Factory Farming

Long, long shelf life.

Americans eat what is for sale.

It is cheap. It is good enough. And few people know any better. 

It is time for me to re-plant my melons, so this will be short and direct. 

I replant by hand skipped hills--places where the seed did not germinate or for some other reason the plant did not come up. I also planted them by hand in the first place, using a hoe and dropping in four seeds per hill.

I grow them, pick them ripe, and hand them to people ready to eat, with a shelf life of three or four days. 

The melons readers see in stores today are grown far south of here, in Guatemala, and then later in the season in Mexico, then California. 

Local southern Oregon melons will likely not be available in late August, when they are in season here, and almost certainly not in supermarkets. There is almost no way to make a profit doing growing melons here. The melons for sale here will come from factory farms in the Central Valley of California or from Hermiston, Oregon. 

Hand grown melons cannot compete with the price of factory melons.

Ready for planting. Efficient.

I bought the melon shown above, with the Del Monte/Guatemala sticker, 25 days ago, and left it on a counter at room temperature. It would be still sellable today, although it is now soft to the touch, the way many customers prefer them. 

When they are picked green, by machines, they have a lot of shelf life, which growers, shippers, and stores like. Consumers have grown accustomed to the taste of factory melons, and they have learned that melons are available 52 weeks a year. 

Southern Oregon readers are seeing an example of factory farming, with the plantation of CBD crops, the subject of yesterday's post. Tens of thousands of arcres are being planted now.  Look closely at the two photos of fields. A field is prepared by tilling it ten or twelve inches deep. A machine puts down plastic and watering drip line, and then it is planted in even spaces. CBD cannabis plants are not simply spaced within the rows, but that they form rows seen across the field. It is even and precise. The hemp will be harvested as mechanically as it was planted. 

Apple Cider. I spoke yesterday with an Oregon grower of apples intended for apple cider. Americans do not--yet--have much of a cider culture nor market, nothing like that in the UK where people have been drinking alcoholic drinks made from cider for centuries. Cider had been the alcohol drink of choice in America, too, until Prohibition, and that ended.

Planted CBD

Cider in America is made from cull apples--apples grown to be eaten fresh but where a bruise or mis-shape or other imperfection makes them unsellable. It is an efficient, cost-effective way to get apples for apple juice, and, after all, no one cares about the appearance of an apple that is to be crushed. It's a usable product out of what would otherwise be waste. How efficient.

The problem is taste. 

Apple cider made from "eating apples" is over-sweet and insipid; it makes cider that is the equivalent of watery light beer. Real apple cider--cider that would be considered interesting and tasty in a market where cider is grown and appreciated--is made from "spitters," apples that aren't sweet but have rich flavor notes. 

Who knew? Not Americans. We buy what is available, what makes sense economically to grow, food that is efficient, cheap, and good enough. Insipid cider is efficient.

Maybe there will be a market for good cider, real cider, but it will be an uphill battle because it will necessarily be more expensive. It will be made from apples grown for that purpose, not a waste product.

Factory melons. Good enough.

It can happen. Americans developed a taste for better coffee. Thirty years ago good coffee was Yuban, the superior alternative to Folgers.

More common in food is a move in the other direction: Gresham's Law. The cheaper currency drive out the better currency; cheap food replaces expensive food. 

Good enough is cheaper than good.

When possible, grow food yourself and eat what is in season. At least it will give you a point of comparison and you will know what you are missing.