May/June 2006 Issue

A Tale of Two Apples

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America’s favorite apple, the Red Delicious, was first harvested in Iowa in 1874. Back then, Iowa was one of the country’s top apple growers. But if you live in Des Moines today, your apples probably come from Washington state, the source of more than half of the country’s crop. But there are a few important differences between a typical Red Delicious from an Iowa farm and its globe-trotting cousin from the Northwest.

 

IOWA RED DELICIOUS

WASHINGTON RED DELICIOUS

Average Distance From Farm To Shelf

61 miles

1,722 miles

Additional Packaging

Put into bags or boxes for shipping

Coated with carnauba wax or shellac to preserve freshness; “Washington apple” sticker applied; put into bags or boxes for shipping

Earliest On-Shelf Date

Within 2 days of harvest

Within 1 week of harvest

Cold Storage

May be refrigerated for up to 2 months

May be kept in sealed, reduced-oxygen, controlled-atmosphere storage for up to 8 months

Harvest

September to October

September to October

Availability

No later than mid-December

Year-round

Transportation Impact

Shipping a pound of Washington apples to Iowa requires 30 times more fuel and releases 30 times more CO2 than shipping a pound of Iowa apples to a local market.

Sources: Leopold Center for Sustainable Agriculture; Washington State Apple Commission

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It is astonishingly hard keeping a newsroom afloat these days, and we need to raise $253,000 in online donations quickly, by October 7.

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Readers also told us to just give it to you straight when we need to ask for your support, and seeing how matter-of-factly explaining our inner workings, our challenges and finances, can bring more of you in has been a real silver lining. So our online membership lead, Brian, lays it all out for you in his personal, insider account (that literally puts his skin in the game!) of how urgent things are right now.

The upshot: Being able to rally $253,000 in donations over these next few weeks is vitally important simply because it is the number that keeps us right on track, helping make sure we don't end up with a bigger gap than can be filled again, helping us avoid any significant (and knowable) cash-flow crunches for now. We used to be more nonchalant about coming up short this time of year, thinking we can make it by the time June rolls around. Not anymore.

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