As prices fall, strawberry farmers plow crops under

[Newsjock]

Source: St. Petersburg Times

For weeks, it was difficult to find strawberries at grocery stores. Now, the shelves brim with cartons of berries and the prices are especially low.

But while shoppers are scoring on sales, the story out in the fields isn't so happy. Many farmers are plowing bushes filled with ripening strawberries under because they're not making enough to cover their costs.

... Decades ago, during this time of year, farmers would turn their fields over for U-pick to finish up the season. But liability and a preference for planting a spring crop has caused that tradition to dwindle to just a few local farms.

Now, farmers just let the berries rot on the plants. It might seem wasteful, but they explain that if they pick for such low profits, they'll lose money. They can't afford to do that — especially after such a bad season.

Read more: http://www.tampabay.com/news/business/agriculture/as-prices-fall-strawberry-farmers-plow-crops-under/1082628

[TwilightGardener]

1. What a waste.

[xultar]

3. +1

[Subdivisions]

21. Yes, but not 100% waste. Plowing the strawberries under will

put beneficial nutrients back into the soil, enriching it for the next crop.

[Dont_Bogart_the_Pretzel]

25. +1

[SpiralHawk]

41. Not unless they are organic

Most so-called 'conventional' strawberry farmers use tons of petrochemical based fertilizers and pesticides and crap.

That just embitters the land and the water...and if they get picked and eaten, it adds to the toxic build up in human bodies and minds and chronic illness begins to develop.

I figure the toxins influencing minds are a BIG reason so many republicons are going off the deep end their their fear and hate.

[Subdivisions]

43. Yes, but in the non-organic operation, the turning of the strawberries under will

reduce the amount of chemical fertilizers needed on the next crop, would it not?

[SpiralHawk]

62. Well, it would increase the amount of organic matter in the soil

and it would make it possible for life to continue in a healthy manner for the billions (literally) of microorganisms and worms and so forth that are part of healthy soil -- but you would likely need other amendments. It is certainly possible to amend with clean, non-toxic, non-chemical materials.

If I am buying strawberries, I always spend the extra dough to get organic. The so-called 'conventional' ones are among the most chem-laden of any items in the grocery story.

That's a fact, Jack.

[cmd]

119. Aren't strawberries perennials?

There would be no reason to plow them under.

[appal_jack]

121. They are grown as annuals these days.

A strawberry plant produces its biggest berries the first year. At some point after fruiting, a strawberry plant will also try to produce runners, which (though a biological necessity for the plant) is inconvenient for a commercial-scale grower using plastic mulch, drip irrigation, pre-plant soil fumigation (ugh), and precision-spacing of plants.

Plowing under a strawberry crop after its first fruiting also helps to reduce disease pressure (ideally in conjunction with crop rotation, though few commercial growers rotate their strawberry fields into other crops).

Finally, the black plastic mulch used in modern strawberry production gets pretty ragged after one season. A thicker plastic could be used to get two crops out of selected varieties of berries. Some growers in my region are beginning to experiment with this. I think that a two-season organic berry production system might be feasible for organic growers who practice good disease management, soil biology, and fertility.

:hi:

-app

[cmd]

129. Thanks

It's always a good day when I learn something.

[HopeHoops]

2. Our bed will be blooming soon. The plants did well over the winter.

Unfortunately, so did the weeds. It will take some work but we'll get a good crop.

[tridim]

6. I still have strawberry runners living five years after pulling them from my garden.

Along with mint, strawberry plants are the bad-asses of the plant world. They're practically immortal.

[HopeHoops]

8. Hell, mint IS immortal! So is cilantro.

We've got banana mint that migrated from a planter into a nearby mulched area. It will be there forever. We had cilantro in a planter - same thing. On the plus side, they're both in with the roses and some shrubs and don't really mess with either. The thinnings keep us well supplied and we let the stronger cilantro plants produce our coriander. I made a 16'x4'x2' herb box for my wife last Spring. We got a shitload of herbs out of that and the perennials all came back (not sure on the Rosemary yet), and even the parsley survived the winter and is producing. It is supposed to be a biennial, but this is the first time it has made it (we grew it in small boxes prior to this).

[knitter4democracy]

102. Nope. It's just trying to take over the world.

I know my apple mint is, starting with my lawn. It's gotten out of the raised planters (with weed block fabric, etc.) and is heading toward the neighbor's lawn. I don't mind that much--it's soft, it smells heavenly, and it's a useful plant as opposed to grass. I'm wondering what level of Armageddon it's going to be when the wild strawberries, apple mint, and domesticated strawberries all meet in a certain section of my yard.

[HopeHoops]

103. No, the Giant Hogweed is trying to take over the world.

Heracleum mantegazzianum

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Giant_hogweed

1972, Genesis: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZSLcwGFyZRA (Yes, that's Peter Gabriel)

[knitter4democracy]

111. Whoa. That's worse than the garlic mustard that's crowding out the trillium here.

Yikes!

I still think apple mint can take it. :)

[HopeHoops]

128. The song is actually rather accurate. The "venom" is photo-reactive.

Pennsylvania even has a Department of Hogweed Eradication. They are NOT easy to kill!

[geardaddy]

22. So is catnip!

That stuff won't die!

[MattBaggins]

78. Catnip is a mint that's why it is so aggressive

[geardaddy]

97. Ahh yes.

That's right.

[snooper2]

64. And onions..

I pulled some old onion plants out of our garden and threw them over the top of a half barrel in the back yard filled with dirt and weeds..to be picked up later..

later never happened...and I noticed a bout two weeks after that the bulbs took root again and they are standing straight up :rofl:

[tridim]

4. Meh, commercial strawberries suck anyway.

[DJ13]

5. I notice the link is to a Tampa newspaper

Are the berries mentioned grown in Florida?

