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The Cider House RulesWhat pick-your-own-apple orchards teach about the American economy.

By Daniel Gross
Updated Monday, Oct. 9, 2006, at 5:33 PM ET

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A few weeks ago, the New York Times ran a poignant article ($ required) about anguished fruit farmers in California. Because of a crackdown on illegal immigrants, they couldn't find workers willing to pick their pears, even at $150 per day. And as a result, perfectly good fruit rotted in the fields.

Perhaps the California farmers, who depend on migrant Mexican labor, have got the wrong business model. Instead of paying workers to pick their fruit, they should try another strategy: making customers pay to pick the fruit themselves. Savvy farmers all over the country have discovered a practice that might not work as a nationwide agricultural policy, but that has allowed some economically inefficient orchards to thrive: Encourage yuppies and their progeny to come pick your fruit—they'll pay handsomely for the privilege, buy more than they'd ordinarily consume, and then shell out for all sorts of other value-added products. It's the best use of child labor since Manchester's early 19th-century textile mills.

Apple picking is a cherished rite of fall, a wholesome and fun family outing, a throwback to a simpler time when people weren't so disconnected from the production of their sustenance. I look forward to it every year. It's also a wasteful scam.

We've been educated (or bullied, depending on your outlook) by foodies like Alice Waters and Dan Barber to adopt the European concept of terroir—the best stuff to consume is the stuff grown in closest proximity. For people in the Northeast, that's fine in the summer, when the Union Square greenmarket bursts with locally grown exotic greens, yellow squash, and heirloom tomatoes of such flavor (and cost) as to make a gourmand weep.

But in the fall, while the region's landscape lights up with foliage, the farm stands' color palette becomes more drab: potatoes, root vegetables, pumpkins, gourds, and, of course, apples. And so, to the pick-your-own orchards we go.

Silverman's Farm, the farm I frequent in Fairfield County, Conn., is a pick-your-own farm for Type A's: a high-volume, diversified joint. It attracts pickers from New Haven, New York, and all points in between. (You can rusticate and still be back to Park Slope in time for dinner.) Several tractors take turns hauling wagons with families up the slopes, and then back to the large store, where pumpkins, jams, ciders, pies, and flowers are sold. After jostling through the crowds—gaining access to the choice apple trees and a quick checkout lane requires the same level of competitiveness, foresight, and sharp elbows as winning admission to top nursery schools—it's across the street to the petting zoo for the exquisite pleasure of having llamas and goats lick pellets out of your hands.

On Sunday, we experienced a more laid-back, echt version of apple-picking on a postcard-perfect day at Bartlett's Orchard in the Berkshires.

The apple-picking experience sheds light on some unflattering truths about the American economy.

First, we regard nature as a realm to be conquered and tamed for our recreation, not to be preserved and nourished for its own sake. At the orchards, kids are instructed on how to pick apples—twist them gently—in such a way that leaves the tree intact. (Of course, for every child who closely adheres to the instructions, there's another who shakes the branch heartily, sending a cascade of smaller apples, leaves, and branches down to the ground.) But these trees are hardly natural. They aren't the sort of majestic, voluptuous apple trees you would have found in the Garden of Eden. They're dwarf apple trees, stumpy bushes engineered so that their fruit grows just a few feet off the ground. They're the veal calves of the fruit world.

In the United States, overconsumption is encouraged as a positive good (see under: McMansions, SUVs, all-you-can-eat buffets). Add pick-your-own apples to the list. At Silverman's Farm, pickers have a choice: $14 for a small bag and $24 for a large bag. At Bartlett's, it's less: $9 for a peck (10 pounds), $15 for a bushel (20 pounds). But even though consumers here avoid all the supply-chain costs they would pay at a grocery store, it's not that much cheaper. At Peapod, a three-pound bag of apples goes for $2.79, about 93 cents a pound.

And, just as people who visit wineries end up walking away with a case instead of a bottle, it's a given that people leave pick-your-own orchards with a surfeit of apples. We left with two almost-full small bags, about 20 pounds, or between 60 and 70 apples. In a good week at home, we'll go through a dozen. Pickers tell themselves they'll put the farm-fresh apples to good use: making homemade apple sauce, or whipping up an apple pie. But most people don't have the time. Besides, pick-your-own orchards sell the processed versions right there, in the irresistible form of apple cider and apple-cider donuts. (Even when they go to pick fresh produce, Americans use it as an excuse to consume deep-fried, carb-loaded junk.)

