Ugh Mrs G! Yet another short sighted sell out of the American farmer! Like we cant grow all the apples we need here??? Sickening.
I am also not much concerned with the âoffendedâ industry.
Food is not like microchips or clothing. For the latter we only deal with the economic argument. With foods, the issue revolves both around economics and Health and Safety, with the second not being negotiable . (BTW, I donât want to hear that they âwonât buy our wheat or beefâ if we donât buy theirâŚ).
I have refused to buy any foodstuffs, raw or processed, for myself or my dogs from China forever and I have been proven right.
I donât buy any raw agricultural products (fruits veggies etc.) from any overseas producers (mainly coming in from South & Central America in winter). I just do without for a time so I appreciate it more when it comes into season.
Plainly speaking, aside from the obvious reduced quality due to logistic realities, I just DONâT trust that I know what went into them.
But as to that fly⌠It and others will be here there and everywhere, eventually and unfortunately. I think we are only fighting a holding action
MIke
i doubt if anyoneâs offended. The more possible response would be for asians to scratch their heads trying to figure out what it is that weâre whining about whenever something âbadâ gets included with what we import from them. Either that or they find it laughable that weâre even complaining! Maybe peaches have been in usa for 300 years, but peaches were born in asia, and so were the fruit flies and both have evolved there for thousands of years, maybe millions of years now. Those peoples have been battling fruit flies, and hlb, and ofm, for a long long time, all they could say about us complaining is, well-- âwelcome to the clubâ.
as with many other temperate fruits, apples are seasonal, so it is understandable that peaches, plums, apples, etc are shipped from other countries since their weather patterns differ from ours. I see lots of fruits from chile during certain times of year, when our fruit trees have yet to blossom or have mature fruits.
neither did i, and even if there was intent, it is not a problem.
as for feelings and opinions, was merely abating it. If a friend loves to play golf day in and out for many years, and posts online being sore about being hit with a stray ball, wouldnât anyone want to chime in?
It would âTeeâ me off for sure!
I was playing golf with a friend and a funeral session went by, my friend bowed his head and waited till the procession past. I told him âwow, that was respectful!â He said âThe least i could do, we were married 30 yearsâ.
lol! I admit it is off topic, but golf does have an addictive effect on many people. Could be that the wavy seas of green impart a relaxing, if not hypnotic vista.
Actually apples are a pretty bad example to use. We perfected cold storage of apples a long time ago, we can store apples for more than 12 months with no loss in quality. There is zero cause to bring in Chinese apples into the US, we can easily supply (and do) all our apple needs. Im guessing the industry is in favor of letting in Chinese stuff so they have a shot at getting USA grown apples a market there. Doesnt mean its a good idea, business priorities are often short sighted and selfish. Id be very surprised if the average fruit farmer supports it.
I was involved in retail sales with much product coming from the China and the far east. When all products land, they are âsprayedâ by us, on the docks and left in quarantine for x amount of days. Our sprays may not be strong enough. All sorts of creatures came through. Water bugs, roaches, wood eating beetles, you name it.
and china is waaaay across the pacific. Not sure if it is really cheaper doing that with shipping costs. Could it be that the chinese are really more economical at producing apples we have to ship from them? If thereâs anything which woud bring bac the businesses here-- be it electronics, textiles, or food, it would probably be a radical fuel hikeâŚ
of course that is only a supposition and not a suggestion
exactly! it is impossible to nitpick and isolate each and every bug.
if there was this hypothetical warehouse worker in china chomping on a peach on the job and gets startled by his boss, heâd probably just ditch the fruit into the cargo, which may then be visited by fruit flies,and the eggs laid on it would enhance its survival en route on the ship to usa. Fruit flies could thrive and lay eggs in succession on a piece of fruit for weeks. Especially in close quarters where they wonât be blown away, being locked inside the crates with plasticâand food.
could it be that we donât have enough apples for juice production? Pic below seems to point in that direction. Worse is that the more countries ship agri-products to us, the higher the chances of us getting stowaway pests.
i canât believe brazil, which is not really famous for temperate fruits, is actually exporting apple products to uncle sam. While new zealand, which is another far-flung country like china, is actually doing the same. Quite incredibe that that it is even cost-effective, and yet this juice box, among many others i see in grocery stores, have juice mixes from those countries.
The imported juice is much cheaper than juice from american apples and has resulted in a diminished market (or no market) for low quality apples from american growers in many markets. Its not unusual for China to sell their products for less than production cost in order to capture market share.
Many years ago I realized that invasive species are really just accelerated evolution.
now that is really extreme-- if not outright weird-- math. I guess labor there is so dirt-cheap they could make it possible.
either way, and regardless, the trade practice is really bad for fruit farmers in usa.
China is the largest grower of apples in the world and they export huge quantities of apple juice concentrate to the USA. I believe they got a bit of bad publicity a while back from high levels of arsenic in some of this juice.
The good news is a lot of quality apple juice is available from 100% USA grown apples. The product label makes it easy to determine the country of origin of the apples or juice.