Plan would subsidize razing of peach trees

[Rose Siding]

WASHINGTON - Central Valley peach farmers could earn money by yanking out their trees under a program proposed Wednesday by the Agriculture Department.

In hopes of shrinking peach supplies and raising prices, federal officials want to pay farmers to pull trees from 4,000 acres. All would be in the Valley, which dominates the nation's canned peach production.
....
Not everyone is enamored of government programs that pay farmers to shrink their own crops; some of these ideological skeptics are within the Bush administration's own Office of Management and Budget.

Ultimately this internal administration resistance was overcome. Now, the Agriculture Department proposes providing $5 million, with the peach industry kicking in an additional $2 million through grower fees. Growers could earn between $500 and $1,700 for every acre they strip, depending on how productive those acres had been.
....
It's a significant crop; even so, the United States now imports more canned peaches than it exports. That's hurt domestic producers, who mostly point fingers at subsidized European competitors.

http://www.sacbee.com/content/politics/nation/story/13351165p-14192966c.html

[benburch]

1. What ASSHOLES.

We love razing orchards... In Iraq we razed some date orchards that had been there for over 500 years because we were worried that insurgents would hide in them.

[Mairead]

2. "Free market". Uh-huh. (nt)

[bleedingheart]

3. how about sending all those excess peaches to the hungry in Africa

or the hungry here in the US?

[Judi Lynn]

4. When anyone becomes twisted enough to finally see profits

as more meaningful than ethics, or even as important as ethics, he should realize something has gone wrong.