If so, wouldnt the same freeze that is claimed to have destroyed most of the Florida tomato crop have destroyed an even more fragile strawberry crop?

[csziggy]

23. Plant City, just to the east of Tampa

They saved the plants by pumping millions of gallons of water out of the aquifer, lowering the water table enough that a number of sinkholes developed and destroyed some houses and roads. There were threads here about the sinkholes - the news covered very little about them, even locally.

Planters in Florida have found that pumping and spraying water over their crops can salvage the plants and maybe the buds that will make the new fruit. That is why there was a shortage of strawberries for a while. They picked all the crops that were close to being ripe before the freeze. Then they protected the plants as best as possible. I guess it worked since now there are too many strawberries.

The problem now is that the temperatures are warming up here in Florida and the fruit on the plants will ripe rapidly all at the same time. With prices down, the farmers cannot afford to pay the pickers even if they could sell the fruit for freezing or canning as jam or preserves. It's a lot cheaper to pay one guy to drive a big tractor over the crop than to pay a crew of pickers to pick the fruit for processing.

[madfloridian]

133. No, because the strawberry growers pumped the aquifer 60 ft down...

to save their crops. Many homes were lost to sinkholes because of that.

Billions of gallons of water a day..and then instead of letting hungry people pick the crops now they plow them under.

[Naturalist111]

7. Doesn't make sense at all......

they had to spend some money on the crop this way they will get nothing back. I call BS on this one.

[Duer 157099]

11. I disagree. Plowing it under will at least enrich the soil

Unless that's what they do anyway except without the fruit? Maybe the fruit will add value to the soil?

:shrug:

[anigbrowl]

13. Sure it does

The strawberries don't pick themselves, you have to hire people to collect and pack them.

Now, if you don't expect to cover your costs because the price has gone through the floor, do you accept the loss of the money you spent planting and watering them, or do you spend more money on picking fruit you know you can't sell and make an even bigger loss?

[Naturalist111]

24. Didn't they loose the money it took to plant them?

Why not recover some of that? So you believe that after plowing the field to get ready to plant, plant, fertilize, water etc and you get to the point all you have to do is pick them and it makes sense to let all that hard work go to waste? To not try and recoup some of your investment?

[riderinthestorm]

37. They won't recoup any money by selling, they'll only lose money

They have to pay the workers who will pick the crop.

They have to pay workmen's comp, liability insurance, gas, transport costs to market etc. All of that's the most expensive part of the process.

The farmers are simply taking the loss they already know they've got, and minimizing any further losses by plowing it under.

It's true that the ground will be enriched. That's not insignificant.

[Naturalist111]

48. You didn't address the money spent to produce the crop but I

believe this is only to keep the cost up for next harvest.

[riderinthestorm]

54. I did.

The farmers are simply eating the losses they've already incurred. Read my post again.

The least expensive part of the process is planting and letting them grow. Perhaps they sprayed them with a fertilizer/weedkiller but the most expensive part of the farming operation still was ahead.

So the farmer is cutting his losses and moving on.

[Naturalist111]

67. You are correct

I did the research and for anyone wanting to see it.
Page 10 of 21

http://coststudies.ucdavis.edu/files/strawberryorgcc06.pdf

without doubt on my part the liability issue needs to be fixed so that farmers can say come and get it and make some money or let it go for free. That is what they did anyway by burying it. They let it go for free. Never understood why people would get in a position in which they need to sell their home but if they couldn't get the money they wanted for it, they would let it go back to the bank. Out of spite they wouldn't let some one else get a good deal.

[anigbrowl]

100. Maybe you should take a class

'Never understood why people would get in a position in which they need to sell their home but if they couldn't get the money they wanted for it, they would let it go back to the bank. Out of spite they wouldn't let some one else get a good deal.'

Because if they give it back to the bank, the whole debt is cancelled and they walk away - minus a home, but also minus any obligation to the bank.

If they sell it for less than the amount they owe on the mortgage, all that money goes back to the bank and they are still in debt.

By letting the bank have it, the bank also accepts the loss in value on the property. They can put the title in the safe and hope that prices improve, or they can sell it straight away, get back some of the money they loaned and accept the loss of the rest...which is exactly what happens a lot of the time.

whenever you see a piece of real estate described as 'bank owned' it means the homeowner walked away, ended their obligation to the bank, and the bank is now selling the house in the hope of partially recouping their loss.

Yes, sometimes the smartest thing to do is to let something go for free and accept that you were unlucky and/or made a bad decision. The whole point of saving is to maintain a buffer against such possibilities. Insurance is one kind of kind saving that only pays out under certain conditions. If you don't have to collect the insurance, then you're letting the premiums go for free but at least you had some economic security in exchange.

[anigbrowl]

46. Yes, they did. but they'll have to spend even more money to pick them.

The picking isn't free. If the amount you can get by selling them when prices are so low is less than the cost of picking, which appears to be the case here, then it's simply not worth it because you'll be increasing the size of your loss.

[Naturalist111]

51. if that is FACT then that makes sense

but I am not sure that is fact. They don't pay them much to pick. How much an hour you think? How much can 1 person pick in a hour? How much would that amount sell for? I know about transportation costs so don't go there. They don't pay much.

[HiFructosePronSyrup]

57. Then why do you think farmers are plowing under their crops?

Contrary to semi-popular opinion, farmers are not ignorant hillbillies but rather shrewd businessmen.

[riderinthestorm]

61. I'm a small organic farmer.

I don't know how much they are paying pickers for strawberries but those costs aren't small especially when you add on workmen's comp and liability insurance.

