have you noticed? OT a little

jeffcat

Well-known Member
At the super market today. I bought the fourth bag of green seedless table grapes. These are from California. They have all been nice and large, Firm to the bite and sweet! Very nice munch while I drive to work. Who else has had such nice grapes this year?
 
We do , here in Australia , mainly because they are flown here from ------, you guessed correctly , Southern California !
Most of our own table grape growers have long since gone bust due to pressure from the @#$%*!! Woolworths and Safeway supermarkets . Those that have survived did so by ripping out table grape vines and planting wine grapes . So the ridiculous situation exists where Victorian markets import grapes by air some thousands of kilometres when they could have been sourced from Mildura .Only seven hundred Km from Melbourne and with more sun than Southern Ca. As I write this I am eating a strawberry from S.Ca.
an [b:a2aae999bf]Eight thousand Kilometre transport.[/b:a2aae999bf]
I would eat Australian ones if I could , really , they just aren't on the shelves and the farms they used to be grown on are under housing estates . This is why I have two Ferguson tractors , maybe soon I can grow food that only has to travel from the back paddock to my family's plate.
 
A lot of our produce at this time of the year comes from Mexico and South American countries (especially berries). My wife won't buy berries during the winter season as those countries still use pesticides banned in the U.S.
 
That's interesting Charles. We're that way here with fish. Water everywhere, but all of the fish packages say "Product of China", or some similar place.
 
To charles in Austraila--here in central Michigan purchased lamb at the local store and it comes from aus.--how does it pay to ship frozen product 10,000 miles when we have sheep farms down the road ??
 
I live about 35 miles from Lake Ontario where there is a large number of apple farms and other fruit. Couple of years ago my wife got a small bag of Apple's at the store that came from Peru.
Just a side note. Brazil, Chili, and Peru use more crop chemicals than the entire USA Farmers. Quite a few of the chemicals have been banned here.
 
Where I used to live, my neighbor used to grow apples (Near Charlottesville, VA). All of his apples were shipped to South America! You can get local apples here in season. But I think that what is available depends largely on the time of year. Off season fruits often come from overseas because of the local growing season.

Of course Southern California does not seem to have off seasons.

Cliff(VA)
 
(quoted from post at 15:49:48 11/07/14) To charles in Austraila--how does it pay to ship frozen product 10,000 miles when we have sheep farms down the road ??

This is the tragedy of the situation , the breeder or grower must be making peanuts on the sale when transport costs are factored in . Supermarket trade practices need serious scrutiny before we all lose our capacity to produce local food .
 
Cas, if I may ask, where abouts are you located? I am in Central Square area.

I grew up in an area where there were 3 different apple growers in town. (LaFayette NY)
Now just a 10 minute drive north and more growers so no way I by apples from foodstore.
1 place had some yummy peaches too!
 

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