Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

From Spain to Germany, farmers warn of fresh food shortages

bloomberg.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

31–40 of 589 posts

Re: From Spain to Germany, farmers warn of fresh food shortages

#31

Post by maelito »

makomk wrote: post #19
411111111111111 wrote: post #8

Nobody forced the farmers to become reliant on migrant workers though. It was just a simple decision for them: cheap labor that's available today or expensive labor... They mostly went with cheap, and now they don't have anyone available. Tough luck I guess, but it always was just a question of time until this happened.

At least in the UK, the countryside has basically turned into a vacation and retirement area for wealthy Londoners. It's pretty much impossible for people to afford to live where the labour is needed on any sort of pay that would make farming actually viable, which restricts it to workers from lower cost-of-living countries that cram into cramped accommodation for the length of the season and then return home. Not su…

The countryside everywhere in UK ? Or just around London ?

Re: From Spain to Germany, farmers warn of fresh food shortages

#32

Post by 411111111111111 »

usrusr wrote: post #20
411111111111111 wrote: post #8

Nobody forced the farmers to become reliant on migrant workers though. It was just a simple decision for them: cheap labor that's available today or expensive labor... They mostly went with cheap, and now they don't have anyone available. Tough luck I guess, but it always was just a question of time until this happened.

You make it sound as if the farmers were the only ones affected if they fail to get in their harvest.

That wasn't my intention at all. Fresh produce will get considerably more expensive this year, thats for sure.

Especially fruits as they're often very hard to harvest through automation.

In the coming years I'd wager that a lot of farms will increasingly go for automation now. That'll have it's own consequences.

The effect of this virus on our global society is gonna be massive and will likely bring a lot of changes.. not necessary good ones either

Re: From Spain to Germany, farmers warn of fresh food shortages

#33

Post by thedance »

yellowbeard wrote: post #16
alexandernst wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Where (physically) do you expect 500.000 (a small town example) people garden their own food? They'd need to travel outside town, garden, then get back (and all this while also commuting to work on a daily basis). Also, the amount of tools every single person would need to buy. "Decentralisation" is a goof idea, but not feasible in the real world, IMHO. And this is a small town example, leave alone a huge capital lik…

Tools can be shared. It's also amazing how little land is needed to grow enough food to live on. One person can be fed from around 9 square meters. In dense cities people may not have that much land, but in many areas, people do have that much land in their yards.

That's preposterous. You need 5-10 acres to be self-sufficient in the steady state.

Re: From Spain to Germany, farmers warn of fresh food shortages

#34

Post by Zenst »

makomk wrote: post #25
groby_b wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is a very naive take on the world. You'll need at the very least half an acre to feed yourself sustainably, and that's if you're highly optimized. It's also backbreaking work, and you won't be able to do much else except subsistence farming. In short, it's not practical for the vast majority of the population. The closest we can probably get to this model is instead CSA memberships, supporting farms right outsid…

Note that it's fine to leave the supply of staples like wheat to large farmers with economies of scale, since that's heavily mechanized and doesn't require many workers, plus the workers it does rely on can be fairly effectively distanced. It's mostly the stuff like fresh fruit and vegetables which is the problem. Those are less reliant on economies of scale and more on cheap imported labour.

Exactly, I grew tomatoes in my flat few years back, was so choice picking a ripe tomato on christmas day grown indoors on a window ledge and no additional lighting needed.

Sure can't grow it all, but certainly makes a positive dent in my needs.

Re: From Spain to Germany, farmers warn of fresh food shortages

#35

Post by kmlx »

411111111111111 wrote: post #8

Nobody forced the farmers to become reliant on migrant workers though. It was just a simple decision for them: cheap labor that's available today or expensive labor... They mostly went with cheap, and now they don't have anyone available. Tough luck I guess, but it always was just a question of time until this happened.

i don't understand this line of thought.

> Nobody forced the farmers...

The markets did force them, right? If a farmer started making more money from using cheap labour, then the rest would need to follow suit.

> It was just a simple decision for them...

It doesn't seems like anything about this subject is "simple" as farming is big and wide.

1. some farming is loss making in the EU even with cheap labour 2. without cheap labour this subset would need to be subsides 100% (vs ~80% as it is now) 3. you simply cannot fight against ultra low wages from developing countries; you either adapt or die

Re: From Spain to Germany, farmers warn of fresh food shortages

#37

Post by JaimeThompson »

peterwoerner wrote: post #23
411111111111111 wrote: post #8

Nobody forced the farmers to become reliant on migrant workers though. It was just a simple decision for them: cheap labor that's available today or expensive labor... They mostly went with cheap, and now they don't have anyone available. Tough luck I guess, but it always was just a question of time until this happened.

I mean, the market does. Most people won't pay an 50% on food because the farmers pay a living wage.

How much of the cost of food is from how much it costs to harvest it? I find it difficult to believe that even doubling the cost of harvesting would cause the price to increase by 50%.

Re: From Spain to Germany, farmers warn of fresh food shortages

#38

Post by lukasLansky »

411111111111111 wrote: post #8

Nobody forced the farmers to become reliant on migrant workers though. It was just a simple decision for them: cheap labor that's available today or expensive labor... They mostly went with cheap, and now they don't have anyone available. Tough luck I guess, but it always was just a question of time until this happened.

Moloch did force them.

https://slatestarcodex.com/2014/07/30/meditations-on-moloch/

Re: From Spain to Germany, farmers warn of fresh food shortages

#39

Post by makomk »

maelito wrote: post #31
makomk wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

At least in the UK, the countryside has basically turned into a vacation and retirement area for wealthy Londoners. It's pretty much impossible for people to afford to live where the labour is needed on any sort of pay that would make farming actually viable, which restricts it to workers from lower cost-of-living countries that cram into cramped accommodation for the length of the season and then return home. Not su…

The countryside everywhere in UK ? Or just around London ?

Everywhere in England at the very least. Wales and especially Scotland might be a little better. The south and around London is probably worse, but even rural Yorkshire is pretty bad.

Re: From Spain to Germany, farmers warn of fresh food shortages

#40

Post by sologoub »

pascalxus wrote: post #17
Zenst wrote: post #2

Hopefully this may incentivize people to be a bit more self-sufficient. Gardens that you grow your own, allotments - the mentality of that has been driven away over decades and now people are starting to smell the roses and realize they can't eat them. So in many avenues - complacency gets highlighted more and I'm sure many and much will change on the back of this period in time. Overall I'd say for the better. Certa…

It's sad, but here in CA, most people don't have yards and there's nowhere to grow food. It's especially dumb because there's miles and miles of undeveloped land everywhere (at least in the east bay suberbs), not being used for anything in particular except maybe some farms with cows on it: I'm sure they're taking advantage of huge tax wholes because they're sitting on land that would cost 10s of millions of dollars…

SF Bay Area is not really representative of California as a whole. Most people outside of the dense cores have a place for a small garden. State is large and diverse. Los Angeles is a lot less dense and most people have at least a balcony on which you can grow stuff in pots. Won’t sustain you as the only source, but will provide greens and some variety. Yards are pretty common and usually green. Water shortages have led to some converting to hardscape, but that can be reversed.

Prop 13 is an issue, but the level of development opposition in Bay Area is another matter all together compared to the rest of the state. Where little you can build developers end up cramming every last inch with profit-producing structures. Couple with crappy commuting infrastructure and you have what we are living.

Post reply on HN