I've plowed under crops that aren't financially feasible to pick. The planting part is the easiest, cheapest part. It's all the rest that adds on the cost. If the farmers are any good they have diversified operations and don't just rely on strawberries.

So you take the loss on that part of your operation and make money elsewhere.

[kenfrequed]

99. hmm...

Many strawberries use migrant workers to harvest them and the chemicals often caused burns and irritation in the skin of the workers earning it the name La Fruita Del Diablo (though they were supposed to phase out the use of Methyl Bromide- perhaps they already have I lost track of it).

The Ojibwe word for Strawberry is Ode-imini which is a word whose roots imply a connection to both food and heart.

I think u-picks are a better idea anyhow. People should have a closer connection to their food.

[tranche]

26. That's a sunken cost. If you're going to lose money getting it to market. Then you lose more money.

[Codeine]

59. Sunk costs are very difficult for folks to conceptualize.

At any given time you have to make economic decisions without regard to what you've already spent, only future costs versus future earnings. But we're irrational beings, so we tend to chase our sunk costs like puppies chasing tails.

[anigbrowl]

74. +1

[Naturalist111]

91. No one should conceptualize anything

until they have facts. That is the problem. Too many people take others words for truth.
Look at my post #67

[Codeine]

94. Sunk costs are basic economics.

It's an idea that applies in nearly every monetary decision.

[anigbrowl]

98. We do have the facts

The winter was unexpectedly bad, the strawberries bloomed too early as a result, now there is an oversupply and local prices for the commodity have collapsed, and are now apparently lower than the cost of picking the rest of the crop.

This isn't rocket science or abstract theorizing. Strawberry farmers know how much it will cost to harvest a given acreage. They also know how much that harvest is selling for right now. If the reward from the sale is less than the cost of the harvest, then there is simply no point in proceeding.

[Naturalist111]

134. Then share them please in a manner that shows the facts,

not everyone is a farmer, hence the responses. The article I looked up helps us non farmer folk. Although those that know you, believe that your word is good, it is wise to see some "facts" to help those who don't understand. Way too many people go by hearsay. I do appreciate your input, that did lead me to look up the article. Might have been better to say well it cost 30% to prepare, plant, fertilize etc. and 70% to harvest. I am sure your great farmers. Many great harvests to you!

[Toucano]

9. I can't make sense of this.

"...shelves brim with cartons of berries and the prices are especially low."

and

"...especially after such a bad season."

If it was such a bad season, why are the shelves brimming with them at low prices?

Bad journalism.

[anigbrowl]

15. Maybe you should try reading the whole article

'An abnormally cold winter and a series of freezing nights stalled the plants' production. Once temperatures rose, they all started producing berries at once — and in unusually large quantities.

"The cold weather shocks the plants," said Gary Wishnatzki, head of Wishnatzki Farms in Plant City. "It induced more blooms."'

The goal with this particular crop is to stagger your planting and harvest times so as to produce a consistent yield over a period. That way you can hire workers to pick part of the crop which is in harvest, then move onto the next field and so on. If they all bloom at once, then you would need to hire many more pickers to get the whole harvest before it rots, and they won't keep especially well once picked. So you get a glut (which is what's happening now) which will be followed by a shortage, although it'll be offset for consumers by imports from California and other places where strawberries are grown but which didn't get hit by this problem.

[Toucano]

30. They are plowing under a bumper crop.

Another inefficiency of capitalism.

[anigbrowl]

42. Which doesn't alter the point.

In any case, inefficiencies can occur under any economic system. When I visited the Soviet Union in the 1980s I visited GUM, Moscow's equivalent of a department store. Things like household utensils and children's toys were in short supply and of absolutely terrible quality, while pewter busts of Lenin were in such oversupply that they were literally heaped on the floor (I bought one, incidentally).

[csziggy]

31. It is now nearly the end of the Florida strawberry season anyway

It's getting warm which means the plants will not produce blooms and therefore no berries. Any fruit on the plants will ripen fast - maybe before they can get crews in to pick them, especially since all the planters are in the same boat. And the farmers need to get the next crops in on the same land.

Florida is odd for farming, especially downstate (I am in Tallahassee). Many things that are planted this time of year up north are started in the fall for winter harvest in Florida. Summer crops have to go in pretty early in the spring so they can ripen before the hot weather in the summer causes them to bolt (go to seed) or wilt. Things planted now will be ready for harvest May through July. August is pretty sparse for many crops in Florida - it is just too hot for a lot of them.

Then the farmers will plant fall/winter crops in September and October - that is when the strawberries went in.

[pitohui]

89. this appears to be what happened in louisiana as well

at first we were being told there was no crop then suddenly the crop was everywhere and quite cheap

some of the growers here are truck farmers/hobby farmers and i'm under the impression they've been operating at a loss for years but i wonder how long they can afford to keep doing so

[piratefish08]

10. people starve in poverty - and then this.

our system is fucked and this small example is a perfect example of why.

[protocol rv]

12. Let them eat strawberries

This isn't a small example of much. Farmers over plant sometimes. When they don't plant enough, they make a killing. It's called the market system, which happens to work very well most of the time.

[piratefish08]

14. we subsidize farmers to not grow crops. we send food to be processed in foreign countries.

we plow over fields at 'some' cost to the farmer when the food could be picked and distributed by charitable groups at zero cost to the farmer.

the seed industry is monopolized and genetically altered.

we give tobacco farmers tens of millions for a product that kills.

it's cheaper to buy a Big Mac than 3 stinking tomatoes and a head of lettuce.

and people starve.

okay maybe not 100% fucked, but pretty close.

