Posted on 08/22/2009 3:23:26 PM PDT by newbie2008
Farmers in Michigan and six other states are harvesting a bumper crop of tart cherries. But the bounty is turning out to be the pits for farmers whose fruit is rotting in orchards instead of bubbling in cherry pies.
Under a Depression-era federal program designed to keep prices from plummeting, tart-cherry farmers are being told by fruit processors to leave up to 40% of their crop unharvested.
"It's kind of heartbreaking," said Rob Manigold, a tart-cherry farmer near Traverse City, Mich. Michigan grows about 75% of all the tart cherries in the U.S.
(Excerpt) Read more at online.wsj.com ...
Wanna bet those same fellas benefited somewhere along the line?
Ever price cherry juice at a store?
I think we need to deduct how much that is valued at right off the top of Congresses salary.
Wanna bet they didn’t
This is freaking idiotic. The world eats our cherries, not just the US.
The excess would be sold elsewhere, but all would be sold for less than normal.
I hate federal control of the economy. It guarantees failure.
”Yes it is. One of the first times I can remember being truly outraged was when I was a child and watching dairy farmers on TV dump thousands of gallons of milk down storm drains because the price of milk had bottomed out. My family couldn’t afford milk half the time (used that powdered stuff) so watching this was especially heart wrenching.
Price fixing.
Damn just sell the 40% you don’t want in the US market overseas or in Canada. Hell, or Mexico, they don’t have a lot of food down there.
I know what you mean. It’s outrageous. They could at least be put on the shelves at the food banks!!
I remember years back, I saw a boy and his seemingly single mom at the supermarket. He asked her for plums, which were ripe and fragrant on the shelf.
“We can’t afford them...” and I was really touched, remembering how it was to grow up practically dirt poor.
But I didn’t do anything - it seemed awkward.
I’ll go to my grave wishing I had handed that kid a bag of plums and a five dollar bill and told him and his mom to have a nice day...
Sir, that you even remember the incident and continue feeling badly about it speaks volumes about your character. I’d be willing to bet that you have more than made up for it since then.
We went through a time when we couldn’t afford milk, although we still don’t buy it very often, just out of habit. I’d rather buy meat, but the kids like milk.
I guess this explains why I was getting great deals on cherries for the whole month of July. June was pretty good too.
Usually when produce is cheap, it’s better. One finds that with lettuce especially, around these parts. When the lettuce is high priced, it’s usually little spheres of crap.
If you would like to be added or dropped from the Michigan ping list, please freepmail me.
Can't the farmers who have agreed not to market a good part of their cherry crop simply donate the remainder to charities to help feed the hungry? Problem might be that there is no federal program by which that can be done./ Sarc.?
How about letting the market decide?!
This is absolutely appalling. Like you said, they could donate that food to some worthy cause.
The best approach is to throw the unusable crop into the ethanol hopper.
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