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The crash of the global flower trade

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Re: The crash of the global flower trade

#111

Post by anigbrowl »

lm28469 wrote: post #44
op03 wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't agree about not essential. If we go there, sooner or later, someone will show up and say Music is not essential, and why can't everyone dress like Zuck etc. But I do agree about local. I mean who doesn't want to walk by something like this everyday - https://scontent-yyz1-1.cdninstagram.com/v/t50.2886-16/93565...

> someone will show up and say Music is not essential Depends on your definition of essential, I'd argue 100% of the world population would survive just fine without music or flowers. Food is essential, water is essential, medicine is essential, shelter is essential. Some tulips imported for 2000km away aren't. I mean, do we really have to debate this ? If we go there, sooner or later, someone will show up and say Ke…

100% of the world population would survive just fine without music or flowers

No they wouldn't, they'd get depressed and eventually become either withdrawn or violent. I'm not arguing for a wasteful and environmentally destructive flower trade, but against your notion that mere maintenance of the biological organism is sufficient. Universals like music and flowers serve an important role in social cohesion.

Re: The crash of the global flower trade

#112

Post by exhilaration »

mariushn wrote: post #68

Meanwhile in South Africa there are food issues... Why not plant vegetables instead of flowers? Also to note: workers get $70/mo, while all other middle-men involved get more.

In the United States, farmers are destroying their crops and dumping milk because of drastically lower demand during the pandemic: https://www.nytimes.com/2020/04/11/business/coronavirus-dest...

Re: The crash of the global flower trade

#113

Post by eythian »

netsharc wrote: post #106
tonyedgecombe wrote: post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The argument I regularly hear is that there would be more energy spent heating local greenhouses than flying the flowers.

It seems employing Western Europeans to plant and pick flowers in Western Europe would mean expensive flowers, and they've apparently calculated it's cheaper to let Kenyans plant, pick, ship the flowers to big Boeings, for pilots to burn fuel flying the Boeings to the Netherlands, and for the flowers to be distributed around W. Europe (and apparently USA) that way. It' the same with people screaming why their country…

Well, I assume the article isn't covering the whole story (because otherwise it'd be a long story detracting from the point, so fair enough.) The Netherlands has a lot of greenhouses. I have no idea what the ratio of flowers to vegetables in them is though.

Re: The crash of the global flower trade

#114

Post by schemathings »

Mengkudulangsat wrote: post #3

Cut flower export sounds like climate travesty; they are not essential, they are fragile (requiring energy-intensive cold chain logistics and air-freight) and after all that effort... they have a shelf-life of a week. If there is an industry that should be strictly localized, it's this one.

The US saw it as a good alternative to the cocaine trade .. "To offer incentives for alternative crops, the US under the administration of President George HW Bush passed the Andean Trade Preference Act in 1991, which dropped duties on agricultural products like flowers for Colombia, Ecuador, Peru and Bolivia."

So there's that.

Re: The crash of the global flower trade

#115

Post by turnipla »

gwbas1c wrote: post #79
mariushn wrote: post #68

Meanwhile in South Africa there are food issues... Why not plant vegetables instead of flowers? Also to note: workers get $70/mo, while all other middle-men involved get more.

> Why not plant vegetables instead of flowers The world has more than enough food growing to feed everyone. It's a logistics problem. In this case, when everyone working to pick the plants and distribute the food makes everyone sick, the system fails.

> The world has more than enough food growing to feed everyone.

That's quite a statement you made there, especially in the context of Africa.

Re: The crash of the global flower trade

#116

Post by 7777fps »

koheripbal wrote: post #92
7777fps wrote: post #72

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not much? I think in most jurisdictions it's possible to get legally married, just not be celebrated in the traditional way. So wedding celebrations have been delayed by 6 months or a year, well so what? It's such a small thing to focus on and worry about when almost the whole global economy has been put on pause. There's almost nothing that hasn't been affected, the inability to immediately celebrate in a traditiona…

So what about all the weddings workers that cannot pay their mortgages now?

I'm not saying there's no effect I'm saying that weddings aren't special in that regard.

That's just as easily (or not!) answered the same as:

> So what about all the workers that cannot pay their mortgages now?

Re: The crash of the global flower trade

#117

Post by saystupidthings »

turnipla wrote: post #115
gwbas1c wrote: post #79

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Why not plant vegetables instead of flowers The world has more than enough food growing to feed everyone. It's a logistics problem. In this case, when everyone working to pick the plants and distribute the food makes everyone sick, the system fails.

