rob's blog

APPLES

Not many people outside of our state know this, but Michigan is the third largest apple producer in the nation, behind Washington (state) and New York (stater).

However, this year's crop is expected to be lowered by 10% this year thanks to poor pollination conditions in May and a freak ass mild summer. There's also another problem.

This is the part of the post where I give the middle finger to Japan.

The Japanese government has had nearly a decade long ban on the import of apples to the island, which has hurt the US (and Michigan's) chances at competition on an international level. Japan, under pressure from the WTO, was to lift the ban in June. This has yet to have been put in effect, and farmers will be losing profits soon thanks to these conditions. On top of that, China has flooded the market with a mass of cheap, but lower quality apples (I scoped them a bit at Kroger a few nights ago with SSCO) hurting the demand and putting local farmers in a price war.

This is bullshit. Eat Michigan apples, motherfuckers. They taste better.

Posted by rob at August 21, 2004 07:53 PM