Why the US government is buying more apples than ever before

The Indicator from Planet Money

NPR

Business

4.7 • 9.5K Ratings

🗓️ 4 November 2024

⏱️ 11 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

For the second year in a row, the U.S. government is buying the largest quantity of apples in its history because there are not enough consumers and processors who want to buy them. Today on the show, an abundance of apples and why some apple growers are getting out of the game altogether.

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Transcript

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0:00.0	NPR.
0:02.0	This is the indicator from Planet Money.
0:13.1	I'm Darren Woods here with reporter Alan Hinnich.
0:16.0	Ellen, welcome to the show.
0:17.4	Thank you, Darren.
0:18.2	I'm very excited to be here.
0:19.2	You've brought a story, but also something in a bag.
0:22.7	Tell me what you have.
0:23.9	Yep, I brought you this bag of fresh apples.
0:27.3	Well, thank you very much.
0:28.4	Did you just go apple picking?
0:30.5	You could say that.
0:31.4	I was just in the orchards of Appalachia.
0:33.6	They only make up a small percentage of the national market,
0:35.9	but they had a ton of leftovers this year.
0:38.1	Right. West Virginia alone has around 25 million pounds of apples of nowhere to go.
0:43.8	That's around half of their usual harvest.
0:46.2	Yep, 700 truckloads.
0:48.1	Do we have a truck full of excess apples outside?
0:51.1	I do not, unfortunately, but the USDA is planning to spend $120 million on these
0:56.6	apples and many, many more across the country. Right. So for the second consecutive year,
1:01.3	this is the largest government purchase of Apple products in American history. And so a question then
	...

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