If you have been to your grocery stores produce section in the last week you might have noticed the low price of strawberries. Florida farmers faced one of the worst winters in recent decades; faced with losing a large portion of their crop farmers were forced to continually water the strawberries to keep the damage of frost to a minimum. As a result the Florida harvest was delayed and just happened to coincide with California harvest. Because of market oversaturation farmers are only getting 25 cents per pound of strawberries when in normal years they would be fetching about a dollar a pound. This has forced farmers to destroy their own harvest to artificially inflate the price of strawberries. Farmers are not subsidized by the government nor insured for the loss of their crop.
To make matters worse farmers are being accused of greed and a general insensitivity to those without or in need of food. Concerned citizens believe that the farmers should at the very least allow individuals to pick the extra crop for free or donate it to shelters where the food can be of use. On top of that local residents are citing the farmers for creating sinkholes that they believe to be caused by the excess watering of crops in the winter. These sinkholes have left residents without water for weeks or dried their wells up all together while some have even lost their homes because of them.
From the farmers perspective it is not economically feasible to ship out the strawberries to shelters after harvesting when you include all the costs of growing and picking the fruit. While many others are afraid if they let their farms become a free-for-all they could be liable for injuries that occur on their land and possible damage to new crops that have already been planted.
When considering all the problems of the farmers and residents it is hard to take any one side. I believe that when it comes to the farmers destroying their crop so they can make a profit that it is reasonable and I understand they cannot take any more cost associated with donating the excess. I would like to see and effort made by the farmers to find a charity organization that might be able to come and pick the excess at no cost to the farmer. I am sure there are many out there that would be willing to do this. To me the most serious problem is the one faced by residents that have damaged homes or have dried up wells. This is where I believe that the farmers should be responsible for the damages. Although I am not quite sure how you would enforce the farmers to pay for the damages as they collectively caused the problem. When precious natural resources such as water are being used farmers should be conscious about consumption, especially when their actions have caused the ground water supply to dry up. While it might be devastating for farmers to lose a whole harvest it is just as devastating, maybe even more for someone to lose their home.
--Ben Summers
