Del Monte bankruptcy fallout for peach farmers

May 07, 2026 17:53:48

The Del Monte company, famous for its canned fruit, declared bankruptcy and shut down it's canneries
The peach farmers that had contracts with them are heavily affected.
They will be tearing out acres of mature trees.
I know they are not permaculture farmers, but I thought there might be lessons for us to glean(no pun intended) from their situation.

https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/california-peach-trees-destroyed-del-monte-closure-b2972246.html

May 07, 2026 18:23:43

I recall Sepp Holzer saying that he never again would have a farm with only one income stream.

Unfortunately, farmers are actually encouraged to be "peach farmers" or "pig farmers". The old style family farm with a few pigs to eat the fallen fruit in the orchard that had multiple varieties of multiple fruits is considered "uneconomic".

I would say that many farmers are finding the current system even more "uneconomic"!

ETA - Some farmers *are* learning. Apparently there's a big push in the BC interior where much of our fruit is grown, to have on-farm food drying systems so they can dry fruit they can't sell fresh. Many of them have more than one type of fruit also.

May 07, 2026 19:24:46

Yeah, any business with only one customer is at risk.
One customer and one product is even riskier.

I think finishing pigs under these trees makes a ton of sense.
They are trying to remove many of the trees anyway, so rooting and scratching wouldn't really matter.
Pigs would "compost" the peaches quickly.
From a quick Google,they don't seem to be affected by the cyanide in the pits.
I can't imagine anything like this happening, because of the very siloed way of farming you mentioned

May 07, 2026 19:28:55

I tried to access the article again and it seems to be gated now 🤬
Ah, well, googling del monte bankruptcy and peach farmers gets other sources.

May 07, 2026 20:58:01

Funny timing.

This afternoon i read that peach and mango trees are desirable for making ukulele and other plucked string instruments (back and sides), and perform better than the usual mahogany, but there is no one harvesting mature peach (and mango) trees at a scale large enough to make it viable. The guy was saying that he would pay a lot of money for standing peach trees he could cut down to his needs. He speculated, he would have to pay several years worth of fruit harvest.

I wonder if these two things will ever be connected.

Sometimes I wished I kept a browser history as I cannot find the article again. Or maybe it was on YouTube.

May 07, 2026 21:24:32

r ransom wrote: The guy was saying that he would pay a lot of money for standing peach trees he could cut down to his needs. He speculated, he would have to pay several years worth of fruit harvest.

Maybe - so many orchards are growing on root stocks that stop the tree from getting big, there may not be any full sized trees out there. I believe even my tree is grafted, but I'm not sure what type of root it has as I bought it years ago.

You'd need a permie orchardist who started their trees from seed!

May 07, 2026 22:19:14

William Bronson wrote: I tried to access the article again and it seems to be gated now 🤬
Ah, well, googling del monte bankruptcy and peach farmers gets other sources.

I searched for "delmonte peaches bankruptcy" and found several similar articles on the this.

It's a pleasure to see superheros taking such an interest in science. And this tiny ad:

The House and Homestead

https://permies.com/w/the-house-homestead