Apple-picking also makes us vulnerable to that peculiarly American malady: the paradox of choice. Sophisticated American consumers must develop the ability to pick and choose among hundreds of varieties of wine, cheese, chocolate, and coffee. Well, like everything else in life, apple connoisseurship can be reduced to a convenient spreadsheet. Did you know that Granny Smith apples are tart and are superb for pies but poor for sauce, while Sun Crisp are tangy sweet and are very good for salad but only fair for pies? And how can you keep track of all the different varieties once they're in the bag? If you thought comparing apples to oranges was a fruitless endeavor, try comparing apples to apples.

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Daniel Gross is the Moneybox columnist for Slate and the business columnist for Newsweek. You can e-mail him at . He is the author of Pop! Why Bubbles Are Great for the Economy.
Photograph of apple on the Slate home page courtesy Digital Vision.
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Remarks from the Fray:

Let's not pretend that self-pick is a viable means to combat high wages. If I have a sizeable orchard, I grow more than is needed in my area, more than even the perceived needs of yuppies. And it's certainly not news that "value pricing" large quantities motivates people to buy more than they need. So what's the real reason for the article? I think even economists want to write about the New England fall. And the canny ones figure they can use that impulse to write off a family apple-picking jaunt as a business expense.

--DeaH

(To reply, click here.)

Since I have a fruit and vegetable farmer in my congregation, I'm a bit more aware of the financial straits of many who grow produce than Daniel Gross lets on. He takes the example of a couple boutique operations and generalizes when the farmer side of the equation the economics look grim.

The situation of which I'm aware involves a farm that has been in operation for several generations by the same family. It is a hardscrabble, heavily indebted operation in the Lehigh Valley, an area which has seen an influx of affluent residents in the past decade. But money is exactly falling off tthe trees for this family.

Quite the contrary!

The reality is a steady squeeze between flat income and rising costs. Retailers increasingly have the option of buying imported fruits and vegetables from around the globe at prices with which many American growers struggle to compete. This farm family has seen a cozy relationship with local supermarket chains shattered. Apples produced in China are cheaper than they can deliver. Ditto for the peppers they grow and the squash and the berries. Family farms in the Northeast compete not only against factory farms in California, but with farms in Mexico and Chile as well. Meanwhile, fuel and equipment costs have soared.

And when a drought devestated their crops several years ago, they got... zero dollars of government support.

Price support for fruit and vegetable growers is nonexistent.

To survive, this family has resorted to all sorts of gimmicks to attract business... agrotourism is what it's called. Hosting small business gatherings. Pumpkin patch tours. Peddling their products at local farm co-ops/farmer's markets.

I wouldn't be surprised to hear this story repeated throughout the region.

We may rue the day if farms like this go under. If the supply chains that bring us cheap produce from California and developing world nations snaps, we are all going to find ourselves with an impoverished diet.

It is called agriculture for a reason. There is a whole culture of knowledge and experience that may get lost if we aren't careful.

Perhaps we need more people making foolish choices to save us from our own short-sightedness.

--revrick

(To reply, click here.)

Why are you picking in Fairfield? Of course it's going to be pricier there.

having spent most of my life in CT, i too went apple picking every fall. south glastonbury is the place to go, in my opinion. cheaper, the apples are bought by the pound, not the bag (who does that?) and you grab a bucket for each variety (so both you and the orchard can keep track of which apples you get). since you pay by the pound, if you don't feel obligated to get 20 pounds of apples. most importantly, you get to pick the apples. they are fresh, unbruised, unwaxed, etc.. if you truly enjoy apples, and cooking with apples, this is the way to go.

as for the different varieties, it's really not all that difficult. like any other aspect of cooking. it's not difficult to remember what to do with different cuts of meat, is it? use cortlands & granny smiths for pies and crisps, macouns & cripins (aka mutzu) for out-of-hand snacking (macs too, if you don't mind softer apples), romes for baked apples and macintosh for sauces and cider.

besides, the orchard will have a guide for you to take home.

you sound a bit bitter about the whole thing, frankly. but it's not the fault of apple picking itself.

--twifferTheGnu

(To reply, click here.)

The implication is that pick-your-own apple orchards somehow promise a return to nature, but in the end, they merely expose humanity's conquest of the natural world. However, the point of going to a farm is not to experience nature, but to experience that very conquest of nature, a conquest we call 'agriculture.' It is a return to the source of our food, but it was never intended to be a return to some primal hunter-gatherer communion with nature. The very existence of the apple tree in this country at all (only crab apples are native) is due to human influence. Not only that, but the grafting of apple tree varietals is the only way to maintain a variety. If we merely tossed seeds on the ground, due to cross-pollination, we would not have a true Macintosh or a true Granny Smith tree. Human control over nature is what gives us apples in the first place. The cost savings are minimal, and those farm stands do sell maple syrup for more than you would pay at the local sugarhouse, but the fact that Americans are still interested in farms at all is vaguely encouraging.

--ZSLK

(To reply, click here.)

(10/11)

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