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

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

#121

Post by baybal2 » Sat, Mar 28, 2020, 6:43 PM UTC

simonh wrote: post #116

klipt wrote: post #101

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

I don't think there's much risk of serious food shortages. We'll just be eating more staples and fewer exotics and luxury foods. That may mean less meat, so we can use the grains those animals would usually eat to feed us. The economic impact on farmers, as on many other industries will be pretty traumatic and we'll have to decide as society how to deal with all of that, but we'll still be able to eat.

The meat price across the globe has actually seen a U shaped move. A lot of panic slaughter was done when people though that they need to sell their meat before the price crashes through the floor. And before that, there were people capitalising on historically high meat prices because of ASF in China.

Now it is shooting up again across the globe as lockdowns spread to more countries.

Industrial meatpackers are making a killing now thought

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

#122

Post by phenkdo » Sat, Mar 28, 2020, 6:45 PM UTC

Scoundreller wrote: post #111

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…

> it takes actual work to grow, harvest, and distribute crops. I look forward to the test of "Europeans don't want to do _____ work" when the shit-pay factor is removed.

do you also look forward to the 10x grocery shit-bill you will be stuck with?

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

#123

Post by kaybe » Sat, Mar 28, 2020, 6:45 PM UTC

DoreenMichele wrote: post #87

throwaway_pdp09 wrote: post #75

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 l…

The world at large can make it work if people are willing to do these jobs for short periods of time in their youth before moving on to other things. The world is going to die of starvation if we literally can't find anyone who will do this work at all for any amount of time at any pay rate.

That basically seems to be New Zealand's (and Australia's?) mode of operation. Give the rich countries' young adults fresh out of school a work&travel visa for a year and extend it for a few months with sufficient farm work. They have fun doing new and interesting things and return to their countries with a good impression of yours. Of course that won't work if every place tries it though. I wonder how they're faring right now.

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

#124

Post by rjsw » Sat, Mar 28, 2020, 6:46 PM UTC

DoreenMichele wrote: post #104

Zenst wrote: post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

You are on a different continent, we can just look at the labels on food to see where it comes from.

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

#125

Post by onlyrealcuzzo » Sat, Mar 28, 2020, 6:48 PM UTC

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…

I love how this Fed has got people thinking employment is irrelevant.

Sure, maybe if some people stopped working for a few months, it wouldn't matter to much.

But we still need energy and water and food (and Internet). And most of this requires actual work being done. Not just updating numbers on a spreadsheet.

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

#126

Post by montalbano » Sat, Mar 28, 2020, 6:49 PM UTC

Another more UK-centric Guardian article that may be of interest:

https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2020/mar/28/fruit-an...

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

#127

Post by 13415 » Sat, Mar 28, 2020, 6:49 PM UTC

phenkdo wrote: post #122

Scoundreller wrote: post #111

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> it takes actual work to grow, harvest, and distribute crops. I look forward to the test of "Europeans don't want to do _____ work" when the shit-pay factor is removed.

do you also look forward to the 10x grocery shit-bill you will be stuck with?

Yes.

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

#128

Post by Scoundreller » Sat, Mar 28, 2020, 6:49 PM UTC

jopsen wrote: post #78

DoreenMichele wrote: post #69

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

The reality is, the proportion of your fresh fruit cost that is migrant labour isn't very much. If that cost only were passed on, we wouldn't see much of a difference in price.

Kinda how like Walmart could double the wage of its retail employees by increasing its prices by 6%.

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

#129

Post by joshvm » Sat, Mar 28, 2020, 6:49 PM UTC

groby_b wrote: post #9

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…

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…

I think this is also naive. You don't need an acre, nor is it backbreaking labour. The biggest time sink for home gardeners in my experience is watering, which you can solve by timed drip irrigation. Some plants like beans and peas are so easy to grow that they'll take over if you don't manage them. Potatoes are also pretty robust.

However, growing year-round is hard. It's relatively easy to feed yourself over the summer/fall if you're dedicated, but maintaining enough to feed your family over the winter is much more difficult and requires planning (and if anything goes wrong you lose the crop).

The biggest advantage for me is growing crops which are very expensive in stores and are easily wasted - like bagged salads, tomatoes that taste good, etc. Plus you can pick weird heritage varieties. We get a small veg box once a week and a small plot in our garden and we rarely buy vegetables when we go shopping.

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

#130

Post by geniium » Sat, Mar 28, 2020, 6:51 PM UTC

Scoundreller wrote: post #111

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…

> it takes actual work to grow, harvest, and distribute crops. I look forward to the test of "Europeans don't want to do _____ work" when the shit-pay factor is removed.

That’s not just an “Europeans” problem.