[anigbrowl]

17. Doom, gloom

'we plow over fields at 'some' cost to the farmer when the food could be picked and distributed by charitable groups at zero cost to the farmer.'

That's fine...but are you going to pay the farmer's insurance in case one of those charitable workers has an accident on his land and files suit against him? I personally think that if you sign a volunatary waiver when you come onto the farmer's land then that should be enough to keep him free of liability but as with many legal matters when you drill down into it things are not so simple.

[Goblinmonger]

27. In WIsconsin, I believe the waivers are useless.

You can't sign away the rights of you family to sue for negligence.

[MajorChode]

107. Subsidizing farmers makes sense in many instances

If you allow farmers to fail during bumper crop years when prices are low, their farms get sold and the land gets used for other purposes. This ultimately drives the cost of food up. The US has the lowest cost for food compared to almost all other developed nations, partly because we subsidize farms in this manner.

[anigbrowl]

116. Ahahahahaa

Europe subsidizes the hell out of farmers but doesn't have cheaper food as a result. Ditto Japan and a lot of other places. Subsidies push prices up for consumers by rewarding farmers who didn't bother to take out insurance and penalizing the ones that did.

You realize the bulk of agricultural subsidies flows to large businesses like Cargill, Archer Daniels Midland, and ConAgra, right? These subsidies amount to literally trillions of dollars in corporate welfare every year.

[MajorChode]

122. You realize the bulk of food in the US does not come from small family farms, yes?

The three companies you mentioned do not engage in farming directly to any great extent so I'm not really sure how you think mentioning them is any more relevant than your witty and well thought out retort of "Ahahahahaa(sic)".

It should come as no surprise that subsidies also flow into the largest farms when they are producing most of the food. It makes no less sense to subsidize a large farm. If a corporation or other large entity has a field that isn't making them money, they are going to abandon that field and they will do so probably quicker than a small family farmer who lives on the land. The objective of farm subsidies isn't and never has been to keep small farmers from going out of business. The objective of farm subsidies is to stabilize the market for certain food commodities that are subject to yearly swings in supply due to weather. Personally I'd rather do this than shut down that production and force the importation of such products from other countries, but apparently you'd rather use the "corporate welfare" hyperbole to demonize the practice.

I didn't say subsidies are the primary reason why the US has lower food prices. I said that was part of the reason. Most food commodities AREN'T subsidized in the US. The reason why food is more expensive in Europe and Japan is simply because they don't have the relatively cheap supply of land the US does and they import more of their food.

[anigbrowl]

123. Yes, I realize that perfectly

The bulk of agricultural subsidies don't flow to small family farms either. And I see no benefit in price controls and lots of negatives. There is nothing wrong with importing food that is grown more cheaply abroad as long as it meets food safety standards.

Sure, if we didn't hand out large subsidies to sugar producers in the US and instead imported some of our sugar from Caribbean nations, US dollars would be flowing to those countries...who would in turn use some of it to buy other American products. The American consumer is not better off as a result - they're just paying part of their food bill to the IRS from where it goes into the Ag budget and from there to agribusiness shareholders.

As for my retort, I'm sorry if it bothered you but it consisted of more than the headline.

[Hannah Bell]

33. yes, it's so efficient to plant & care for a crop then plow it under. yay capitalism!!

[tranche]

35. It is. That's why we have 300 million people in this country.

You think backyard "victory gardens" will feed them all?

[Toucano]

49. Excuse me, but how many people are there in China?

The answer might discredit your theory that capitalism is the reason why there are 300 million people in the United States.

[tranche]

65. Yea.. but working in rice paddies all day versus arguing on the internet is 2 different things...

Maybe I should say 300 million people living in first world conditions. Sure, we could live like Chinese peasant farmers, but I'm not sure how many people in the US would go for such a thing. Some might even call it a reduction in living standards.

[Hannah Bell]

84. unlike what we're experiencing now, eh tranche?

[Hannah Bell]

56. like they fed them in the depression, when farmers plowed crops under & dairymen dumped milk in the

streets, while people went hungry.

government aid was what ended that death spiral.

capitalism can only function with government bailouts.

fyi, absence of capitalism doesn't = "victory gardens". indeed, i seem to recall victory gardens being part of the capitalist ww2 effort.

[tranche]

71. Ok, so your advocating that the government step in and help fund the picking of these strawberries?

And clean them, package them, ship them to a cold storage facility, ship them to distribution points, and then get them out to those in need?

If that's the case, then I can see where you're coming from. The farmer and his crop of strawberries is one small part of the food problem.

[Hannah Bell]

87. i'm not advocating anything, but nice straw.

which doesn't belie the fact that resources were allocated to plant a crop & plow it under. and it's a regular occurrence, especially in dicey economic times.

[Gaedel]

96. Government intervention

I can remember back around 1959-1960 when there was a cancer scare with the cranberry crop. No one bought cranberries for Thanksgiving or Christmas (most cranberries were pretty much holiday food back then). To save the cranberry farmers, the government intervened and bought most of the crop. In the army we got pretty damn tired of having cranberries every evening for supper for the next year whether the main course was chicken, beef, hamburger, pork chops, or hot dogs.

[anigbrowl]

72. You can have oversupply as a result of excess production under socialism too

Trotsky argued in 'The Soviet Economy in Danger' (written in 1932 while in exile), quite correctly, that a centrally-planned command economy would be unable to adequately predict variations in supply and demand and that the solution was democratic involvement in the economic planning process, and commented that 'economic accounting is unthinkable without market relations'.

