311–320 of 589 posts
Earlier quoted context omitted.
We also get to see the trucks carrying the food. Go on any French autoroute and 2 out of 3 of the trucks will be from Spain.
You mean registered in Spain. Where is the trailer registered? And what does the place of a vehicle registration has to do with the origin of the cargo they carry?
Earlier quoted context omitted.
People should pay more for fruit and food if more money is required to fairly compensate laborers. The solution shouldn't be importing a disadvantaged population to exploit for cheap labor. If our modern economy is so weak we cannot afford fruits and vegetables we should confront and overcome that weakness rather than conceal it by importing an underclass.
Another solution is increasing the susidies to food production, which would shift part of the cost to people with higher income. This has some disadvantages (the market is distorted by subsidies and resource allocation may be suboptimal) and some advantages (a healthier diet is available for a larger proportion of the population).
Low wages for field workers (e.g. picking berries) has stunted automation of these tasks, though I think we're now at the level of robotics (especially computer vision) where it's feasible.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Oh, well if that's the status quo that makes sense. I assumed the normal workers were unavailable due to quarantine/etc.
No, the 'normal' workers (you mean I guess local) were unwilling to do the work for so little, while intensively supporting this situation by their shopping habits.
My comments in this thread have had some pretty wild score swings, I guess I stepped on a live rail. I'm not familiar with British agriculture politics.. I was thinking only of companies temporarily replacing a sick workforce with another (who would presumably themselves then become sick.) My comments were not intended to be commentary on British immigration, which I have no reason to care about.
Got a butternut squash in your pantry? Maybe a couple of tomatoes? Cook it up for dinner and save some seeds! Wash off the pulp and dry them out on a paper towel. It's not too late to start some seedlings, and it's a nice way to pass the time. I've also been experimenting with different dried beans that we stocked up on, and most of them have a pretty high germination rate. Roma beans are super tasty and high in prot…
I’ve explored a little in the past, but always seemed to run into fairly impenetrable instructions. A basic list of what to buy (in non-gardeners’ terminology) and some simple instructions would be great.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
nobody has to do the work, the work is voluntary. Eastern Europeans do the work because the wages are still higher than in Eastern Europe, so it makes financial sense for them to move to the UK. In contrast to the exploitation narrative this is actually mutually beneficial. The food is produced at low cost which is good for consumers (in particular poor ones who would otherwise not have access to expensive vegetables…
Time to get the "they're stealing our jobs" crowd out in the fields picking.
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…
>> And people were saying that we will never see a famine in Asia in the 21st century. That optimism was premature... I wonder whether people will decide to take their chances with the coronavirus if faced with famine? Something tells me that people will risk it with the coronavirus rather than die of starvation.
Not sure why I'm getting downvoted. Food takes months to grow and needs to be harvested within a short window. By the time people realize there's a famine coming it will be too late. Just look at how we could have prepared in January for this virus if people weren't so shortsighted.
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…
I think the US is going to learn why it’s dangerous to centralize food supply. Most of the local farmers in my region (upstate ny) are bankrupt, and much of our production or processing of food is from far away. The half and half from my grocer is processed in Virginia.
Low wages for field workers (e.g. picking berries) has stunted automation of these tasks, though I think we're now at the level of robotics (especially computer vision) where it's feasible.
Strawberries are very tender. If you apply too much pressure, it will mulch and one berry going bad is usually enough to get the whole box moldy. The second tricky bit is that you want to pick strawberries with the right amount of stem remaining: too little and you risk hurting the berry, too much and the stem will break other berries in the box, leading to mold again.
One final difficult problem is finding the berries: strawberries often grow fairly bushy, especially so if you grow one of the varieties that gives large berries. To find the strawberries in the bush, you usually gently move around the leaves to see if there are any. This is again a very "feel" based movement, too little movement and you miss the berry, too much and you damage the plant.
I'm not saying this won't ever be done. As mentioned before, there are companies who are actively working in this space, many of them for many years already. I do think however that the problem is considerably more difficult than what may be observed at first.
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…
I remember learning that there is not a single famine in history that's not "wo/man-made" even including the little ice age period. In the sense, the resources and material to grow food was always there. It was always either a logistical, economical, or political issue that creates famine. Not sure how true this is since our world population has increased significantly.
I don't think it's true historically, but it may well be true in the modern age. Agricultural productivity has far outpaced population growth, and our crops are much more resilient to weather and pest issues than in the past.
However, distribution is extremely inefficient, especially over large geographical distances. This is how we get significant percentages of all food thrown away, while at the same time having hundreds of millions of starving people or near-starving all over the world.