The works of the roots of the vines, of the trees, must be destroyed to keep up the price, and this is the saddest, bitterest thing of all. Carloads of oranges dumped on the ground. The people came for miles to take the fruit, but this could not be. How would they buy oranges at twenty cents a dozen if they could drive out and pick them up? And men with hoses squirt kerosene on the oranges, and they are angry at the crime, angry at the people who have come to take the fruit. A million people hungry, needing the fruit- and kerosene sprayed over the golden mountains. And the smell of rot fills the country. Burn coffee for fuel in the ships. Burn corn to keep warm, it makes a hot fire. Dump potatoes in the rivers and place guards along the banks to keep the hungry people from fishing them out. Slaughter the pigs and bury them, and let the putrescence drip down into the earth.
There is a crime here that goes beyond denunciation. There is a sorrow here that weeping cannot symbolize. There is a failure here that topples all our success. The fertile earth, the straight tree rows, the sturdy trunks, and the ripe fruit. And children dying of pellagra must die because a profit cannot be taken from an orange. And coroners must fill in the certificate- died of malnutrition- because the food must rot, must be forced to rot. The people come with nets to fish for potatoes in the river, and the guards hold them back; they come in rattling cars to get the dumped oranges, but the kerosene is sprayed. And they stand still and watch the potatoes float by, listen to the screaming pigs being killed in a ditch and covered with quick-lime, watch the mountains of oranges slop down to a putrefying ooze; and in the eyes of the people there is the failure; and in the eyes of the hungry there is a growing wrath. In the souls of the people the grapes of wrath are filling and growing heavy, growing heavy for the vintage.
And yet, prices of avocados in the stores around here are just as high as they’ve always been.
Real “Grapes of Wrath” hours.
TFW they take your advice and stop eating avocado toast :deeper-sadness:
First they say we should stop eating avocados, now it’s our fault for not eating enough.
No, don’t you get it? We should have saved enough by now from not eating avocados to have a house and children so we should be able to afford avocados again. It’s just economics sweaty.
They’re not worthless, you just can’t profit as much as you want.
“worthless” it’s food!!! Eat it! Give it away! If you’re not making money anyway who cares? Aren’t there hungry people over there in need of fresh fruit?
“worthless” it’s food!!! Eat it! Give it away!
Avocados are a bitch to preserve, ship, and stock. They have a shelf-life measured in days. The only reason we’re seeing a glut stems from the outrageous premiums farmers were expecting to receive.
Because refrigeration, shipping, and stocking all cost money, the real cost of the product can actually be negative relative to the perceived value of the end consumer. “You’d literally have to pay me to take all these avocados” is a thing retailers and wholesalers will tell you.
There’s a reason corn, wheat, and rice are staples and avocados are not.
surely there are people/charity orgs who’d be happy to show up and take some themselves