Trotsky's keen economic insight was that central planning under Stalin had led to enormous economic distortions, particularly in the pursuit of increasing industrial output, which resulted in a precipitous drop in quality, and the resultant destruction of economic value. He observed that central planning had failed so badly to allocate resources that Soviet authorities had been forced to re-establish open markets in agricultural commodities, but that the over-concentration of political power in the hands of local bureaucrats had simply replicated the worst speculative excesses of unfettered capitalism.

His proposed solution to this was to scale back goals for industrial production and refocus efforts on raising the quality and consistency of industrial output, while bringing inflation under control by halting the expansion of the money. to achieve this, he called for the upcoming five year plan to be postponed, and for industrial and agricultural workers to pursue the goal of increasing quality by reducing bureaucratic interference in markets so that prices, which he felt should be set by workers themselves rather than directly controlled, could stabilize.

http://www.marxists.org/archive/trotsky/1932/10/sovecon.htm

[Hannah Bell]

88. socialism isn't coextensive with "centrally planned economy," you know.

but kudos for the usual cheerleader response to any demonstration of capitalist inefficiencies. good to know some things are completely predictable.

[anigbrowl]

95. Yes, that was in the fact the point I was making...

that even under socialism, markets are often the best way of allocating resources. And there will always be disparities between supply and demand. Markets have two simple functions: to match buyers with sellers, and to establish prices which signal the likely economic future production.

Instead of snark, why don't you explain how you think this situation could have been avoided in a non-capitalist economic system?

[Hannah Bell]

101. markets have existed from the beginnings of time. they're not a phenomenon

exclusive to capitalism.

two things that are, however = commodified labor & the tyranny of the profit motive, i.e. you have to get back more than you put in ("invested") in order to engage in production.

no profit, no production.

v. systems where you get back what you put in: simplest form = simple barter:

i trade my basket of strawberries for your basket of raspberries; value = roughly, labor hours in production.

bumper year: i trade my two baskets of strawberries for your basket of raspberries.

same labor, bumper conditions = less value vs other production. but the product continues to be "marketed" & consumed because people still want strawberries even when there are lots of them. and people still want raspberries, or apples, or whatever else there is to trade for.

simple example. oh, & please don't come back with more straw, e.g.: "oh, so you advocate moving back to a simple tribal barter system?"

because no, i don't. it's for your edification only, since you seem confused about the ubiquity of markets.

[anigbrowl]

105. You are fundamentally mistaken

"same labor, bumper conditions = less value vs other production. but the product continues to be "marketed" & consumed because people still want strawberries even when there are lots of them. and people still want raspberries, or apples, or whatever else there is to trade for."

1. Less value (when cost of harvesting - price at market > cost of plowing under the excess) means less money to invest in the next crop; and

2. People do not have an infinite appetite for strawberries. At some point people will decide they have had enough and not buy any more, or even take them home for free. They'll just rot on the shelves instead of the fields.

Some goods are easy to store and can be set aside in case of a future shortage, or shipped to some place where there is unmet demand. However, fruits like strawberries go bad quite quickly, and trying to freeze them all or similar would be very expensive.

Furthermore, 'same labor, bumper conditions = less value vs other production' demonstrates that all labor is not of equal value! You complain about commodified labor as something exclusive to capitalism, and yet a few sentences later you are saying that labor is subject to price variations, as measured by the ability to purchase raspberries!

Two baskets of strawberries in a bumper year take twice as much labor to fill and bring to market as one basket of strawberries in an ordinary year, so the purchasing power of that labor has fallen by half. Your own example demonstrates that the labor theory of value is false.

I still await your explanation of how a non-capitalist system would have prevented this excess of supply to begin with.

[Hannah Bell]

106. no, you are. people don't have an infinite appetite - & there's never an infinite supply, either.

there's always a supply that's consumable & preservable, i.e jam, jelly, juice, syrup, fruit leather, pemmican, candy, alcohol, etc. --

except under capitalism, which produces excesses that can't be marketed at a *profit* & must be destroyed.

you're mistaking the labor cost to harvest an entire bumper crop (= more) with the labor per unit of crop (= the same).

i gave you the example of a simple barter system.

[anigbrowl]

110. you just said people would carry on consuming them even with an excess available.

there's always a supply that's consumable & preservable, i.e jam, jelly, juice, syrup, fruit leather, pemmican, candy, alcohol, etc. --


And as I pointed out, there is always a cost associated with the preservation. If you preserve an excess of strawberries, what are you going to do with the excess of strawberry preserve? Sure, you could stick it in a warehouse and hope for a strawberry shortage next year, but that might not happen and meanwhile the money you invested is sitting in a warehouse. You now have zero spare cash and no idea how soon you'll be able to sell your inventory.

except under capitalism, which produces excesses that can't be marketed at a *profit* & must be destroyed.


Capitalism sometimes produces excesses that can't even sold at a break-even price because nobody wants them. If you know in advance that you are going to make a loss, why would you waste additional labor in doing so?

And again, how do you expect to prevent excess in a non-capitalist system? Do all farmers suddenly become clairvoyant or something?

you're mistaking the labor cost to harvest an entire bumper crop (= more) with the labor per unit of crop (= the same).


No I am not. The labor cost to harvest the entire crop is just the total of the labor per unit. This is true regardless of whether the crop is large or small and has nothing to do with the exchange rate.

You said that in a bumper year it took two baskets of strawberries to produce a basket of raspberries, rather than a 1:1 exchange rate in an ordinary year. The labor expended per unit of crop remains the same, but in a bumper year for strawberries, the strawberry picker must work twice as long to purchase a unit of raspberries while the raspberry picker need only work half as long to purchase a unit of strawberries.

