Central California peach growers are preparing to remove about 420,000 clingstone peach trees after Del Monte Foods shut down its canneries, leaving many farmers without a buyer for their crop. The move comes after the century-old fruit company closed its Modesto and Hughson facilities following a Chapter 11 bankruptcy filing, a collapse that has hit growers, workers, and orchard owners across the region.
Federal lawmakers say the emergency aid now available could help farmers clear roughly 3,000 acres of orchards before the next harvest begins. The package is designed to reduce oversupply, limit deeper losses, and give growers a chance to shift land to another crop.
A sudden blow to Central Valley growers
The shutdown has left hundreds of workers without jobs and many growers facing a major financial gap. According to the Sacramento Bee, farmers could lose an estimated $550 million in revenue because the closure removed one of their main processing outlets.
Many of the affected orchards were planted under long-term contracts with Del Monte, some lasting two decades. Without that buyer, growers have faced few immediate options for the peaches already in the ground.
Federal aid targets orchard removal
Senator Adam Schiff and Representatives Mike Thompson and David Valadao announced that affected growers could receive up to $9 million in federal aid. The money is meant to help remove up to 420,000 clingstone peach trees before the harvest period, which usually runs from late May through September.
Officials said the effort could keep about 50,000 tons of peaches from entering an already strained market. They also said the removal could save farmers an estimated $30 million in additional losses.
Processing loss left farmers exposed
Del Monte permanently closed its canneries in Modesto and Hughson in April after filing for bankruptcy last July. The company later sold its canned fruit business to Pacific Coast Producers after a court allowed the asset sale to move forward.
Pacific Coast Producers agreed to buy about 24,000 tons of peaches, but that still leaves roughly 50,000 tons without a buyer, according to the Sacramento Bee. That gap is what pushed lawmakers to support orchard removal rather than let growers absorb the full loss.
Family farms face long-term damage
In a March letter to Agriculture Secretary Brooke Rollins, Schiff, Thompson, Valadao, and 39 other members of Congress said many of the affected growers are multigenerational family farms. They warned that the loss of processing capacity could cause lasting harm to California agriculture if the orchards could not be cleared or repurposed.
Valadao said in a statement that generations of Central Valley farms have depended on Del Monte’s Modesto facility to process their peaches. Thompson said the situation showed how quickly a plant closure can ripple through the farm economy when fruit has nowhere to go.
The aid package now gives growers a narrow path to limit the damage, but the scale of the orchard removals shows how deeply Del Monte’s collapse has unsettled California’s peach industry.
