From Spain to Germany, farmers warn of fresh food shortages • Hacker News Board

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

#71

Post by jariel » Sat, Mar 28, 2020, 5:52 PM UTC

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.

If the authorities at various levels allow undocumented workers to exist, then they will filter into the economy and market forces will definitely force farms to take them on.

This is not about farming though: it's the canary in the coalmine for the entire economy.

You cannot just stop the economy and print magic money and expect everything to be ok.

We have to be smart like Koreans and control this virus effectively so we can progressively get some of the gears going again, because pain is coming otherwise.

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

#72

Post by throwaway_pdp09 » Sat, Mar 28, 2020, 5:52 PM UTC

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.

And it's was a simple decision for you too: do I pay this much for my food, or expensively more?

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

#73

Post by Klinky » Sat, Mar 28, 2020, 5:55 PM UTC

emptysands wrote: post #41

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…

OMG Garden in Auckland is an urban garden that produces 1000NZD per week in commercial produce sales. They think they can get to 1400 per week. Small They have full time farmer.

Is that 1,000 NZD profit, or revenue? It also looks heavily reliant on volunteer effort, basically free labor.

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

#74

Post by jdavis703 » Sat, Mar 28, 2020, 5:57 PM UTC

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.

But people want cheap food. I pay about double the price for my “fancy” milk which is locally produced and supposedly uses more sustainable and ethical practices. How many people would be OK with paying double the price for food? Probably not many judging by the myriad of much cheaper milk.

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

#75

Post by throwaway_pdp09 » Sat, Mar 28, 2020, 6:00 PM UTC

DoreenMichele wrote: post #51

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.

Some years ago, I saw a comedian mock the idea that immigrants were a threat to American jobs by joking that he had always wanted to be an underpaid farm laborer and can't make that dream work because the illegal immigrants took all those jobs. In America, it used to be common for young men in high school and college to do construction work during the summer. Now, it's mostly immigrants. When I was still a military w…

I've done physical work and it's fun at first, and I do like the physicality of it, but it gets boring fast and that I object to. After getting boring it gets soul destroyingly dull. I mean, working eg. in a warehouse can make people hollow. OK, some do like it, but many I knew didn't. Most tolerated it because they had no choice.

It's a very good thing for a period, as a part of growing up, but as a career, or for long periods. It's not good.

There will be plenty in the fields who would have had a career as a scientist, technician, engineer, who the world is now deprived of that because they are forced financially to work in a field (in the literal sense).

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

#76

Post by downshun » Sat, Mar 28, 2020, 6:03 PM UTC

What is limiting robot-assisted telemetric food harvesting? Why cant I connect to the web with a gaming console, play farmer and be rewarded for it?

The data could eventually be used to develop self-harvesting farms.

There's already automated computer assisted surgery, so is this really that far off? Is it desirable?

It runs eventually into a similar problem as self-driving cars and the looming unemployment of truckers.

What's Earth's carrying capacity for humans? We can be our own existential risk.

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

#77

Post by evv » Sat, Mar 28, 2020, 6:06 PM UTC

dheera wrote: post #24

ojagodzinski wrote: post #18

paywall

Paste this into the console: document.body.dataset.paywallOverlayStatus="hide";document.querySelector("#graphics-paywall-overlay").remove();

Easier to use a browser that has your back, like Brave or Cliqz

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

#78

Post by jopsen » Sat, Mar 28, 2020, 6:10 PM UTC

DoreenMichele wrote: post #69

dragonwriter wrote: post #63

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> In America, it used to be common for young men in high school and college to do construction work during the summer. Now, it's mostly immigrants. Because college or college-bound adults are, if they are motivated enough to work in the first place, mostly focussed on work that provides a competitive advantage in college admissions and post-college careers, which trade labor mostly isn't.

And because young people are less physically fit than they used to be, so they don't have the muscle and stamina required by such jobs. But the reasons why are almost irrelevant. The pertinent detail is that employers can't fill these jobs without immigrant labor. Most Americans don't want them at any pay rate.

At 20 USD/hour I think you would be able to fill these jobs.

But if you want to make that salary picking fruit, then we'll have to pay more for it -- or you'll need to have some automation to increase productivity.

I doubt we'll want to pay more, consumers would rather buy imports instead.

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

#79

Post by GordonS » Sat, Mar 28, 2020, 6:11 PM UTC

makomk wrote: post #39

maelito wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Scot here. The countryside is open to everyone, and the "right to roam" makes it even moreso.

But I haven't seen much different in the rest of the UK - honestly, to claim the countryside is a giant retirement home seems absolutely absurd to me.

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

#80

Post by Sawamara » Sat, Mar 28, 2020, 6:12 PM UTC

dasil003 wrote: post #56

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.

This is such a weird comment, you might as well say no one forced humans to be such social creatures allowing viruses spread easily. People make relatively optimal local decisions based on the situation at hand. It's ludicrous to suggest they should have foreseen this situation and just paid more for labor. That kind of second-guessing could be applied to basically 90% of the world right now, and the other 10% just g…

Its not a weird comment. The current global mode of production is engineered to ONLY work when there are no global crisises at hand.

Guess what: we have a global crisis at hand now. Which means that the neoliberal modus operandi fails without a struggle. It just collapsed overnight.

And if you think otherwise, just answer me this: if tourism cedes to exist, what do wild west neoliberal goverments do (with their current lack of social safety nets) with their 8-10% of their "workforce" having zero capability to get an income?