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Food security and the coming storm

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Re: Food security and the coming storm

#271

Post by colechristensen »

RustyConsul wrote: post #265
colechristensen wrote: post #199

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you sold futures for your outputs and didn’t buy futures for your inputs, the results are on you. These are the kind of complaints you get from people who make market bets and end up wrong. You can use futures like insurance to insulate yourself from market fluctuations or you can use them like a casino.

that was my initial thought as well, but you are limited by the availability of financial instruments as you move up the chain to inputs. Outputs are easy to craft instruments around, but inputs are what a business is.

Instead of financial instruments they are actual contracts for purchasing a commodity in the future from a local purveyor.

Re: Food security and the coming storm

#272

Post by stubish »

dontbenebby wrote: post #5

Doesn't seem to factor in that cheap solar will make desalination much cheaper, but an interesting article for sure.

Desalination plants and solar at scale are not cheap. Spend billions and get some drinking water for a city. Supplying industry and agriculture though, it is cheaper to move production somewhere else and truck the produce in.

Re: Food security and the coming storm

#273

Post by GekkePrutser »

devchix wrote: post #101
pharmakom wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Time for me is by far the limiting factor. Short of a personal chef (too expensive) all the quick options are unhealthy. Edit: Loads of people suggesting cooking - I know how to cook, I just don’t have the time or energy. It’s not just preparation time but also the planning aspect. Meal prep delivery services suggestions are interesting. I have tried a few and found them expensive and low quality. Open to trying more…

>I think what I really want is a work canteen, but open to the public I think what I want is an ordinary, a set meal at a local tavern "ordained" at a time and price. I think restaurants evolved to serve a variety of dishes, where the ordinary (sometimes a bed and board place) served only one meal, but different meals on different days. I'd buy a subscription to a canteen style Bouchon, one meal a day, 30 different m…

Here in Spain this is a bit of a thing. You can get a three course meal for a fixed price of around 12 euro. Usually about 3-4 choices for each course that change each day. Pretty much every restaurant does this.

Problem is it's only for lunch time and eating the big meal of the day at lunch doesn't work for me :( I end up being hungry at night and having 2 big meals. Whereas a small lunch doesn't bother me.

Re: Food security and the coming storm

#274

Post by gruez »

bontaq wrote: post #198
atq2119 wrote: post #24

This is why, in normal times, food waste is a good thing. It means there's some slack in the system for when times get worse. Not that that helps people in poorer countries, unfortunately.

This seems to imply that food waste will be lessened. Instead, prices will simply be raised, until we hit some unsustainable point and there is no extra food to waste. Lessening food waste now would require planning for the future and changes to existing systems.

>This seems to imply that food waste will be lessened. Instead, prices will simply be raised,

Why not both? There's isn't some magical point where everybody goes "oh shit" and then scrambles to reduce food waste. Instead, there's always people on the margins that only need a little push (from the rising prices) to enact food waste saving measures.

Re: Food security and the coming storm

#275

Post by GekkePrutser »

actually_a_dog wrote: post #239
sdoering wrote: post #4

I recently had a conversation with an organic farmer. While he is able to pass on at least some of his increased costs for energy and fuel through direct sales and cooperatively organized distribution channels, his conventionally farmed colleagues have a bigger problem. They have long-term purchase contracts that fix the prices for milk, meat or vegetables. In the case of milk and meat in particular, production costs…

> the current climate allows price increases and thus an increase in margins. I just want to point out and emphasize that this is literally saying "companies can raise prices right now because they feel like it ." This is not how a "free market" is supposed to work.

Free markets never work when the players get too big to fail. It happened for banks, it happened for tech and it's happening to food.

Re: Food security and the coming storm

#276

Post by gruez »

onlyrealcuzzo wrote: post #180
aftbit wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Wow I didn't realize the ruble has been strengthening despite the sanctions, but it is true.[1] 1: https://www.google.com/finance/quote/RUB-USD?window=6M

They have an 18.5% interest rate compared to 0% in EU, and compared to ~5% in Russia pre-war. If not for an absurdly high interest rate and capital controls - the Ruble would not be doing well.

