For many warm weather fruit lovers, the prospect of unlimited ripe and rosy peaches is mouth-watering. For Central California farmers, it’s more of a waking nightmare.
To make ends meet, these farmers are now weighing whether to destroy about 3,000 acres, or about 420,000 clingstone peach trees, following the closure of Del Monte Foods canneries earlier this year. With the shuttering of the Modesto Del Monte plant, which processed between 30% and 35% of the state’s cling peaches, the peach farmers are now left with a glut of fruit—and no one to sell it to. Now farmers are left with little choice but to uproot these trees and pivot to different crops to recoup losses.
As a result, the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) approved $9 million in federal aid to help farmers remove the trees to transition to more valuable crops, according to a recent press release from Calif. Sen. Adam Schiff. The funds come after more than 40 California lawmakers wrote to Agriculture Secretary Brooke Rollins in March requesting financial aid for the farmers, arguing USDA intervention was necessary to stabilize the wellbeing of multi-generational food growers in the region.
Schiff, citing a USDA analysis, noted that removing 50,000 tons of peaches from production could save farmers about $30 million in projected losses that would have otherwise gone to waste with the shuttering of the farmers’ biggest buyer.
This funding “offers a glimmer of hope after a devastating period, ensuring California farmers can transition to new crops and stay on their land,” California Farm Bureau President Shannon Douglass said in a statement.
A fallen food production giant
Del Monte, the nearly 140-year old food producer and distributor based in California, filed for bankruptcy in July 2025 and closed its canneries in Modesto and Hughson last month. The company had struggled to adapt to changing customer preferences, which steered away from canned fruits and vegetables in favor of fresh produce. The company’s troubles intensified as operational costs mounted, in part due to tariffs on imported steel that was used in the cans.
According to Del Monte’s bankruptcy court filings, the state’s peach farmers had some rather long-term contracts to supply fruit to the company due in part to the 20-year lifespans of these specific peach trees, which take years to cultivate. Collectively, these lost contracts are worth more than $550 million.
U.S. farmers are already weathering a host of challenges. Tariffs have raised input costs and priced some American growers out of global markets. The Iran war has further complicated the picture for farmers, as the closure of the Strait of Hormuz has cut off about one-third of global fertilizer shipments and hiked prices of key growing chemicals, forcing some to reconsider which crops they grow. Water overuse and persistent drought, exacerbated by climate change, have further reduced crop yields.
Adapting to contract losses
Though some farmers and lawmakers celebrated the $9 million in assistance to remove the peach trees, growers said adapting to lost Del Monte contracts will be easier said than done.
Yuba County farmers Tony and Laura McGrath told the Sacramento Bee in February that other crops are not as lucrative as peaches. Of their 40 acres of peach trees, the couple had 12 acres of Andross peaches which were under contract with Del Monte for another decade. They also grow and dehydrate prunes as well as almonds, which can be more cost-effective than peaches, but have fluctuated in price and require a steep investment of both time and money to grow.
“There’s really nothing that you can move into,” Tony McGrath said. “Walnut prices aren’t that great. You can do prunes, but it takes you seven to eight years to develop it and start getting money back from it. Almonds, there’s quite a few of them also, and it’s very expensive to start an almond orchard.”
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