The Red Delicious Apple Crisis (2000)

This Day

Jody Avirgan & Radiotopia

History

4.6 • 982 Ratings

🗓️ 26 November 2024

⏱️ 24 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

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It's November 26th. This day, in 2000, the US Congress passed an agriculture subsidy bill that included a substantial financial bailout for apple growers in Washington State.

Jody, Niki, and Kellie discuss why growers were in so much trouble -- mostly because they'd foisted the substandard "Red Delicious" on American consumers for decades and decades.

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Transcript

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0:00.0	Hello and welcome to This Day in Esoteric Political History from Radiotopia.
0:07.2	My name is Jody Avergan.
0:11.3	This day, November 2000.
0:14.0	The political world in the United States is in the midst of an extremely contentious and high-stakes fallout from the Bush v. Gore election.
0:21.1	There are recounts and ballots and hanging chads in Florida.
0:24.4	The Supreme Court is getting ready to intervene.
0:27.1	But if you were to open up the New York Times politics section, you would also find a story
0:31.7	about how President Clinton and Congress got together to sign the biggest bailout in the
0:37.2	history of the Apple industry.
0:39.7	Yes, folks, the wheels of government must still continue to turn even when the system feels
0:43.5	like it's coming apart at the seams. So let's talk about apples and the Apple bailout because
0:48.9	this was kind of an important moment. The Apple industry, especially the one based in Washington
0:53.0	state, was reporting millions and millions of dollars in losses. Some of this is a trade story, but honestly, some of this is about the fact that they had fallen into the trap of making substandard apples that the American public was starting to reject. So the Apple bailout, year 2000, the demise of the red delicious.
1:11.5	Maybe we can take our minds off the political fray.
1:13.6	We're in at the moment and celebrate the most American of fruits, the perfect fall fruit.
1:18.4	Here, as always, Nicole Hammer of Vanderbilt and Kelly Carter Jackson of Wellesley.
1:22.7	Hello there.
1:23.6	Hello, Jody.
1:24.7	Hey there.
1:25.5	Any quick reaction to my proclamation that apples are the perfect fall fruit?
1:30.4	They are, right?
1:31.6	Well, I went to an orchard at the beginning of October, and the kids were out apple picking.
	...

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