>If not for an absurdly high interest rate and capital controls

It also helps that imports are also way down (due to sanctions/boycotts) but exports are slightly up (due to increased oil prices).

Re: Food security and the coming storm

#277

Post by hn_throwaway_99 »

oneoff786 wrote: post #261
hn_throwaway_99 wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Commercial formula kinda is a magical combination of ingredients, including a substantial number of supplements that aren’t gonna be available to home cooks. Do you have a citation for that? I see all these articles that just say "don't try it yourself, it's too hard", but I'd like to know which specific ingredients are impossible to obtain.

It’s crazy that in the face of health authorities saying don’t do this, it’s dangerous, your reaction is “prove it”, rather than doing some research on your own to counter your skepticism. The lack of trust in public institutions is deeply saddening. The problem with baby formula is that it needs to contain precise balances of nutrition in specific forms that can be absorbed by the body in specific ways. Much in the…

> It’s crazy that in the face of health authorities saying don’t do this, it’s dangerous, your reaction is “prove it”, rather than doing some research on your own to counter your skepticism. The lack of trust in public institutions is deeply saddening.

I 100% disagree. I'm not an idiot. I can read a recipe, even a complicated recipe. And I'm not even saying they're wrong. I'm just asking for some simple example of why, for someone capable of following the instructions exactly, this would be too difficult to do at home. Not the right equipment? Fine. Ingredients that are not readily available? Fine.

But to go with some hand wavy bullshit, basically saying "Sorry stupid peon, this is just too complicated for you", is just dumb. On a site called "Hacker News" I think it's incredibly sad that a request for a more detailed explanation is met with "I think that's crazy".

Re: Food security and the coming storm

#278

Post by ericmay »

DarylZero wrote: post #238
leetcrew wrote: post #135

Earlier quoted context omitted.

it's not silly; you can't take ownership of your own health without having at least basic cooking skills. the "time commitment" is just another BS excuse. there are plenty of recipes that can be prepped, cooked, and served in the time it takes to order and pickup takeout. there are tons of youtube videos on this exact topic. search "but faster". the equipment and space concerns I'll give you. there are some people wh…

Not everyone can take ownership of everything. Some people are literally children.

> Some people are literally children.

That’s the problem. They need to figure it out.

Re: Food security and the coming storm

#279

Post by symlinkk »

aftbit wrote: post #21
lotusmars wrote: post #10

Putin already hinted that in exchange of lifting sanctions he will ship grain from occupied Ukraine. I'm pretty sure that Western politicans will scream "no way" initially but will quietly give in later. Just they way they gave in to Putin's demands to pay for gas in rubles. Whole rush on occopying south Ukraine (and levelling cities like Mariupol) was for Putin to have grains shortage as yet another leverage on Euro…

Wow I didn't realize the ruble has been strengthening despite the sanctions, but it is true.[1] 1: https://www.google.com/finance/quote/RUB-USD?window=6M

Comments like this are incredibly useful. A simple statement, backed up by a link with graph that verifies it. I’m not being sarcastic, I know it kind of reads that way. Comments like this teach me more about the world than 1,000 word rambling news articles.

Re: Food security and the coming storm

#280

Post by gruez »

dontbenebby wrote: post #257
gadflyinyoureye wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A large issue is where do you put the brackish or super-salted water? Desalination is great as long as you have the waste impacts managed.

> A large issue is where do you put the brackish or super-salted water? Desalination is great as long as you have the waste impacts managed. We designed a whole thing to store nuclear waste (Yucca Mountain[1], couldn't you put brackish water in something similar but wayyyy less expensive since it's not radioactive? [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yucca_Mountain_nuclear_waste_r...

I think you're underestimating how much waste water is produced by orders of magnitude. Any inland reservoir will be filled within months of completion.
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