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From Spain to Germany, farmers warn of fresh food shortages

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

#101

Post by klipt »

aazaa wrote: post #60

> From Huelva to Hamburg and Newcastle to Naples, Europe’s farmers are struggling to find people to bring in rapidly ripening fruits and vegetables, which frequently must be hand-picked, usually within a window of just a few days. They typically rely on seasonal workers from eastern Europe or northern Africa, but fears of the coronavirus are keeping hundreds of thousands of migrant laborers from leaving home, and con…

Hopefully this won't lead to any actual starvation? As I understand it, staples like grains and root vegetables can mostly be harvested by machine. While it would be sad to waste fruits and leafy vegetables, I expect you can survive without them for quite a while, especially if you have access to multivitamins.

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

#102

Post by [deleted] »

Sawamara wrote: post #80
dasil003 wrote: post #56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 curre…

[deleted]

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

#103

Post by morsch »

Zenst wrote: post #54
partingshots wrote: post #4

Doesn’t the Netherlands export the majority of Europe’s fresh food? As long as the supply chain doesn’t break down, I don’t see how it would be possible for Spain and Germany to run out of food. Especially since they’re all in the EU, even if the Netherlands wanted to close off their borders, there’s no way they really could.

Spain grows most of the fruit and veg, whilst the netherlands grow mostly flowers. The demand for flowers has somewhat waned and recently saw an article of flower farmers in Africa suffering as nowhere to sell and case of piles of flowers composting away. The impact in that market will be very impacting.

The Netherland's flower exports top the charts, but they export almost as much (each) meat, dairy and vegetables.

https://www.cbs.nl/en-gb/news/2020/03/agricultural-exports-h...

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

#104

Post by DoreenMichele »

Zenst wrote: post #54
partingshots wrote: post #4

Doesn’t the Netherlands export the majority of Europe’s fresh food? As long as the supply chain doesn’t break down, I don’t see how it would be possible for Spain and Germany to run out of food. Especially since they’re all in the EU, even if the Netherlands wanted to close off their borders, there’s no way they really could.

Spain grows most of the fruit and veg, whilst the netherlands grow mostly flowers. The demand for flowers has somewhat waned and recently saw an article of flower farmers in Africa suffering as nowhere to sell and case of piles of flowers composting away. The impact in that market will be very impacting.

You might try searching the term "Netherlands feeds the world" and perusing the many articles that turn up and perhaps reassess your ideas about the Netherlands.

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

#105

Post by [deleted] »

GordonS wrote: post #86
yellowbeard wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Do you have a source that the 9sqm claim? It seems... completely unbelievable. My wife's parents grow various vegetables in an area of that size, and there is no way it could provide all their vegetable needs.

[deleted]

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

#106

Post by [deleted] »

ilaksh wrote: post #61
Zenst wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Undocumented migrants have for all effect become the modern day equivalent of slavery without the associated compasion. Many happy to lambast such people and yet, be first to complain if their avocados go up in price or out of stock. Hopefully, some level of amnisty and clean slate is driven here as currently without that, will only shoot themselves in the foot on many levels. After all, many live day by day, kinda h…

That has been an issue from the beginning and has a long history of success, failure, etc. See Cesar Chavez etc. The endgame is for those jobs to be automated also.

[deleted]

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

#107

Post by downshun »

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…

> incentivize people to be a bit more self-sufficient

The drawback to this is the opportunity cost. Comparative advantage is the benefit of the current set-up. Although 'self-sufficient' may sound warm and nice.

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

#108

Post by Zancarius »

roenxi wrote: post #58
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.

There is a faint whiff of hypocrisy in hiring foreign labour, it suggests to me that some sort of cash-in-hand deal is afoot that isn't in line with local labour practices. This is a serious and concerning situation. However, it also has a certain schadenfreude of wealthy Europeans waking up in horror at having to pay local wages in excess of local social safety nets in order to grow their own food.

> it suggests to me that some sort of cash-in-hand deal is afoot that isn't in line with local labour practices.

Absolutely. It's exploitative to be sure, at least here in the US. Farms don't want to pay more for labor, and in some cases (perhaps the plurality of them), the migrant laborers are paid under the table to avoid the tax burden on both ends. Of course, this means the company doesn't have to worry about payroll taxes, workman's comp, unemployment, etc., and the workers aren't going to register with the IRS to get a tax ID.

Additionally, the laborers are paid so little it's difficult to think of this in any other way than as a form of slavery sanctioned by the state as it turns a blind eye to what amount to egregious violations of labor laws.

Part of the blame I place on us as consumers. If we weren't so price sensitive to things like fresh produce, perhaps we could pay more such that things are done above board and we become less reliant on migrant labor. Either way, something has to change.

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

#109

Post by phenkdo »

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.

The "no shortage if you pay enough" viewpoint is rather myopic. The same people will be crying hoarse when prices of even basic necessities increase 10x or more, and there are food riots and possibly starvation.

Many people in the west don't realize how good they have it

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

#110

Post by mc32 »

aazaa wrote: post #60

> From Huelva to Hamburg and Newcastle to Naples, Europe’s farmers are struggling to find people to bring in rapidly ripening fruits and vegetables, which frequently must be hand-picked, usually within a window of just a few days. They typically rely on seasonal workers from eastern Europe or northern Africa, but fears of the coronavirus are keeping hundreds of thousands of migrant laborers from leaving home, and con…

If they can't get picked in time, they can can them, freeze them or dry them. Some will spoil beyond recovery, but not all has to be lost either.
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