for sure. treat it as a communal resource and then re-orient the production system towards the labor capacity and desires of the community. that probably is going to involve diversifying the land use to distribute the labor needs of harvest/post-harvest processing more broadly throughout the year instead of spiking it in the fall for the harvest of a single species of perennial. if the community wants to continue to “corner the [nearby] market” for apples and apple products, they will have to summon the effort within themselves.

otherwise, its time to start transitioning infrastructure and production areas into things like maybe strawberries/honey (summer), early greens (late spring), and maple tapping (winter).

the cultural logic of monoculture plantations is an anathema to community food systems/labor provisioning as much as it to ecological resilience. people who want to hang onto them will find themselves defending heinous practices out of “necessity”.