It's Florida v. Arizona in food fight over tomato protectionism

0 tariffs, 0 taxes, 0 quotas, 0 farmer welfare!!!!

We gotta be thwarting the free mkt if Fla is still growing maters commercially

 

Ruskin tomatoes are as good as any I’ve ever eaten. The only tomato I’ve had that was comparable were the ones my mom grew in her garden in Nantahala NC in the red clay soil.

We use Compari as they have a semblance of flavor. It’s a hybrid.

Mexico tomatoes suck. No flavor.

 

With all the lycopene I get, if I get prostate cancer I’m suing someone’s ass.

 

In a thoroughly unsurprising move, I’m going to agree with you about wanting the market to decide this. I am agnostic about the quality of Florida tomatoes, but I would say that if we removed all price interventions, that question would answer itself.

 

Not sure about the validity of the Court ruling but the quote reminded me of the following saying: "Knowledge is knowing that a tomato is a fruit. Wisdom is knowing not to put it in a fruit salad."

 

If you lift the restrictions on production practices and allow what Mexico allows, then you don't need these anti-dumping laws. Between food safety regulations, labor laws, and pesticide use Florida growers cannot compete.

 

The tomatoes I grow are some of the best I've ever eaten. I grow super sweet 100 cherry tomatoes, beefsteaks and some designer tomatoes - green with brown stripes. They are all very sweet when they are ripe. I normally don't harvest them until they are pretty ripe.

 

The best tomatoes I ever had were grown in my parents garden in Michigan. Our garden soil was a black muck that was absolutely amazing. Add to that that the harsh winters kept the various tomato diseases at bay and we would have bumper crops every year that would last till frost.

Many a summer meal consisted of nothing but sliced tomatoes, sweet corn, and sliced cucumbers.

 

Several years ago, one of the most popular varieties grown in the Immokalee area was FL47. It is a very high yielding and know to be a good shipper. Everyone complained about the taste because they pick them green ripe and expose them to ethylene gas to turn them red. Great for shipping because shelf life increased dramatically. Take the same tomato and vine ripe it and it is one of the best tastings on the market.

 

tariffs if their farmers aren't meeting the same environmental standards ours are required to.

 

only if you balance the rules and regulations from environmental, food safety, labor, etc.

 

That’s one key to good tomatoes. Don’t harvest until ripe.

My mom’s tomatoes in NC were beyond good. She canned a lot of them and man,,,,, they were good that way too.

 

this, locally grown and picked at maturity is always going to be best. it is also why canned vegetables have many more nutrients in them than "fresh" ones do.

edit - by fresh I mean what you buy in the grocery stores which are rarely freshly picked

indoor vertical farming allows the product to be grown to near maturity as it is locally shipped only and requires no pesticides or fungicides. Cut shipping distances and times and reduce the carbon footprint. power the project with solar cells and battery packs. 1 acre of greenhouse produces same yields as 60 - 80 acres of open land and generates 1 - 2 more crops per year. They also consume CO2 as they increase the CO2 from atmospheric conditions to increase yield

 

For sure, one big advantage of home grown tomatoes is the ability to get them truly vine ripe.

Also, home grown varieties are able to focus on flavor while commercial varieties tend towards long shelf life.

 

Your point here, clearly crucial to the matter, is an interesting one. I wonder why couldn’t also the conditions of growth also be factored into the demand side? People are willing to pay more for organic tomatoes, why not for the additional safety measures that accompany US grown tomatoes?

 

because supposedly usda insures the safety of the product but it is more about the rules and regs that must be met. there is also the issue that land in Az or Florida to grow tomatoes costs much more than land in Mexico and so does labor. do you want to offshore our food supply and be left hungry when that offshore has issues? I defer to @Gatoragman for more color as he is likely closer to the production costs than I am.

 

You hit the nail on the head. Just labor alone we pay $12-14/hour, Mexico you are lucky to get per day or even week. That alone is a huge one but many more. Fresh tomato production is fairly hand labor intensive.

 

i thought pay was all based on weight. is that what it averages out to for a productive crew?

now take that cost and add another 30 - 50% (?) if we want to implement a real guest worker program that provides proper shelter and medical care and pays for transportation to and from the guest worker country and pays an admin fee to cover the cost of the gubmnt administering the program

 

Tomatoes are labor and water intensive. While you can grow tomatoes in Arizona, not a lot of large production farms do because of the amount of water needed. Land, water, and labor are all less expensive in Mexico, and the water is often easier to find.

Agreed that the quality of tomatoes from Mexico is average at best, but when you're making salsa, easy to add flavor. We generally grow our own cherry tomatoes in our little garden and you can't compare flavor. One of our little ones has more flavor than an entire store-bought one. But we only grow the cherries because the water/yield ratio for others isn't worth it.

The issues of raising tomato prices in Arizona outweigh the benefits to Florida growers in my opinion. First, the price of tomatoes in Arizona would rise, and tomatoes are a staple food. Second, the number of tomatoes sold from Mexico would decrease, which means less work for Mexicans in Mexico, and possibly more migrants seeking work in the US. And again, it's not like Arizona is going to start growing its own tomatoes in large quantities any time soon.