Mexican farmers are trucking produce into an Arizona town—where tons of it gets thrown into landfill

[n2doc]

Nogales, Arizona, is the largest inland food port in the world. Much of the fresh produce trucked up the “food superhighway” of Mexico’s west coast comes through there—and a shocking amount of it doesn’t travel much farther, dropping into local landfills instead of being sent to consumers.

It’s a loss to the farmers who harvested the food and to the consumers who would have eaten it, argue filmmakers Jesse Ash and Phil Bucatello, who made an eight-minute documentary featuring Gary Paul Nabhan, a former MacArthur fellow and advocate for sustainable food reform. The film opens with footage of just-ripe tomatoes being bulldozed.

“If the Florida tomato prices drop on a certain day,” Nabhan narrates, “120,000 pounds [of tomatoes] might be thrown into a landfill” in Nogales, while much smaller quantities might end up in food banks or in livestock feed.

Cut to Yolanda Soto, the CEO of Borderlands Food Bank: Borderlands “rescues” between 30 and 40 million pounds of produce each season and distributes it to rural residents, providing fresh fruits and vegetables at less cost than the nearest grocery stores. “Vegetables are expensive,” says Soto, and the area has “a very, very high rate of diabetes.”

more

http://qz.com/365073/mexican-farmers-are-trucking-produce-into-an-arizona-town-where-tons-of-it-gets-thrown-into-landfills/

[Liberal_in_LA]

1. so wasteful

[GreatGazoo]

2. That's the risk of farming perishable crops

The economics are such that it is more expensive to refrigerate and wait out the gluts than to throw it away.

Here are prices in NY for wholesale veg -- I couldn't even pay the shipping charges for what they get for the food + shipping

---TOMATOES: MARKET ABOUT STEADY. 25 lb cartons loose FL 85% U.S. One or
Better Mature Greens light red 5x6 sz 13.00-14.00 few 12.00 occas 15.00 6x6 sz
fr appear fr cond 8.00 light red-red 5x6 sz 13.00-14.00 few 12.00 pink-light
red 5x6 sz 13.00-14.00 red 5x6 sz fr appear fr cond 8.00 PR Mature Greens light
red-red 5x6 sz fr qual 12.00 Local Repack Mature Greens pink-light red 5x6 sz
13.00-15.00 15 lb flats FL Vine Ripe - Heirloom Varieties 20s fr qual 25.00
..
CELERY: MARKET SLIGHTLY LOWER. cartons AZ/CA 2 dz 14.00-16.00 f

That is 52-cent a pound for tomatoes shipped from Florida. About 54 cents per head for celery grown, harvested, washed, packed and shipped from AZ.

http://www.ams.usda.gov/mnreports/nx_fv020.txt

There is currently a glut of oil, corn and soy too. Silos and refineries are full.

Corn and soy:
http://cqrcengage.com/mibankers/app/document/4079733

[valerief]

3. They should be bulldozing Pop Tarts instead. nt

[KT2000]

6. +1

Unfortunately that stuff lasts about a century!

[jwirr]

4. Another arguement for locally grown foods.

[Warpy]

8. A dumb argument

Irrigation in the southwest once you leave Texas is done with surface water and we're in the same massive drought California has been in, only longer. Produce has to be shipped unless we want to go back to eating beans, grains, sprouted potatoes, and spoiled cabbage every spring. The "locovore" movement is a silly one for most of the people in this country who really don't want to go back to that, thankyouverymuch.

However, prices in Florida won't dictate whether or not produce gets through for much longer since truck farms in California will close down until and unless the rains return.

All those California locovores will be eating Mexican produce like the rest of us.

[raven mad]

13. jwirr, we try up here - but in winter it's difficult.

Unless you have a commercial-style greenhouse and plenty of money for heat, 35 to 40 below is not conducive to growing veggies. I welcome any of the produce that's marked at our regular supermarket as "grown in Mexico" because that's where we get most of our fresh veggies in winter.

Why, instead of shitcanning these veggies, don't the local churches etc. get involved and can, freeze, dry, etc. to use in food banks, soup kitchens, et al?

[jwirr]

15. We can, dry and freeze a lot of food for the winter. Also thinking about a cave for things like

potatoes and apples. My mother and father taught me and I taught my girls and their husbands.

[raven mad]

17. Very cool! Caves aren't really viable here - the ground is either too cold or is tundra.

Interior Alaska! At any rate, our growing season is short and you can just hear the tomatoes popping - lots and lots of sunlight. Given storage space, I'd be canning a lot, but my cabin is too small, and the kitchen totally unequipped for it. Hopefully, we'll be moving in June, and the first thing I'll be scoping is garden space (I have two small, portable greenhouses) and the kitchen, followed closely by a root cellar!

Canning as a group of friends effort (with lots of wine, cheese, crackers, and music, of course) is a blast!

[jwirr]

23. I live in NE MN and our growing season is not that great either. We grow what we can. As to the

cave - I remember several in Iowa but have not seen any here in MN either. We want to try it to see if it works. We also have a small greenhouse to start seeds in the spring. Down the road from us our neighbor has a huge greenhouse. He said that he had to learn a lot before it is going to be a big success. We are lucky because a couple of us live on 5+ acre plots but even those in town have their gardens. As a poorer family we need to help the food budget.

I used to can with my mom and extended family. That was so much fun. There aren't as many of us anymore.