Let us say that it takes 1 hour to fill one basket of either fruit, and everybody likes to have one basket of strawberries and one basket of raspberries every day. Strawberry picker must work 3 hours to have one basket of each fruit. Raspberry picker only works 90 minutes for the same result. Thus a bumper harvest and resulting oversupply of strawberries means that the value of the strawberry picking - not the effort, but the amount it can be exchanged for - has fallen by half.

If both workers spend 10 hours in the field every day and the price of all other goods remains the same (relative to a basket of raspberries) the workers in the raspberry field will be able to barter their crop for twice as much as the workers on the strawberry farm. In other words, time spent picking raspberries is worth twice as much as time spent picking strawberries.

i gave you the example of a simple barter system.

and I have given you proof that such a system will give rise to variations in the value of labor, using the numbers you gave in your example.

[anigbrowl]

124. Well, I guess that about wraps it up for the labor theory of value then. nt

[Hannah Bell]

130. hardly; & not that we've been discussing the "labor theory of value". either.

i had to go to work, bright boy. & within the hour i will have to go to the hospital to visit a critically ill person.

so i will return to this when my responsibilities are discharged.

[anigbrowl]

132. I eagerly await the next round, then.

hope your visitee's medical situation improves.

[tranche]

28. Plowing under a crop doesn't promote starvation.

The total amount of food this country produces isn't the problem. Getting it to those who need it is.

[Uncle Joe]

16. Maybe they should try letting the people come out and pick for themselves?

They could sell for a lower price.

Thanks for the thread, Newsjock.

[anigbrowl]

19. Sure...as long as they carry their own insurance

If I have land, invite you onto it, and you trip on a rock and bust your head open, there's a very good chance it'll end up in court with you suing me for the cost of your medical bills plus whatever else your lawyer can think of. This is why worker's comp is a mandatory business expense in my state, and I believe in most others.

[Uncle Joe]

20. Perhaps they could sign a hold harmless agreement. n/t

[riderinthestorm]

40. Yeah, that'll give them all the protection they need against being sued!!

:sarcasm:

Let's just say that someone manages to finally construct the ironclad hold harmless agreement, that won't stop a lawsuit. Even the initial stages of fighting a lawsuit may be enough to bankrupt any farmer. It's not worth the risk.

[Uncle Joe]

47. Then perhaps they should donate their crop to homeless shelters and food pantries.

As for the u pick em concept, it may be worse in Florida but we have u pick em orchards and berry fields here in Tennessee and if anyone has been sued, I haven't heard about it.

Edit to add. Or they could do a combination of both.

[riderinthestorm]

58. They'd still have to get it picked, boxed, and transported

That's the most expensive part of the process.

And as a small farmer myself I can say that as far as liability goes, I don't trust that I won't be sued. Anything can happen. The farmer wouldn't be altruistic letting poor people come in and pick it themselves. They'd be setting themselves up for potential financial ruin. Even the initial lawsuit might be enough to bankrupt a small farmer.

[Uncle Joe]

63. Then perhaps there should be some form of tort reform giving additional protection to those farmers

engaging in charity cases.

As for picking, boxing and transporting, perhaps trucking, distribution and shipping companies could get tax write-offs or credits for contributing to moving excess produce to food pantries or homeless shelters. I would imagine some homeless could be recruited to aid in this endeavor as pickers.

[anigbrowl]

73. very possibly, but bear in mind...

...that people are not starving because the price of strawberries is too expensive. If they're picked and given away then they'll just rot on the supermarket shelf instead of in the fields. The whole economic problem here is that thanks to a bad winter (which has caused the whole crop produce at once, instead of in the staggered fashion that was planned for), strawberries are already dirt cheap in Florida. It's not like they are expensive and farmers are plowing under crops to ensure prices remain high by restricting supply. They are so cheap that their market value is less than the cost of picking and selling what remains in the fields.

[Uncle Joe]

80. Yes but how much impact would strawberries supplied to homeless shelters

and/or food pantries specifically directed toward those most in need affect demand and prices at supermarkets?

I know some inner city stores carry little or no produce.

It seems to me this would be two disparate markets having minimal impact on each other.

[anigbrowl]

90. I think you'll find outlets prefer tinned or preserved food

Fresh produce needs to be kept refrigerated and goes bad fairly quickly. It's possible that some such outlets for the poor already have some supplies of excess fruit, but I doubt they want so much that they are going to be saddled with the expense of storing and disposing it.

I perfectly understand your desire not to see good food go to waste, but you just don't seem to appreciate that getting it out of the fields and into people's hands is an expensive process in its own right, which in this case is likely to result in an even greater waste. The expense and effort involved could be used more productively for other purposes (eg gathering more tinned food) so it's just not worth it.

For anybody.

[Hannah Bell]

108. our local homeless shelter takes garden produce straight from the home gardeners.

if their budget didn't limit their bare-bones personnel, they could easily process & store much more.

it's *capitalism* that makes it "more efficient" to get tinned good from corporations.

[anigbrowl]

114. That's great, but it won't last any longer than it does now.

if their budget didn't limit their bare-bones personnel, they could easily process & store much more.


If the farmers' budget didn't limit the amount of workers they could hire, they'd pick all the strawberries in the fields.

The limit here is not imposed by capitalism, but by arithmetic. Does it take more effort to harvest and store unwanted strawberries than to obtain some other commodity with the same nutritional value? If the answer is yes, then picking the strawberries is inefficient and wasteful.

And why you bring corporations into it I don't know. I'm not a corporation but I donate tinned food. It's true that I buy that tinned from a corporation, but on the other hand my kitchen and skills don't meet the standards required to safely tin the food myself.

[Naturalist111]

92. Then the government

should type up the document that states they are giving up their right to sue and make it easy to print out over the internet. So no matter what they can't sue unless they run them over with a tractor or shoot them etc.

