respect. It's a dumb internet-ism not grounded in reality. https://oroville.lakesonline.com/Level/ https://oroville.lakesonline.com/Level/ You can see the water level there for Lake Orville which is the source for the California aqueduct system that feeds part of the Central Valley and the 20 million living in Southern California. Given that non-residential accounts for 92% of all the water use California is never in any danger of not being able to provide water to residential. That would require 20 years without rain and that also assumes we don't build new reservoirs. California is the size of a country. The North is in an area more like the Pacific Northwest than any desert. We just lived through a worst case scenario that lasted 3 years and only on the 3rd year of that did we even bother to start water restrictions. For the past two years we've been full to 100% and having to let it go in the spring. I did a ton of research on this cause I own a property supplied by this system.
- bell-cot 6mo agoWhile SFGate probably isn't renowned for its agricultural coverage, it'd be nice if there was at least a little context in their story. Is the demand for canned peaches dropping, or is production from other regions or countries displacing the California production, or what? What new crops might the farmers replace the trees with? Are there Peach Festivals or other local cultural events which will be impacted?
- LeoPanthera 6mo agoDel Monte was killed by COVID. Canned food sales spiked and they thought that would last, but it didn't. The specific peaches referred to in this story are "Cling peaches", which can only be canned, they aren't sold fresh. But modern supply chains mean fresh peaches of other varieties are easily available, which has reduced the demand for canned. They'll probably replace the trees with almonds, pistachios, and walnuts.
- namenotrequired 6mo agoThanks for your answers! > Del Monte was killed by COVID. Canned food sales spiked and they thought that would last, but it didn't. Why can’t they reduce to their former size? It seems the California plants had been around long before Covid
- LeoPanthera 6mo agoThey permanently closed their Modesto and Hughson canneries in early 2026, and voided 20-year contracts with around 70 California cling peach growers.
- bombcar 6mo agoDebt financing means you can basically never reduce back down, the debt load kills you (as it did here). If anything would have been profitable spun off, it would have been spun off in the bankruptcy.
- js2 6mo agoDeath by many cuts: "Consumer preferences have shifted away from preservative-laden canned food in favor of healthier alternatives," said Sarah Foss, global head of legal and restructuring at Debtwire, a financial consultancy. Grocery inflation also caused consumers to seek out cheaper store brands. And President Donald Trump's 50% tariff on imported steel, which went into effect in June, will also push up the prices Del Monte and others must pay for cans. Del Monte Foods, which is owned by Singapore's Del Monte Pacific, was also hit with a lawsuit last year by a group of lenders that objected to the company's debt restructuring plan. The case was settled in May with a loan that increased Del Monte's interest expenses by $4 million annually, according to a company statement. https://www.pbs.org/newshour/nation/del-monte-files-for-bankruptcy-as-its-canned-fruit-and-vegetable-sales-slide https://www.pbs.org/newshour/nation/del-monte-files-for-bank... During the coronavirus pandemic, when more people were eating at home, demand rose to record highs, Del Monte said in the filing, and the company committed to higher production levels. Once demand began to ease, Del Monte was left with too much inventory that it was forced to store, write off and “sell at substantial losses.” The company also said it had carried a large amount of debt since it was acquired in 2014 by Del Monte Pacific Limited, which borrowed to finance the acquisition. Interest rates continued to increase, and the company’s annual cash interest expense has nearly doubled since 2020. https://www.nytimes.com/2025/07/02/business/del-monte-bankruptcy.html https://www.nytimes.com/2025/07/02/business/del-monte-bankru... If you're up for a 12 minute video, besides re-iterating the points above (particularly underscoring the debt issue), it also points out that the company has changed hands many times in its history. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=879CJsz8X6A https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=879CJsz8X6A
- delichon 6mo agoThis is your fault for eating fewer canned peaches. The clingstone variety is bred for canning and not well suited to eating fresh.
- Lerc 6mo agoMy fault? I'm blaming The Presidents of the United States of America.
