I'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.

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Modified3019 8 hours ago | parent | next [-]

I’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/

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bix6 8 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

He saw demand falling or what? What did he swap to?

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modeless 7 hours ago | parent [-]

He saw demand falling, exports falling due to the strong dollar and increased productivity in international farming, mismanagement at the canneries with executives cashing out using leveraged buyouts and saddling the companies with unsustainable debt, and trouble finding enough labor (peaches are harvested by hand, almost entirely by migrant workers from Mexico because no native Californian is willing to climb up and down ladders all day in 110 degree heat and 100% humidity, and it's hard to ensure legality).

He switched to almonds and walnuts, which are less labor intensive and have better management on the processing side. But they are an export-heavy market and have also been hammered by the strong dollar. Inflation-adjusted crop prices are near all time lows while costs are at all-time highs. Farming is a hard business!

	▲	bix6 7 hours ago \| parent [-]
		Smart man! LBOs are such a plague we need better regulation. Farming is hard. I heard Urea prices are up 2x since the start of the year. How many farmers will go out of business because of that…