Comment by hnthrow0287345
17 hours ago
In a less profit driven world, we might stockpile these in cans and then later throw them away once they spoil, taking over the canning facilities and paying for the wages via taxes on things not needed for survival. We don't maximize food security though, we prefer profit, up to and including choosing not to feed people.
That's how we got mountain bunkers filled with cheese over the course of decades.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kvLMH0wb_0k
And how we ended up feeding roughly a third of US-grown corn to cars.
Of course if they did then what's about to happen with the peach trees, you'd end up killing the dairy cows, which I'm guessing the people in this thread would have a problem with.
Farmers are literally subsidized to over-produce for food security.
Which of course is not enough due to other expenses:
https://www.fb.org/market-intel/farm-bankruptcies-continued-...
https://www.adamsandreese.com/the-ledger/rising-farm-distres...
And those farms get bought up and folded into for-profit operations. You simply can't fix this in the current system.
> for food security
They overproduce for votes. Countries without farmer blocks swinging elections stockpile non-perishables for food security.
For both. With or without the voting block, they still serve the purpose of over-producing.
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Uh yeah, this was Del Monte’s business model.
The issue is that the company that owns the canning plants (Del Monte) went bankrupt. There is no canning capacity available to do this.
How did you possibly miss the point by this far? It’s like trying to drive to Los Angeles and ending up on Pluto.
The government would step in and take over operations. This is why we don't need profit-driven companies responsible for food supply. By all means let Del Monte's managers try their hand in some other industry if they couldn't make it work (or not, because they couldn't make it work).
What makes you think the government is remotely qualified to run a canning operation, a logistics operation, a warehousing operation, an HR operation, and a finance operation for peaches?
Also which government? Because there are at least 3-5 relevant ones here, maybe more.
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When governments take over food production the people starve.
>The government would step in and take over operations.
No. A government shouldn't do this unless canned peaches are especially important for national security or something like that.
Do you really want a world without any fast food or snack foods? I mean, I think we consume way too much as a society, but I'd rather not have the government decide what I'm allowed to eat.
Have a conversation with someone who grew up in communist USSR/Russia sometime... It definitely isn't cool.
If we had govt controlled food supply, we'd never have the likes of hot sauce (sriracha, pace, etc) and would likely never have seen a lot of options form. For better and far, far worse.
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