- Bichote 6mo agoMillions of peaches, peaches for m̶e̶ no-one -> https://youtu.be/3GCrzjVdmSg https://youtu.be/3GCrzjVdmSg
- busterarm 6mo agoPeaches come from a can. They were put there by a man.
- HerbManic 6mo agoI see your hand and raise you. Weird Al's straight cover. Al should just do an album like that, would be kinda neat. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ddju6JMSp7g https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ddju6JMSp7g
- aidenn0 6mo agoYou neglected to mention the presence of Chris Ballew...
- bix6 6mo agoClingstone peaches are best used for canning and this is one of the last canneries shutting down. The remaining CA cannery is buying what it can. This helps them remove now worthless trees and plant new crops. But it will take a generation to recover.
- ryandrake 6mo ago> When a processing facility closes and 55,000 acres of fruit suddenly have nowhere to go — that’s not something a family farm can just absorb Won't they at least sell the fruit to customers through grocery stores, where possible? I can see replacing the crops based on reduced future demand from the canneries, but surely the current fruit is usable.
- afavour 6mo agoHow would they establish those relationships with grocery stores, and get the peaches to them? Sure you could do it with a handful of local stores but the numbers we're talking about are a rounding error.
- AngryData 6mo agoFrom what I understand it is a canning variety of peach that isn't all that great for eating fresh. So while im sure they could sell some, I doubt most people would come back for much more after the first time.
- dehrmann 6mo agoThis. They'll be edible, but we don't have a fresh peach shortage, so you don't really want these peaches.
- jandrewrogers 6mo agoIt is common in agriculture that there is no existing market in which the price would cover the cost of moving the crop to that market. Destroying the crop minimizes the loss to the farmer.
- ryandrake 6mo agoReminds me of Steinbeck: “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 crime, angry at the people who have come to take the fruit. A million people hungry, needing the fruit- and kerosene sprayed over the golden mountains. And the smell of rot fills the country. Burn coffee for fuel in the ships. Burn corn to keep warm, it makes a hot fire. Dump potatoes in the rivers and place guards along the banks to keep the hungry people from fishing them out. Slaughter the pigs and bury them, and let the putrescence drip down into the earth. There is a crime here that goes beyond denunciation. There is a sorrow here that weeping cannot symbolize. There is a failure here that topples all our success. The fertile earth, the straight tree rows, the sturdy trunks, and the ripe fruit. And children dying of pellagra must die because a profit cannot be taken from an orange. And coroners must fill in the certificate- died of malnutrition- because the food must rot, must be forced to rot. The people come with nets to fish for potatoes in the river, and the guards hold them back; they come in rattling cars to get the dumped oranges, but the kerosene is sprayed. And they stand still and watch the potatoes float by, listen to the screaming pigs being killed in a ditch and covered with quick-lime, watch the mountains of oranges slop down to a putrefying ooze; and in the eyes of the people there is the failure; and in the eyes of the hungry there is a growing wrath. In the souls of the people the grapes of wrath are filling and growing heavy, growing heavy for the vintage.”
- roxolotl 6mo agoNothing new here “ 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 crime, angry at the people who have come to take the fruit. A million people hungry, needing the fruit- and kerosene sprayed over the golden mountains. And the smell of rot fills the country. Burn coffee for fuel in the ships. Burn corn to keep warm, it makes a hot fire. Dump potatoes in the rivers and place guards along the banks to keep the hungry people from fishing them out. Slaughter the pigs and bury them, and let the putrescence drip down into the earth. There is a crime here that goes beyond denunciation. There is a sorrow here that weeping cannot symbolize. There is a failure here that topples all our success. The fertile earth, the straight tree rows, the sturdy trunks, and the ripe fruit. And children dying of pellagra must die because a profit cannot be taken from an orange. And coroners must fill in the certificate- died of malnutrition- because the food must rot, must be forced to rot. The people come with nets to fish for potatoes in the river, and the guards hold them back; they come in rattling cars to get the dumped oranges, but the kerosene is sprayed. And they stand still and watch the potatoes float by, listen to the screaming pigs being killed in a ditch and covered with quick-lime, watch the mountains of oranges slop down to a putrefying ooze; and in the eyes of the people there is the failure; and in the eyes of the hungry there is a growing wrath. In the souls of the people the grapes of wrath are filling and growing heavy, growing heavy for the vintage.” - John Steinbeck; Grapes of Wrath
- linkregister 6mo agoI loved reading Grapes of Wrath in high school. How is this related to the topic? This reaction is similar to constituents who bristle at the fact that their local library destroys old books, seeing a parallel to book burnings in 1930s Germany.