[Codeine]

60. Hold harmless agreements are worth less than the paper upon which they are printed. nt

[juajen]

127. Strawberries are soft. They're not growing rocks! Besides they

do not have a lot of rocks in Florida. It would be hard to get hurt in a strawberry patch. My little one year old niece went to a strawberry patch in Georgia with her family and picked strawberries. We have a lot of farms here in Louisiana where you can pick your own. Now I would be very careful in the blackberry patch, which we also have here in Louisiana. These people make profits from these pick your own patches.

[riderinthestorm]

135. Bee stings, falling down and hitting their head, or breaking an arm...

Just because the fruit isn't troublesome doesn't mean the average person going to pick it is coordinated, or capable. Anything can happen.

[lonestarnot]

18. Instead of doing that, why don't they let people have them that want to pick them. Shameful waste

[tranche]

34. What about those who can't make it out to the fields. Or are unable to pick?

Wouldn't it be just as shameful of the farmer to not pay for transportation or provide equal access to the strawberry fields?

[Lone_Star_Dem]

39. What?

You do realize that makes zero sense, right?

[tranche]

66. It makes perfect sense.

Sitting in front of a monitor and typing away at how shameful it is to plow a field under is a hell of a lot easier then dealing with the realities of somehow organizing some mass public strawberry pick.

[Naturalist111]

93. Huh?

Friends are worth a lot of strawberries!

[csziggy]

38. Liability, as mentioned in the exerpt in the OP is a biggie

And the fruit now coming ripe will only hold a week or two longer. It is too warm now downstate for the strawberries to not ripen quickly.

And the farmers need to get ready for the next crops.

[Hannah Bell]

29. just like in the great depression - the "efficiencies" of capitalism!!

[arikara]

32. Do the strawberries picked fresh there

taste better than the California ones that are shipped up here to Canada? We will not eat them, they taste like a pulpy cardboard by the time they arrive here and I doubt their nutritional content is much better than cardboard. Yet they are often far cheaper than the locally grown juicy sweet ones so enough people will still buy them. If things were actually priced to reflect the true cost of shipping and distribution our food supply would be in a much better place.

[csziggy]

36. It depends - the ones shipped farther taste worse

But I grew up within a few miles of the fields they are talking about and shop at a chain that started in that area and buys their produce locally. Plant City strawberries are terrific from Publix - at least the ones I have purchased that were shipped the 300 miles to where I now live. They are even better bought from the farm stands along the side of roads next to the fields, but those are too ripe to ship to stores.

Once the Plant City season is over, I don't buy fresh strawberries - the stores ship them in from California and as far away as Chile. And they are just like you say, taste like cardboard. If I want strawberries off season, I buy fresh frozen ones and that pretty much holds for all fruit.

I am lucky where I am - close enough for Central and South Florida fresh produce to be shipped from the fields to the stores overnight and close enough to Georgia to drive up and buy peaches and pecans from the orchard stands. Not to mention all the different fruits and vegetables that are grown right here in the county where I live!

[Edweird]

44. People lost their homes for these strawberries. I'd be livid.

[tranche]

68. How did a strawberry lead to someone losing their home?

[Edweird]

77. here.

http://news.discovery.com/earth/sinkholes-florida-groundwater.html

http://www.wtsp.com/news/local/story.aspx?storyid=122395&catid=8

[tranche]

79. Ok. I see. If I was a farmer, I'd be livid, that a home owner was livid.

Historically, sinkholes have not been a big problem in agricultural areas. But now there are more homes built in these areas, and that means more chances that a sinkhole will undermine a foundation and render a million-dollar house uninhabitable.

Reminds me of California... People that build houses in forested areas have no one to blame when mountain lions snatch their cats or forest fires burn down their houses.

[Edweird]

86. Hey, whatever works for you.

[amandabeech]

45. "bushes filled with ripening strawberries"-- NOT

Strawberries grow on vines that grown on the ground.

They are not bush berries like blue-, rasp- and blackberries.

Technical point from one who spent part of her childhood weeding the strawberries.

[csziggy]

53. They cultivate small "bushes" to keep them in rows and make them easier to weed and pick

Here are mature Plant City strawberry "bushes":



Sure, if they let them grow more than a few months, they would turn into vines, but this is intensive, artificial, almost hydroponic growing. The black swath next to the plants is a plastic sheet to block weed growth. The "soil" there is mostly sand so nutrients have to be continually added since they rapidly leach out. I am not sure, but I think they have an irrigation system next to the plants to water and provide nutrients.

[amandabeech]

69. Thanks for the info.

They used to be commercially cultivated in the area of Michigan where I grew up, along with a large selection of other fruits and veggies. The soil was sandy loam, and the berries were grown with only occasional irrigation since Michigan has a wet climate and the spring is definitely wet. Wild strawberries grow all over the place, and they are definitely low vines. I never saw anything that looked like these, either wild, back yard garden or commercially grown.

I can see why the reporter called them "bushes."

[Vinca]

50. For the record, I buy strawberries every week and there were

none for sale at the store this week. They've been priced about average of late. When they price them too high no one buys them and they rot on the shelves.

[GoCubsGo]

55. And, they're tasteless on top of it

Who wants to spend four bucks for a quart of strawberries that don't taste of anything?

[GoCubsGo]

52. Prices "are especially low"??? Where???

Not in my town. The "sales" aren't much of a sale. And, the strawberries I am seeing are mostly underripe and tasteless. AFAIC, they make better compost than eating, and I don't see that as being that much of a waste.

[anigbrowl]

75. In Florida.

The price of strawberries in your local store reflects the cost and availability of strawberries where YOU live. There doesn't appear to be a large-scale strawberry industry in North Carolina, certainly not for winter production because the temperatures in NC are too cold.

