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Our Chinese friends at it again!!! |
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Optics Jedi Knight Lord Of The Flies Joined: March/14/2007 Location: South Africa Status: Offline Points: 6253 |
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Posted: February/03/2011 at 23:45 |
US (CA): Peach growers in Valley, China fight for market share
California growers have been undisputed kings of the cling-peach industry for decades. From Yuba City to Kingsburg, second- and third-generation farmers have steadily supplied the nation's makers of canned peaches, fruit cocktail and other processed peach products. But now that dominance is being challenged by China -- a country with a history of squeezing U.S. farmers out of their own markets. And California's $158 million cling-peach industry worries it may be next. In the last decade, lower-priced Chinese canned-peach imports to the U.S. grew from just 43,000 cases to more than 2.2 million last year. A case holds two dozen 29-ounce cans. Chinese peaches now represent 12% of the 16 million cases consumed in the U.S. That has taken a bite out of the market share for California growers, who produce virtually all of the U.S.-grown cling peaches. "It has been an overwhelming wave," said J.D. Allen, manager of the California Cling Peach Board in Dinuba. "And there is a lot of angst in our industry right now." The industry knows China is a formidable challenger. The country captured the apple-juice concentrate market, once led by Washington state, and now supplies most of the processed garlic used in the U.S. Lower-priced Chinese garlic was one of the factors that contributed to the shuttering of the De Francesco & Sons dehydrating plant near Firebaugh in 2006. Cheap labor, government support and lower production costs provide China with an advantage over U.S. farmers. Allen said Chinese peaches arrive in the U.S. at roughly half the cost of California peaches, making them attractive to food makers and processors. |
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