- roxolotl 6mo agoThe topic at hand is market forces demanding the destruction of agricultural products. The horror of that seems very topical to me.
- 1970-01-01 6mo agoI wonder why they cannot be moved. There are machines that simply pluck them from the dirt and have them ready to go. They could auction them off for $1/each and still make a profit. https://interestingengineering.com/lists/7-mighty-machines-for-moving-trees-without-killing-them https://interestingengineering.com/lists/7-mighty-machines-f...
- GenerocUsername 6mo agoI 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.
- 1970-01-01 6mo agoWhy 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.
- squeaky-clean 6mo agoIf they're shuttering this farm because peaches are no longer profitable, why would someone else pay for these trees?
- cpursley 6mo agoUnfortunately 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.
- 6mo ago
- oxag3n 6mo agoThat's what happens when "family farms" rely on a large industrial complex and grow a mono-culture that doesn't have uses other than canning. It was an easy, steady cash-positive business until it wasn't. If those farmers thought what is final product and who benefits from it most, they'd grow diversified crops to sell locally, which many California family farms do.
- deleted 6mo ago[deleted]
- baggy_trough 6mo ago> If those farmers thought what is final product and who benefits from it most, they'd grow diversified crops to sell locally, which many California family farms do. What if they can't make much money doing so?
- fred_is_fred 6mo agoFarmers care about making money.
- deleted 6mo ago[deleted]
- munk-a 6mo agoAnd farmers that don't care about making money aren't farmers any more. Agriculture is a highly competitive business - even large scale agriculture still has very stiff price competition. There isn't a lot of fat to burn on charitable gestures and what is there isn't on the scale of maintaining such a large unproductive orchard. It sucks - don't misread my statement. It is deeply unfortunate and we should consider mitigations for the future - but the party to throw blame at here isn't the farmers and neither should they be expected to bear the cost.
- pinkmuffinere 6mo ago> they'd grow diversified crops to sell locally This is out of touch, many of these farmers are 100+ miles from a large population center. They can’t move enough produce at a local store to stay in business.
- clarionbell 6mo agoPeople 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 rest will spoil, and rest of the land will be effectively unused, and a burden. The best option is to cut that as much as possible, and plant something else that actually sells. Of course, people who never approached agriculture will be appalled at this, and call it great injustice.
- kshahkshah 6mo agoSeems like an opportunity to form a coop. I guess I’m being naive though. I just don’t know how
- unglaublich 6mo agoIt's difficult for them because farmers are raised anti-union individualists that are at the mercy of middle-men. If they would cooperate, unionize even, they would be far more powerful than they are now.
- modeless 6mo agoI'm sorry, but this is completely wrong. California canning peach farmers are organized and crop prices are set by industry-wide bargaining with processors every year. Additionally, now that Del Monte is out of the business, the only remaining operating canneries are owned by a grower cooperative. It didn't save the industry. In fact, it may have led to the irrational planting of these trees that now need to be pulled. Source: my father was a peach farmer and chairman of the board of the California Canning Peach Association for many years. But he saw this coming and got out of the business.
- Modified3019 6mo agoI’m an agronomist and while I don’t directly deal with that level of things, what you wrote sounds roughly like what goes on for the hazelnut industry here in Oregon. https://www.hazelnutbargaining.com/ https://www.hazelnutbargaining.com/
- VladVladikoff 6mo agoSome local meat smoker is going to be very happy about all that peach wood. holy smokes!