[B Calm]

70. Strawberries don't grow on bushes. . .

[Codeine]

81. see post #53 nt

[Obamanaut]

76. I don't understand much about a lot of things, but this, from the

article confused me.

"...if they pick for such low profits, they'll lose money....'

Even if the profits are low, there is still profit. And if there is profit, how are they losing money?

[Codeine]

82. Bad writing

There won't be any profit after picking and transport costs.

[Hannah Bell]

83. you have to pay for machines, pickers, packers, etc. cheaper not too if you can't make that money

back. also, some farmers borrow (various ways) to pay for those things & pay it back on sale of the crop. credit situation may play into it too.

[Liberal_in_LA]

85. good prices now, I bought 2 big baskets yesterday

too bad they weren't sweet

[csziggy]

125. I just finished up the baskets we bought Monday

And they were great. But as I mentioned above, we live relatively close to the place they are produced and shop at a grocery that is centered in that area and ships from field to stores overnight. When I lived downstate, I bought strawberries at the stands in front of the fields - too ripe to ship, but absolutely terrific flavor. You had to eat them that night, though, or they turned to mush the next day. Those were actually too ripe to can as jam or preserves.

I just added strawberries to the shopping list for tomorrow!

[Liberal_in_LA]

131. They are really sweet when we get them directly from Oxnard, from roadside stands

[csziggy]

136. These last two baskets were not quite as good as the other two

A few not quite ripe berries and some far too ripe, but not quite bad enough to throw out. Still great, though.

The fruit sold at the farm stands is too ripe to ship and ripened fully on the tree or vine so it has the full natural flavor. The stuff shipped is usually a little under ripe when picked and ripens on the way to market - or worst yet, ripened with the use of chemicals.

[Joanne98]

104. I don't understand how zero is more than less.

Wouldn't letting people pick them and charging them more money than letting them rot?

[anigbrowl]

109. Because it would not be worth their time

Think about it.

Let's say you spent $100,000 buying and growing the strawberries. For simplicity's sake, let's say you also expected to get 100,000 baskets too. $1 invested in planting and growing = 1 basket. Now, hiring people to pick them costs $200,000, or $2 per basket. Your hope at the beginning of the season was to sell each basket for $4 to a supermarket who will sell them for $5, covering all your expenses and bringing you an income of $100,000 - to support yourself and your family for a year, save for the future and all that other good stuff.

(I have no idea what the actual numbers are, I'm just trying to keep the math as simple as possible.)

But this year, nobody wants your strawberries - they have way too much already. In fact, Supermarkets are only willing to pay $3 per basket. They are selling them at the same price to the public: this means they don't make any money on strawberries, but since they sell lots of other things too, they figure that it's worth selling the strawberries at cost to bring more people into the store where they will also buy bread, diapers, and so on which are still profitable. Shit! How to get back that $100,000 you already spent on planting and growing them? If you don't, you'll be short of money when it comes time to harvest the next season, and have to borrow that money from the bank, which will eat into your income. Maybe you'll only have $75,000 after you paid off the bank loan.

OK, you think - you'll put up a sign and invite people who want to pick strawberries to pay me $1 per basket, and you'll make your money back that way. you're sure it's going to work because a basket of strawberries at the supermarket still costs $3 and thus your strawberries are cheaper.

But what you have forgotten is that the cost to the strawberry consumer is $1 plus the value of the effort expended in picking the strawberries. If this would normally fetch $2, then it's no cheaper than the supermarket - all that is different is that the consumer has paid part of the cost in cash and the other 2/3 in labor. Well, you say, a lot of people have only $1 in cash, which would not be enough to buy strawberries in the supermarket. So they should take advantage of your offer, work for the time it takes to fill a basket (for which you would normally pay $2) and get their strawberries.

But you are not the only person with fruit that needs picking, and strawberries are not the only fruit. Joe Blow down the road has a grapefruit farm and he's offering $3 to anyone who spends the same amount of time picking grapefruit as it takes to pick a basket of strawberries. So the consumer with $1 in his pocket can work for him and get $3. That's enough to buy strawberries at the supermarket, and still have $1 left over, for the same amount of work.

What do you think he's going to do - hand over his $1 and work in your field filling a basket of strawberries, or spend the same time in Joe's field, make enough money to buy the same basket of strawberries at the supermarket, and keep his dollar?

[Codeine]

113. Liability.

If somebody gets hurt picking the lawsuit would bankrupt them. Their insurance wouldn't allow it.

[TK421]

112. This for a berry we used to grow in our backyard growing up..it's insane!

I feel bad for these farmers, since it is their livelihood

[anigbrowl]

115. I'm pretty sure the farmers are insured

As a matter of fact, dealing with situations like this is the exact purpose of the derivative market. You hedge the risk of an unknown future outcome (like the size of your strawberry harvest) by purchasing an option to buy or sell the commodity at a certain price. Hence the name 'commodity exchange'.

[TK421]

117. It's a shame...they are SO easy to grow, too!

[anigbrowl]

120. Yeah, but not everyone has a backyard

Anyhow, while it's certainly a drag, bear in mind that farming is fundamentally risky - you never know in advance exactly what will happen with the weather and so on. So part of the skill is to build that risk into calculations when you're planning.

[csziggy]

126. And since the freeze was named a natural disaster, they may get some federal money

If our orange trees were damaged and we have to replace any, we will be able to apply for some money to offset our costs. Last report I had on our trees, they were not damaged - good news for us!

[tigereye]

118. no! crap.

I love strawberries. Had some Florida ones this week that were wonderful.