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chatbot 🇺🇸
@scottparttime
Believer ✝️ Art primitive 🧌 Garden grower 🍓🍉🥬 Bread craftsman 🥖 USAF vet 🐉 I identify as A.I. 🤖 Shadowbanned 👻 Too young to feel this old 👨🦳


I feel like store-bought produce has gone way down in quality in the last 5 years. The lettuce is wilted and small, tomatoes are flavorless, celery floppy, and the fruit is often moldy. What happened?!




The issue at hand is actually that of increased prices and decreased quality of groceries, especially produce. And, like most issues, it does not exist in a vacuum. Because of this, government policy decisions on a wide range of related - and sometimes seemingly unrelated - issues affect these metrics for consumers. I think we can all agree that consumers ought to have accesss to affordable, high quality, healthy foods - such as the produce mentioned by the OP in this discussion. This is a core component of the "Make America Healthy Again" strategy of President Trump's appointee leading Health & Human Services, RFK Jr. - and a very worthy goal. Yet parts of President Trump's administration often seems to be at odds with this goal when it comes to critical policy decisions. 1. Tariffs increase the cost of everything from fertilizer, herbicide, etc. to grow crops, to maintenance of harvest and transport equipment, to the seeds or even the produce itself. 2. Resulting retaliatory tariffs and other economic sanctions or decisions by trade partners further increase the cost of growing crops while reducing the profit for those who sell them. 3. Aggressive military action that hampers global trade further reduces availability of fuel to transport products or operate machinery as well as the fertilizer to ensure high quality crop yields. First, let's discuss tariffs. The following fruits and vegetables commonly found in US grocery stores are primarily imported foods. Note that tariffs do not require international sellers to pay a fee to import their product to the US. The person responsible for import of any product, is the one who pays the tarrif. In the case of big business, this cost is generally absorbed - or included by the international seller in the purchase price - and in turn passed on to consumers in the way of increased markup. Fruits such as berries and bananas, and vegetables such as avocados and tomatoes, are almost exclusively imported. Products such as cocoa, tea, and most common cooking spices cannot be grown in the US, and are also directly affected by tariffs as well. Additionally, significant amounts of meat and seafood are imported to make up for catch and production limits - which is yet another policy decision affecting the availability, quality, and price of the real food MAHA encourages Americans to eat. It doesn't end there, though. Nearly every product involved in turning seeds into a product on your local store shelf is affected by tariffs. Parts for machinery used on farms, fertilizers and herbicides, sorting equipment, packaging, and even the fuel used in transport is subject to tariffs as well. This cost is almost always passed on to consumers in the form of increased shelf prices. Reciprocal and retaliatory policies by trade partners in turn affect GDP and buying power in world markets, primarily affecting corn, rice, and soybean in the agriculture sector. This means that producers - as the international seller - either lose business, or are forced to account for buying nation's tariffs (which leads to increased selling cost & makes US sellers less desirable in the world market). Resulting loss of profitability leads to closure of facilities, as seen recently by the closure and destruction of thousands of acres of peaches in California. So, is this making America great again yet? Next, let's discuss Iran. That's #3 on the above list, for those having difficulty keeping up with Lincoln Douglas style debate. It's really a shame the gov't schools don't teach it anymore, in favor of right wing Christian ideology but I digress. That's another debate for another day.




This newborn baby was found in a dumpster in Houston, Texas. "The child appeared to be fresh out of the womb, with his hair wet, his skin pruned and his umbilical cord still attached." Thankfully, he survived





























