Mushroom farm closing will cost 200 jobs

The Grand Rapids Press ^ | Saturday, November 13, 2004 | Shandra Martinez

[Katya]

I don't know if it's changed at all, but fifteen years ago, when I was working in the food biz....it was known that all domestic mushroom production was Mafia run. Could be the Canadians couldn't hack the competition....

[tubebender]

What is it about Pescadero that Sunset and AAA Via have so many articles about. I got curious a couple of years ago and detoured out from Highway 1. The most interesting thing I found was the cemetery and later found out my niece had just been out there to correct a mistake on a headstone for the company she works for.

I wonder if the INS was stealing the employees of the mushroom farm?

[Carry_Okie]

Pescadero is the ultimate in "I got a place in the boonies close to the big city."

It's the new Woodside.

[tubebender]

It's as close to the surf as the Greens will allow someone to live, for now anyway.

The son in law of my best friend was murdered near there on one of the beaches for his car a few years ago. The killer answered a ad he had in the SF Chron...

[WFTR]

My employees tell me they feel like mushrooms. I asked why? They said that I keep them in the dark, and feed them bull$hit all the time.

You forgot the third line in the old joke. It's "you keep in the dark, feed them nothing but ****, and cut 'em off when they get too big."

[WFTR]

Nevertheless, it is also one that readily lends itself to modern technology for a "lights out" factory farm of the future. Night-vision robotics with recognition software could easily be programmed to do all the picking/sorting/grading virtually unattended, 24/7/365.

Do we know that this scenario is not what drove these three farms out of business? When I worked on my second master's degree, we had sponsorship for a project that would allow small farmers to run shrimp hatcheries on the side. It wasn't DoD money but instead was funded by some other state manufacturing type research funding. If a similar project somewhere has made advances in hydroponics, new farms based on those discoveries could have made these obsolete. I realize it's not much consolation for the folks losing their jobs, but it does help explain the situation.

Bill

[E.G.C.]

BTTT!!!!!!!

[q_an_a]

The following two paragraphs will put his story in perspective.

The mushroom business in the United States is booming, with sales of the 1999-2000 U.S. mushroom crop at a record high 867 million pounds

Texans find at those supermarkets these days are grown at one of Texas' two major mushroom farms, Monterey Mushrooms in Madisonville and Kitchen Pride Mushrooms in Gonzales

[Toddsterpatriot]

When mushroom farmers go out of business, fewer mushrooms are produced and the price of pizza toppings will increase.

The mushroom business in the United States is booming, with sales of the 1999-2000 U.S. mushroom crop at a record high 867 million pounds.

Willie, how can this be? You said globalism would reduce productive capacity to drive up prices for those commodities?

It looks like capacity is increasing. You want to revise your statement? Or are you just gonna hide from me again?

[Willie Green]

It looks like capacity is increasing. You want to revise your statement?

Not at all.
Those record production figures are from 1999~2000, when Money's mushroom farms were still in business.
So their closing indeed represents a reduction in capacity.
But it's not surprising that you can't keep a simple fact like that straight.

[Toddsterpatriot]

So their closing indeed represents a reduction in capacity.

So, it should be easy for you to prove that world-wide capacity has declined. Which was your original point.

You know, like world-wide oil production has declined. Oh wait, you never did prove that.