Foolish laws lobbied for by profitable industries is no new trend in the U.S., but for Marc Santucci, a Michigan cherry farmer, there was one wasteful law he refused to accept.

“These cherries are beautiful,” says Marc, who’s been growing the crop on his 80-acre plot of land in Traverse City, “But, we have to dump 14% of our tart cherry crop on the ground to rot. Why? So we can allow the import of 200 million pounds of cherries from overseas! It just doesn’t seem right…”

Indeed, Marc’s referring to an insensible regulation put into place by the Cherry Industry Administrative Board, which he exposed on a Facebook post that went viral:

The order has been around since 1937 and it limits how many cherries can be sold by domestic farmers so that more of the product can be imported from overseas.

For Marc, the regulation is nothing more than a “vain attempt to prop up the price of cherries.”

The stated goal of the law is to bring stability to cherry farming in an industry that could have varying yields from one year to the next.

According to Perry Hedin of the Cherry Industry Administrative Board, the requirement has actually ensured that farmers receive better pay for the last two decades.

However, whatever the intentions of the policy, Marc claims that it forces him to leave 14% of his tart cherries out to rot, since he cannot sell them, or even donate them to homeless shelters.

Additionally, Santucci says that the law does not help all farmers, but mainly larger companies with greater production capacities.

https://www.davidwolfe.com/farmer-dumps-40000-pounds-cherries/