> The world has more than enough food growing to feed everyone. That's quite a statement you made there, especially in the context of Africa.

Except it's been true for a couple decades now. We throw away enough food to feed the world. You been under a rock?

Re: The crash of the global flower trade

#118

Post by anigbrowl »

bostik wrote: post #7
Mengkudulangsat wrote: post #3

Cut flower export sounds like climate travesty; they are not essential, they are fragile (requiring energy-intensive cold chain logistics and air-freight) and after all that effort... they have a shelf-life of a week. If there is an industry that should be strictly localized, it's this one.

I don't even understand the whole cut flower thing. It's morbid. You cultivate something that is living and beautiful. Then you kill it, and bring the corpse inside, to essentially observe the once-living thing's decay. (And don't get me started on giving cut flowers as gifts. If your host is an animal lover, you don't pick up roadkill on your way over, either.)

Flowers are nature's billboards to promote pollination. I let a lot of trees and plants run wild around my home, partly because I enjoy looking at bees. Plants flower and then let the flowers die as soon as they've served their purpose; and the competition between plants for space and sunlight is also aggressive. If you let nature take its course, you have to get used to seeing lots of death as different plants kill each other off and run into the limits of their environment. Also, a lot of the real action is happening underground, where most of the nutrients are - sunlight and CO2 are only part of the equation, and for some plants being trimmed back is no more of a big deal than getting a haircut.

I get your point, but it's also a reflection of your own psychological state. People mostly like flowers to bring some nature into their home; they could also cultivate houseplants, but that's a lot more work and if you try cultivating multiple plants together they are likely to either kill each other or attract bugs. The transience of flowers isn't inherently morbid, for the same reason you can be vegetarian but still wear woolen clothes.

Re: The crash of the global flower trade

#119

Post by anigbrowl »

strgcmc wrote: post #87
TeMPOraL wrote: post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> A carrot you eat and turn to literal shit. It sustains their life and thus serves an important purpose. > Also unlike kitschy stuff you buy and just sits there forgotten, you appreciate them, you have to somewhat care for them, they add value to life. Kitschy stuff is another ecological disaster, separately from cut flowers. People who appreciate flowers generally buy potted ones and care for them; cut plants are m…

Surely folks on HN understand that, if it was economically feasible to compete on this, then locally sourced flower start-ups would've already become a thing? Yes shipping and storage seem wasteful, but there are economies of scale involved when centralizing production to areas with the right climate, with desirable soil qualities, with expertise in planting such flowers, etc. To help local flower growers win out, we…

Economic efficiency and waste are not the same thing, unless you really are pricing in all the externalities. Also, while the concept of comparative advantage is elegant and powerful, excess fealty to it creates monocultures, much as too much sugar brings on diabetes.

Re: The crash of the global flower trade

#120

Post by blotter_paper »

turnipla wrote: post #115
gwbas1c wrote: post #79

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Why not plant vegetables instead of flowers The world has more than enough food growing to feed everyone. It's a logistics problem. In this case, when everyone working to pick the plants and distribute the food makes everyone sick, the system fails.

> The world has more than enough food growing to feed everyone. That's quite a statement you made there, especially in the context of Africa.

>Currently, worldwide food production exceeds 2,750 kilocalories per person per day [15], which exceeds the amount required to feed the global population. Although these data account for farm-level waste, they do not include the estimated 20% household food waste [44]. Hence, currently available calories are likely to be about 2,200 kilocalories per person per day, which is sufficient for the world’s current population [23].

Sauce: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6198966/

Right under that they note that our food groups are out of whack, but in terms of calories, we could feed everybody... we just don't. It's not just a problem of profit motives; as GP noted, distribution is a real issue. Many places with famine problems also have issues with government stability, and dropping crates of food from the sky just gives food to the people with guns and vehicles who can secure it. If you think about this problem from the point of view of a legitimately charitable entity with tons of cash, it's still not entirely clear how to end world hunger without either propping up small dictatorships or undermining local sovereignty. The last mile is a hard problem. Edit: and obviously, some people eat too much, and we throw away food because of weird profit motives. I'm not trying to downplay those causes of human misery, just trying to point out that there are other hard decisions to be made on the path to feeding all humans.

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