Editorial: Eat2keep Our Oranges
By the Redlands Daily Facts, published Friday, December 3, 2004
It's an idea so beautiful in its simplicity, it's a wonder no one thought of it before.
Eat2keep.
That's the slogan of the Inland Orange Conservancy, a 501c3 nonprofit organization, with two main purposes:
- to get people to understand that our groves produce excellent fruit and need our help to be preserved
- to preserve area orange groves and keep them in production by directly supporting and eating the local fruit.
We applaud the Inland Orange Conservancy for taking the initiative in this. Conservancies of all sorts do much the same thing—raise money to conserve and preserve something, be it historic homes, open spaces, an animal species, etc.
In this case, the Inland Orange Conservancy is attempting to preserve the local market (62,000 households in the East Valley alone), local business and our citrus heritage.
This is not an anti-growth issue, although for many the 750 acres taken by development yearly is an important consideration.
Nor is this an effort to tell orange growers what they may or may not do with their land.
It is an effort to preserve these businesses by paying growers a better price than they get from the big guys—Sunkist and the like—and to get the most logical market, the one right here at home, supporting the growers by eating local oranges.
Eat2keep.
Think of it as something like your contribution to public television, but you get oranges as your "premium" instead of a video of one of the shows aired during the fund-raising cycles.
There's more to it than the premium you get—10 pounds of oranges weekly during the orange season.
The conservancy plans to help growers even in bad seasons. As it is now, when Mother Nature damages a crop, it means no money or less money for the growers. No crop, no payment from the big citrus brokers and big-box super stores.
But the conservancy will pay growers the regular amount, about five times what the big brokers pay, thus helping growers stay in business to grow more oranges the next season.
Added to that, the conservancy plans to donate $10,000 to $20,000 to community groups that share the vision of saving groves.
Still more, the conservancy will donate oranges to the needy, community charities and community events.
Eat2keep.
It's a catchy slogan backed up by thoughtful efforts to match local people with local fruit, preserve groves, help growers, assist community groups.
We see it as a win-win-win-win situation worthy of support.
Growers, consumers, community groups and the needy all benefit.