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

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

#141

Post by Scoundreller » Sat, Mar 28, 2020, 6:59 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?

Numbers I've read is that farm labour accounts for ~10% of retail food cost for fruits.

https://www.prb.org/usfarmworkersfoodprices/

If that doubles because they have to pay local labour rates, the price would go up 10%. Possibly less if it just eats into the margins through the rest of the chain.

We might also see a shift toward less laborious foods, which is fine by me.

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

#142

Post by pjc50 » Sat, Mar 28, 2020, 7:00 PM UTC

HarryHirsch wrote: post #15

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…

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Allotment_(gardening) In Britain and Germany, allotment gardening was promoted as a social measure and by all accounts it was successful.

Possibly too successful. The waiting lists are usually very long: https://www.edinburghnews.scotsman.com/news/edinburgh-allotm...

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

#143

Post by dragonwriter » Sat, Mar 28, 2020, 7:02 PM UTC

banmeagaindan2 wrote: post #96

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.

It does not need to be most Americans and a lot of office workers would prefer to be farmers if the wage were correct. We have markets - let the prices rise and we will see more farmers in the future. E; I know it is not your theory Doreen - but it is a popular species of liberal (meaning democrat + republican) political propaganda. Everything Moravec's Paradox ever said, everything Peter Thiel ever said about automa…

> It does not need to be most Americans and a lot of office workers would prefer to be farmers if the wage were correct.

Most everyone would prefer to be farmers (= farm owners = capitalist of at least the petit bourgeoisie, if not actually the haut bourgeoisie) instead of wage laborers.

But, no, I don't think that many office workers would prefer to be manual laborers, whether farm laborers or otherwise. Sure, with enough of a wage premium they might be lured away. But there are limits to the ability to pay higher real wages to farm labor, because food cost is a major basic expense to start with so higher nominal wages for farm labor necessarily (because while there is lots of aggregate profit in food, there's not lots of proportion of profit, which is where the room for absorbing wage increases without price impact comes from) means higher price index, which reduces real wages for everyone, including the farm laborers.

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

#144

Post by korijn » Sat, Mar 28, 2020, 7:02 PM UTC

phenkdo wrote: post #139

robk wrote: post #131

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sure if it means people are being paid a fair wage. I should pay more for things where I'm exploiting labor tbh.

Somehow I think your keyboard bravado will vanish once you start paying 60-70% of salary for just basic necessities. And even if I were to concede that you - presumably high paid tech workers - were willing & able, imagine the fate of the pensioners, bus drivers, retail workers...they barely make ends meet as it is.

So we should continue exploiting, is what you are saying?

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

#145

Post by pjc50 » Sat, Mar 28, 2020, 7:02 PM UTC

robk wrote: post #136

montalbano wrote: post #126

Another more UK-centric Guardian article that may be of interest: https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2020/mar/28/fruit-an...

Why aren't they just raising wages? There are many people who can work and need jobs simply a matter of finding the clearing price and passing it on to us consumers which I'm very happy to bear.

The price is set by wholesalers, especially supermarkets. I'm not convinced they can re-eqilibriate the market before the harvest spoils.

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

#146

Post by lotsofpulp » Sat, Mar 28, 2020, 7:05 PM UTC

Scoundreller wrote: post #128

jopsen wrote: post #78

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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%.

And then Walmart would fail because everyone would shop at target or Another store. In a low margin business, every percent counts.

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

#147

Post by Freak_NL » Sat, Mar 28, 2020, 7:05 PM UTC

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.

> whilst the netherlands grow mostly flowers.

38 km² of flowers in glasshouses and 272 km² of flowers on open ground.

Total agricultural land use is 18163 km², 11815 km² of which is for growing grass and fodder, most of the remaining 6347 km² is food for human consumption, dominated by potatoes and grain.

So not even 3%.

We do not grow mostly flowers.

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

#148

Post by Scoundreller » Sat, Mar 28, 2020, 7:05 PM UTC

dirtyid wrote: post #100

baybal2 wrote: post #68

Coworkers in Shenzhen are already saying that more fancier foods are already getting scarcer in the inland China, and prices are going up by day. China has done a massive livestock slaughter campaign when the quarantine was declared. That has actually depressed the food prices quite a bit for the first months, but after that, the prices have shot up. This is how they got that much meat: https://mustsharenews.com/wp-c…

Likely coming to the US too, big suppliers are ringing very small producers to fill in orders because US can't get any Mexican farmhands in. Canada is exempting and flying in migrant labours. There's also panic in meat supply chains with Tyson strikes. I'd like to think Canada is safe but prices would probably get nutty if there's excess US demand unless we ban exports. Also migrant labours live like sardines, 20+ sh…

On the other hand, with everyone being at home, and a lot of bullshit tasks being eliminated/deferred (my driver's license is automatically good for an extra 6 months), caloric demand is probably down 10%.

As our muscles atrophy, basal metabolic rates will decrease too.

Undetermined what kind of hit to population COVID will cause, but I'm estimating <1%.

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

#149

Post by phenkdo » Sat, Mar 28, 2020, 7:06 PM UTC

Scoundreller wrote: post #134

phenkdo wrote: post #115

Earlier quoted context omitted.

At that pay rate, your grocery bill will rise 5x-10x and while that might not bother you, there are several people from whom that's a death knell.

Not a chance. When you're paying a couple bucks a pound for fresh ______, it didn't take 15 minutes of a migrant worker's time to plant/pick/care/pack that pound. My guess is that the migrant worker proportion of retail cost is edit: > What would happen to consumer food costs if farm wages rose and the extra costs were passed on to consumers? The average earnings of field workers were $9.78 an hour in 2008, according…

Again such a naive viewpoint, in an economy everything is interconnected. If the prices of groceries rise, there are knock-on effects on everything. Yep, EVERYTHING From healthcare to housing, to transport, and whatnot will rise many-x and this bravado will evaporate in the time you took to read this post.

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

#150

Post by nicoburns » Sat, Mar 28, 2020, 7:06 PM UTC

phenkdo wrote: post #139

robk wrote: post #131

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sure if it means people are being paid a fair wage. I should pay more for things where I'm exploiting labor tbh.

Somehow I think your keyboard bravado will vanish once you start paying 60-70% of salary for just basic necessities. And even if I were to concede that you - presumably high paid tech workers - were willing & able, imagine the fate of the pensioners, bus drivers, retail workers...they barely make ends meet as it is.

Isn't the point of this change to give farm workers (who like bus drivers, retail workers, etc barely make ends meet) the ability to cover their basic needs more easily. If we could implement this across all low-paid jobs, I would more than happily pay a greater proportion of my own salary on these goods.