We also have produce stands that set up in a pickup truck in the summer with produce from the southern part of the state and also some from further south. We often buy from them if our gardens do not work out so well due to weather. In southern MN there are huge farms that grow vegetables for the Jolly Green Giant company and they always have excess. Add in the orchards, berries and wild foods, etc. and our state is pretty well supplied.

[raven mad]

25. The folks who set up produce stands out of trucks/trailers?

My mom (who passed away several years ago at age 94) remembered them from her childhood in horse-drawn wagons, and we grew up calling them "hucksters"!!! Nothing like that here, unfortunately, but we do have both the Tanana Valley Farmer's Market and the Salcha Farmer's Market. IF you can dig through the crafts, homemade breads/pies/rolls (I make my own, anyway), draw-the-tourist stuff (summer is our busiest tourist season; trying to get into the parking lot with 35' motorhomes driven by 90 year old folks), there's usually some decent produce. Can't buy it in bulk, though, not enough to set up a canning/freezing operation. Several of us with gardens try to get together and plan them so what one is growing, the other isn't, to complement - and share.

Buying local rocks - I'll pay $1 more for something sold locally than in any chain store.

Oh, BTW, we LOVE Minnesotans here - y'all can deal with the weather without breaking a sweat!

[Travis_0004]

27. So 6 monts out of the year I cant eat fresh food?

What about bannanas and oranges which will never grow up here? Sometimes local doesnt always work.

[Major Nikon]

21. Not a bad argument for some things

But not everything can be grown everywhere all of the time.

[jwirr]

24. Of course. But we also cannot just set here and wait until California and the SE end the drought.

If the climate keeps changing and it looks like it will we need to adjust. Some of those crops could be grown in areas like Iowa and shipped to both coasts but that to is assuming that we will have cheap gas forever. If I am not mistaken Rodale Press started calling for local state production during the gas shortages of 1970s.

There are so many things that are threatening our future - we cannot just say "oh it is snowing - the climate is okay" or "gee we have a glut of petroleum - it is never going to run out".

[OffWithTheirHeads]

5. Actually, some folks are doing something about this.

Check out these people
http://www.borderlandfoodbank.org/POWWOW.html

They set up food distribution sites throughout Arizona and every weekend you can get about 60# of produce for $10.00. I've been going about twice a month for years. Checking my last trip gatherings against Safeway prices I figured I got easily over $100.00 worth of produce. These are good people doing good work. If you live in Az. please check them, out.

[asiliveandbreathe]

7. Thanks for the info OWTH

We shop for fruit and veggies at the Main St. Farmers Market in Mesa...the savings are great...to see this story and the waste of FOOD - is maddening..especially with so many of our Americans who go hungry everyday day - for what? - Greed of course - glad to see people who give a shit doing something...great for borderland food bank ...I will look into it....


On another front - off subject - check out info re: TPP and Fast Track - http://www.citizen.org/tpp -

[obxhead]

9. Thousands of schools could use this food.

We are a disgusting people in a disgusting country.

[Faux pas]

10. That's INSANE!

[AndyTiedye]

11. Would Like to See those who go on about the "Efficiency" of Markets Explain This

[Major Nikon]

20. Better to truck it across the country and then dump it into a landfill?

[Bill USA]

12. these needs to go on Good Reads

[mucifer]

14. So many subsidies go for meat and dairy. So little for what is healthy.

and good for the environment.

[DeSwiss]

16. This is one reason why I call BULLSHIT.......

...on all those people claiming we're gonna starve on this planet. That's a whole lotta garbage and scare tactic bullshit spoken to the uneducated and mental couch-potatoes. Anyone who's ever grown any kind of food before will always be amazed at how much they get back from one damn seed.

- Created scarcity is what drives CAPITALISM.

K&R

[center]CAPITALISM WARPS EVERYTHING
According to a study published by the National Institute of Diabetes and Digestive and Kidney Diseases, Americans waste about 40% of all food produced in the United States. It is also estimated that 70% of all fresh water consumption in the US is attributed to the agricultural production; which means that food waste alone accounts for one quarter of ALL the water consumed within the US. Furthermore, given that the average farm requires 3 kcal of fossil fuel energy to produce 1 kcal of food (before accounting for energy requirements of food processing and transportation) wasted food accounts for roughly 300 million barrels of oil per year. link

[/center]

Future farming does not allow for waste......

[Rex]

19. Yep, my family/relatives have a pretty good size garden between houses

and can easily feed a two dozen people each year with all kinds of fruits and vegetables. A community can grow their own food and make sundries. We still do it here.

[ND-Dem]

18. i don't get it. why truck it from mexico to dump it in the US?

[Quantess]

22. Wastefulness. One of the downsides of capitalism.

If the almighty dollar says so, you do it, no matter what.

[LiberalAndProud]

26. In the souls of the people the grapes of wrath are filling and growing heavy,

growing heavy for the vintage.

...

And a homeless hungry man, driving the roads with his wife beside him and his thin children in the back seat, could look at the fallow fields which might produce food but not profit and that man could know how a fallow field is a sin and the unused land a crime against the thin children. An such a man drove along the roads and knew temptation at every filed, and knew the lust to take these fields and make them grow strength for his children and a little comfort for his wife. The temptation was before him always. The fields goaded him, and the company ditches with good water flowing were a goad to him.

And in the south he saw the golden oranges hanging on the trees, the little golden oranges on the dark green trees; and guards with shotguns patrolling the lines so a man might not pick an orange for a thin child, oranges to be dumped if the price was low.
John Steinbeck