5 ms·
That'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, s
by oxag3n 5mo ago
That'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 5mo ago[deleted]
- baggy_trough 5mo 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 5mo agoFarmers care about making money.
- deleted 5mo ago[deleted]
- munk-a 5mo 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 5mo 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.
- sophacles 5mo agoAnd conversely you can't grow enough food local to a large population center to feed everyone.
- TimorousBestie 5mo agoChristopher Alexander figured this one out in A Pattern Language: https://www.patternlanguageindex.com/patterns/city-country-fingers https://www.patternlanguageindex.com/patterns/city-country-f...
- bix6 5mo agoWhy didn’t we do this? Seems cool.
- HoldOnAMinute 5mo agoBecause of perverse incentives
- sophacles 5mo agoBecause it trades most of the benefits of cities for the hassle of suburban life and less efficient food production.
- TimorousBestie 5mo agoTo be fair, Alexander was writing in the seventies, long after automobiles and the suburb had killed any hope of humane urban planning in the States.
- zonkerdonker 5mo agoBig cities aren't typically in such an ideal planar geological setup as that. I'm having a hard time imagining how something like that would work in the Bay area, NYC, Seattle, Miami etc
- boc 5mo agoBecause 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.
- hluska 5mo ago> It was an easy, steady cash-positive business until it wasn't. This is out of touch. Growing fruit is one of the most difficult tasks in farming.
- themafia 5mo agoAgricultural exports are a $23 billion dollar business in California alone. Which is about 1/3 of the crops grown. This is what happens when the federal government uses a 1940s era plan to manage the economy.
- djmips 5mo agothe private equity buyout of Del Monte, that's got to be a big factor.