Tree Fruit Agreement

The lure of linking to articles proves irresistible, although the article in question is pretty depressing.

This morning’s Merc has this story, by Robert Rodriguez, of the McClatchy News Service, (McClatchy is the Sacramento company that owns the Merc.) The attention-grabbing headline is “Fruit growers ripping up trees: Fewer plums, others expected as prices slide and economy takes toll.”

Fruit trees are a long-term proposition, and they’re not easily replaced. Last year, similar stories focused on the drought, and farmers’ not being able to irrigate their orchards. Farmers near San Diego were cutting their avocado trees down to stumps, in the hope that they’d effectively hibernate until the farmers could afford to water them again. But this article blames the economy and changing consumer preferences.

Gary Van Sickle, director of research for the tree fruit agreement, attributed much of the decline on the continued pull-out of trees. Older and less appealing varieties of tree fruit were bulldozed last winter as retailers pushed away from fruit that wasn’t selling.
…
One of the growers’ biggest obstacles will be the economy. Consumers are spending less on food products that they consider luxuries, including tree fruit, said Van Sickle.

That’s depressing enough, speaking as one who views tree fruit as a necessity, rather than a luxury. I’d really like to know more about the “older and less appealing varieties,” too, since heirloom produce has been such a trend over the last decade.

But the most disturbing news to me was:

Several longtime packers won’t reopen this season, including the George Brothers in the Dinuba-area and Ito Packing in Reedley. Others, such as Sunny Cal in Reedley, are changing hands.

Carl Buxman of Sunny Cal is leasing the company to several of his employees. At the age of 70, Buxman wants to get out of the industry while he still has a chance.

“I’m not broke,” he said. “But I also didn’t want to go into debt. This is a tough business right now.”

Buxman expects that the smaller to mid-size packing houses and growers will continue to struggle. The larger players in the industry survive by being diversified and by meeting the demands of larger clients, such as the big box retailers.

Farms are only part of the food system; processing and distribution are also important. Like the loss of smaller slaughterhouses that could cater to local meat production, losing smaller packers will put pressure on orchardists to get big or get out.

Every year, Village Harvest picks apples and pears in small orchards in the Santa Cruz mountains whose owners cannot afford to sell their own fruit. Labor costs and shipping to the already-distant packing houses in the Central Valley eat up what profit there is. And this drives me crazy, especially to go to the store and see cheap apples from China and Chile.

Piece by piece, we’re losing our local food systems.