- rented_mule 6mo agoThere's a good chance of that, yes! Farmers tend to be very good at getting every bit of value out of things. I live in the Sierras, uphill from many of these peach trees. Near the peach trees are lots and lots of almond trees. Almond trees are rotated (removed and replaced with young trees) every couple of decades or so, so 3-5% are taken out every year. A lot of the removed almond tree wood is sold to people like me up in the Sierras where we heat with it in the winter. Almond has significantly more energy per unit of volume that most other species of trees in our area. I don't like the smell of burning almond wood. I bet peach wood smells a lot better, but it would take a lot more space to store the same energy.
- trollbridge 6mo agoThis is rapidly changing. As almond orchards get taken over by corporate farmers instead of smaller family farmers, they just chip the almond wood and discard it instead of dealing with waiting for various people to come in and get the almond wood. (Source: my relatives in the Sac. Valley don’t heat with almond wood anymore.)
- toast0 6mo agoA lot of people are using pellet stoves/bbq; seems like you could sell the chipped wood to someone?
- jnmandal 6mo agoPlacing it at the root of the trees makes a ton of sense as it increases yields and lowers need for inputs. Also helps with the compaction from all the mechanization in the orchards. Selling it as fuel is maybe some added revenue in the short term but really just doesn't make sense. Now if you were getting a premium (lumber, specialty hardwood, etc), then processing and selling could make sense
- deleted 6mo ago[deleted]
- elmean 6mo ago[flagged]
- BloondAndDoom 6mo agoIf you are in agriculture you understand how expensive to move things, as crazy as this sounds it’s practically only option many times. Easy way to understand, they can announce it’s free come and get it and it wouldn’t have moved. Which clearly shows financially moving these don’t make sense.
- lifis 6mo agoWhy? 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?
- _diyar 6mo agoWhat‘s missing is considering why, if it were so easy, nobody has done that before they went out of business.
- watwut 6mo agoReality is missing from that LLM analysis.
- rickypp 6mo agoYeah 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.
- nradov 6mo agoAre there a lot of extra trucks and refrigerated trailers sitting around idle?
- sys_64738 6mo agoThe Man from Del Monte said No?
- Cakez0r 6mo agoIt seems that del monte proper is not actually declaring bankruptcy, so how is it that the American tax payer is left picking up the check on this one? Privatized profits, socialized losses!
- fckgw 6mo agoThe money isn't going to Del Monte, it's going to their suppliers. The ones who lost money when Del Monte closed.
- Cakez0r 6mo agoYes, i have no issue with that, but why is the money coming from the tax payer instead of del monte?
- Legend2440 6mo agoDel monte filed for bankruptcy last year. That's why the cannery was closing down in the first place.
- Cakez0r 6mo agoIn name only. Del Monte is still operating.
- micromacrofoot 6mo agoIt’s all about maximizing value for creditors. Similar with the Spirit bankruptcy, nobody wanted to save the company... they wanted to sell the assets to reduce losses.
- shadedtriangle 6mo agoI 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.
- duxup 6mo agoI'm not sure that the Department of Agriculture could do a better job canning and selling peaches better than the previous company. I doubt they were just passing on profits on the way to bankruptcy ...
- hakfoo 6mo agoWell, we famously filled caves full of cheese to keep the dairy industry afloat. Why not just send every American household a few tins of free fruit every month? It might be the closest thing to nutritious food some people get?
- exabrial 6mo agoglad we piped all of that water off the Colorado river to them
- dehrmann 6mo agoThat area doesn't get Colorado River water.
- PH4660T 6mo ago[flagged]
- crazyfingers 6mo agoFruit isn’t very efficient.
- Aboutplants 6mo agoWhat are the likely crops that would replace these? Is there chance for Agrivoltaics or straight up Solar being the most profitable opportunity?
- trunkiedozer 6mo agoSo weird to have so many peach experts here, but I think it’s peachy.
