California farmers must destroy 420,000 peach trees after Del Monte closes its canneries and cancels more than $550 million in long-term contracts

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 compan