3 ms·
regardless of how the contract is structured, no contract should allow or force a producer to throw products away. this is similar to a law in the EU that forbi
by em-bee 3mo ago
regardless of how the contract is structured, no contract should allow or force a producer to throw products away. this is similar to a law in the EU that forbids producers or distributors of clothing to destroy products they don't want to sell.
once you plant a tree to grow fruit you should be allowed to keep harvesting that tree until its natural end. if there is an exclusive contract then the contract must not be allowed to be terminated before that end unless the grower is free to sell on the open market after termination.
anything else would allow patent owners to hold growers hostage
̶l̶i̶k̶e̶ ̶i̶n̶ ̶t̶h̶i̶s̶ ̶s̶t̶o̶r̶y̶ ̶h̶e̶r̶e̶.̶
- ribosometronome 3mo ago>Mora later sought to terminate his relationship with Giumarra, and he sold his nectarines to another fruit packer in 2023 The farmer sought termination and violated the contract.
- em-bee 3mo agoah, good catch. the question now is whether giumarra accepted the termination or not. i could not find that detail in the article. if they accepted it, then my argument holds (note that i am arguing how things should be, not what the actual current law on the matter is). if giumarra did not accept termination then the exclusive contract should still hold. (whether an exclusive contract is fair or not is another topic)
- JumpCrisscross 3mo ago> no contract should allow or force a producer to throw products away It doesn't, to my knowledge. It requires they not sell them.
- em-bee 3mo agothat's the same thing. if you can't throw it away you need to be allowed to sell it. the point here is sustainable production. the EU is implementing laws around that. if you produce more than what you can sell, then you need to reduce production and stop wasting resources.
- JumpCrisscross 3mo ago> that's the same thing It's really not. Exhibit A: this farmer giving away his nectarines. Hell, maybe he can write off the loss as a donation.
- s1artibartfast 3mo agoseems like that would be double dipping and likely prohibited. They already get to write off the entire cost of prouction and carry losses forward 7 years IIRC.
- slowking2 3mo agoIt’s not the same thing. He is allowed to give them away and is doing so. If Mora is in breach of contract, maybe a better remedy for the distributor would be monetary damages but that is not obvious. There’s an interesting question of if the distributor misrepresented the deal to Mora as he claims, but from the summary it appears nothing related to that is recorded that the court finds legally relevant.
- maxerickson 3mo agoWould you bar a contract for the productivity of a tree for a given period of time, with a clause dictating how excess produce is to be disposed of?
- em-bee 3mo agoyes, there should be no excess that needs to be disposed. if you produce excess you should reduce production.
- jandrewrogers 3mo agoA state of "excess production" can only be determined long after production parameters have already been committed to. Yields, logistics costs, and market capacity aren't knowable ahead of time.
- em-bee 3mo agosure, but the market consequence to overproduction is that the price goes down. if you are not allowed to destroy products just to keep the price up then you will self correct in time.
- snypher 3mo agoSo should they ask the trees to fruit less, or cut them down knowing they can't get them back online for 10 years?
- em-bee 3mo agothey should sell the fruits. and if can't sell all the fruit then yes, eventually they will need to reduce production.
- maxerickson 3mo agoNotably, US healthcare is run with this mindset. Perfect planning for exactly the capacity that we need. Works "great".
- jandrewrogers 3mo agoThe optimal quantity of discarded food is not zero.
- em-bee 3mo agotrue. but there is a difference between discarding food that has gone bad because you could not sell it, and discarding it without even trying to sell it because some exclusive contract prevents you from selling, or because you want to keep the price artificially high.
- HDThoreaun 3mo agoThe optimal quantity of food discarded on a farm should be close to 0 I think. Obviously things rot, but that's not the situation here. For staples it can make sense to systematically overproduce so that we dont starve when things go badly, but ideally you find some other use for the excess like we do with ethanol. But I dont think that thought process plays much of a role with nectarines.