If you are acquainted with agriculture as you say, you’d know that unlike apples, things like cherries, and other soft fruit, ripen at once and much come off the field immediately. Even If I wanted to, it would be physically impossible to by myself, or even as a family (try 15-20 tons in just a few days!). They must be picked by a crew. Most of the pickers make about $10/hour, which is a fair bit more than minimum wage and these are people without any skills, so maybe that ain’t so bad. The price of cherries hasn’t gone up in 7-8 years (at least the price to the farmer), but the cost to grow them has. It’s not just cherries, but generally Americans don’t pay enough for their food. I’m living in Korea now and food here is quite expensive. The farmers generally have smaller farms, but manage to do alright. I visited Japan last week, and the food was hugely expensive. In both cases their distribution systems are quite inefficient, but the farmers also get higher prices for their crops.
Anyway, I don’t feel like I’ve abused anyone, I’ve risk a LOT of my capital, I still haven’t made any money, and somehow I’m an abuser? It’s just not reality, and though corporations grow a lot of crops in this country, a serious percentage is still grown by small farms and part-time farms like ours. We get no government subsidies and basically have to have other employment as there is no way we could make enough farming to support ourselves. Most farmers are hurting pretty bad right now so this is really a red herring. The point is though, that if we can start making some money on it, I think it’s about high time we got to keep some of it.
If you are acquainted with agriculture as you say, you’d know that unlike apples, things like cherries, and other soft fruit, ripen at once and much come off the field immediately. Even If I wanted to, it would be physically impossible to by myself, or even as a family (try 15-20 tons in just a few days!). They must be picked by a crew. Most of the pickers make about $10/hour, which is a fair bit more than minimum wage and these are people without any skills, so maybe that ain’t so bad. The price of cherries hasn’t gone up in 7-8 years (at least the price to the farmer), but the cost to grow them has. It’s not just cherries, but generally Americans don’t pay enough for their food. I’m living in Korea now and food here is quite expensive. The farmers generally have smaller farms, but manage to do alright. I visited Japan last week, and the food was hugely expensive. In both cases their distribution systems are quite inefficient, but the farmers also get higher prices for their crops.
Anyway, I don’t feel like I’ve abused anyone, I’ve risk a LOT of my capital, I still haven’t made any money, and somehow I’m an abuser? It’s just not reality, and though corporations grow a lot of crops in this country, a serious percentage is still grown by small farms and part-time farms like ours. We get no government subsidies and basically have to have other employment as there is no way we could make enough farming to support ourselves. Most farmers are hurting pretty bad right now so this is really a red herring. The point is though, that if we can start making some money on it, I think it’s about high time we got to keep some of it.