- trunkiedozer 6mo agoFrozen peaches are superior
- pfdietz 6mo agoAs I understand it, Del Monte made a few mistakes. The first was related to COVID. Sales of canned goods spiked during COVID. They misinterpreted this as a permanent change and invested accordingly. Second, they did not find a way to compete with store brands, which are no longer at a quality deficit vs. more expensive name brands like Del Monte. Finally, they didn't address changes in diet that (as I see it) makes sugary syrupy tree candy not something people want to eat. Carbs are recognized now as seriously unhealthy. Ozempic and related drugs may have also affected this.
- chrneu 6mo agoCorrection: Carbs are not "unhealthy". That's a wildly inaccurate and broad thing to say. Excess consumption of processed and/or "unhealthy" carbs is unhealthy. Excess consumption of protein is also unhealthy. Same with fiber. I'm not commenting on anything else, just the fact that "carbs are recognized now as seriously unhealthy" is absolutely untrue.
- recursive-call 6mo agoTrue, but carbs are being vilified in the media right now, and have been for a while, so public opinion on them (and especially sugar) is very negative
- t-3 6mo ago> Same with fiber. Really? The only issues arising from fiber that I've heard of is constipation, and that's only if diet suddenly changes and large amounts of fiber are introduced to a digestive system unused to it. AFAIK most people don't even get a tenth of what they should in terms of fiber.
- pfdietz 6mo agoIt also depends on just what kind of fiber. Bran flakes are like the sovereign cure for constipation.
- RandallBrown 6mo ago
- ButlerianJihad 6mo agoThis is all because :peach: now only means "buttocks" or "impeachment" isn't it? Who'd want to eat those anymore! https://emojipedia.org/peach https://emojipedia.org/peach
- susiecambria 6mo agoAll I could think about when I read the title was all the food insecure people who live in my little rural neck of the woods.
- goodmythical 6mo agoWell, all you've got to do is rent several thousand trucks to go pick them up "for free"
- traderj0e 6mo agoThey should hire me to maintain those trees, they'll die faster that way.
- robinsoncrusue 6mo agoYou 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?
- mrunkel 6mo agoWhat is dark about the best time to get high?
- dehrmann 6mo agoI'm from that area and grew up around those sort of farms. A neighbor actually had peaches. Fruit canning had been in decline for a long time leading up to this (consumers prefer fresh), and most of the producers have long since moved away from canning peaches.
- keithnz 6mo agoI've worked in agtech for the last 20 years supplying CA with various equipment and there's a vast amount of food industry there. So, the unfortunate thing is, kind of need to let capitalism do its job here. Ultimately, there is a lot of opportunity and infrastructure for all kinds of crops. Either people adapt or someone will buy them out. The only time you should really worry is if anyone trys to rezone agricultural land for other purposes.
- paswut 6mo ago[dead]
- cm2012 6mo agoThe only reason this is upvoted at all is people have an emotional attachment to trees. Note, there is no moral difference between a cultivated tree and a cultivate tulip or corn stalk. Its not like trees have a bigger brain because they are bigger, it doesnt work that way.
- ropable 6mo agoEverybody gangsta about not needing government handouts until it's their own livelihood at stake.
- burnt-resistor 6mo agoUS farmers are the biggest socialists despite their political assertions.
- silexia 6mo agoFarmer 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).
- defrost 6mo agoAustralia 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.mla.com.au/news-and-events/us-tariffs/ * https://www.agriculture.gov.au/biosecurity-trade/export/from-australia/quota/us-quotas/us-beef-arrangements https://www.agriculture.gov.au/biosecurity-trade/export/from...
- jimnotgym 6mo agoSerious question Were these trees ever profitable? If the true cost of water resources were added? If the true cost of picking them with US workers were paid? Any other subsidy? In my country there is a farm lobby too, but they rather look after the massive agribusiness at the expense of small farms. Is that the case in the US? I have never seen a californian peach orchard (I have read Grapes of Wrath, if that counts!), are they a similar environmental disaster to the almond monoculture?
- maxglute 6mo agoTrash eating peaces. Napkin math suggest 500 tankers of peach juice, which makes me sad.
- jms703 6mo agoWhat do they do with the wood from the trees. I have an offset smoker and fruit woods are excellent fuel.