How can you order a farmer to destroy their trees? I hope he fights in a higher court. Wish I'd heard about the nectarine giveaway. I'd have gone to pick some.
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.