Licensed? Can I download a nectarine now? These are physical, tangible things. Surely they are simply owned?

From what I understand, a company had exclusive rights to buy them, but didn't. What's a farmer to do in that case? Surely the party that promised to buy them but didn't, is the one that broke contract? Requiring fruit to rot on the trees is utterly unacceptable.

Amid the battle, Mora chose to give away the nectarines he had grown instead of leaving them to rot.

​However, on August 13, a jury at Fresno County Superior Court ruled that the Central Valley farmer did break his contract, although Giumarra was awarded no damages, according to documents obtained by the Fresno Bee.

Mora revealed in a video posted to TikTok that a judge had ruled that his trees had to be destroyed before the trial even began.

this is why they dont want us to own the means of production. all of us are glorified slaves who arent entitled to fucking food.

I knew it was gonna be this guy...

He licensed a specific breed of fruit tree, which is about the stupidest thing you can do.

Then he signed a marketing agreement, to only sell to that same company, the same one that he licensed it from. Which is literally the dumbest thing possible, because they have a financial incentive to fuck you over the second they establish their own orchids to meet supply. 100% of theirs will always sell first. With prices set as that as the full supply, yours become emergency backup that quickly rots.

Predictably, they refused like 50% of his crop one year.

Then he sold to someone else, and obviously got sued.

The only people who can legally own the trees now, is the company that sued him. And as he's very unlikely to want to sell an established orchid to them, or anyone else who would legally have to do business with that company, they have to be destroyed.

The fruit itself, likely ran out incredibly quickly. This was a huge story a couple months ago.

But it's one thing to do it with crops like wheat and corn that you at least plant every year. Fucking fruit trees live decades. Locking distribution rates without guaranteed sale is just asking to get squeezed out. The company likely planned on buying from him cheap, which again is the reason he's destroying them.

The works of the roots of the vines, of the trees, must be destroyed to keep up the price, and this is the saddest, bitterest thing of all. Carloads of oranges dumped on the ground. The people came for miles to take the fruit, but this could not be. How would they buy oranges at twenty cents a dozen if they could drive out and pick them up? And men with hoses squirt kerosene on the oranges, and they are angry at the crime, angry at the people who have come to take the fruit. A million people hungry, needing the fruit- and kerosene sprayed over the golden mountains. And the smell of rot fills the country. Burn coffee for fuel in the ships. Burn corn to keep warm, it makes a hot fire. Dump potatoes in the rivers and place guards along the banks to keep the hungry people from fishing them out. Slaughter the pigs and bury them, and let the putrescence drip down into the earth.

There is a crime here that goes beyond denunciation. There is a sorrow here that weeping cannot symbolize. There is a failure here that topples all our success. The fertile earth, the straight tree rows, the sturdy trunks, and the ripe fruit. And children dying of pellagra must die because a profit cannot be taken from an orange. And coroners must fill in the certificate- died of malnutrition- because the food must rot, must be forced to rot. The people come with nets to fish for potatoes in the river, and the guards hold them back; they come in rattling cars to get the dumped oranges, but the kerosene is sprayed. And they stand still and watch the potatoes float by, listen to the screaming pigs being killed in a ditch and covered with quick-lime, watch the mountains of oranges slop down to a putrefying ooze; and in the eyes of the people there is the failure; and in the eyes of the hungry there is a growing wrath. In the souls of the people the grapes of wrath are filling and growing heavy, growing heavy for the vintage.

--John Steinbeck, The Grapes of Wrath

A big part of the problem here is this licensed fruit.

It seems like the guy agreed to grow this fruit that needed to be exclusively licensed or you wouldn't be allowed to grow it.

He also agreed that the company he licensed the fruit from had exclusive rights to buy and market the fruit.

The company with exclusive rights apparently wasn't paying for all the fruit that was grown. Unclear why.

The jury ruled that the farmer broke the contract, but there's so much fucked up about the contract to begin with.

If the company didn't want the fruit, the farmer should be able to sell it or give it away. They decided NOT to exercise their exclusive rights.

And now the trees will be destroyed because they are unlicensed... What a dumb system.

You have an orchard unapproved by the komisariat, Farmer. You disrupt the logistical system you see. Perhaps you would like to name few names to make punishment more less harsher, yes?

Edit: bah there is a fair explanation for all of this below. Or above, depending on your point of view.

a judge had ruled that his trees had to be destroyed before the trial even began.

The article doesn't explain the judge's reasoning for this ruling, and I am struggling to understand why the judge would do this. The whole court case is due to Giumarra Brothers Fruit Company being unhappy that they were not receiving 100% of the nectarines from the trees that they licensed to the farmer. So how does destroying the trees help anyone?