Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

From Spain to Germany, farmers warn of fresh food shortages

bloomberg.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

261–270 of 589 posts

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

#261

Post by dirtyid »

Scoundreller wrote: post #148
dirtyid wrote: post #100

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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%.

Ironically, for countries that can contain properly, maybe even net gain in life. HK doctors was talking about how flu season ended months early due to all the measures being taken. I'm guessing road fatalities, work place accidents and all sorts of other causes of death is way down.

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

#262

Post by maigret »

Torwald wrote: post #221
2ion wrote: post #190

I'd go to the fields at once if it be worth my time. That means 50€/hour plus benefits, and fully paid transportation and accommodation. There are enough jobless people in Germany that should be able to pick any number of fields. For this kind of money, that'd be a no-brainer. Here we have two problems: Wages are too low to pay for higher food prices that could sustain local field labour, and the majority of average…

> It's the consequence of having an export-oriented economy: labour must at all cost be as low as possible. In what type of economy would that not be the case then?

If you’re not export oriented, you need more consumer purchasing power, so higher wages.

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

#263

Post by nitrogen »

balola wrote: post #211
dirtyid wrote: post #100

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

>massive waste and spoilage in the supply chain. Maybe in the west, but not the case in China, food is relatively expensive, so very little is wasted, even poisonous rice can find snack factory buyers. Restaurant waste is colleted by small pig farms.

What makes rice poisonous, and how is it made safe for use in snacks?

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

#264

Post by burntoutfire »

ALittleLight wrote: post #251
Daishiman wrote: post #246

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The cost of picking fruit such that it being affordable is not coherent with the cost of living of Britain. Such is the case in a lot of places in the first world. You can keep having affordable fresh fruit, or you can pretend you can pay laborers local prices, driving up the price dramatically, reducing the total size of the market (because nobody's going to be able to afford the new prices), and having even less pr…

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.

Interestingly, it's a shift-by-one kind of situation. I.e. while British or German crops are picked by Poles, Polish crops are picked by Ukrainians... It seems that agriculture everywhere relies on underpaid migrant labor. I wonder if even Ukraine imports some migrant labor for this purpose.

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

#266

Post by nicoburns »

avip wrote: post #194
nicoburns wrote: post #157

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'd be interested to hear more about what you think will go wrong. It seems like this is an important problem to solve.

It's simpler than you think. 1. Commercially viable picking actually requires some training (identify pickable fruits, avoid damaging plants, don't half pick) 2. Farmers (rightfully) don't like people who have no knowledge in growing crops hanging around in their fields. They just do dumb things like drink from irrigation pipes (for some crops irrigation is periodically mixed with fertilizer or pesticides). 3. Volunt…

Hmm... So I wonder if this could be ameliorated by:

1. Paying people rather than recruiting volunteers. Presumably the normal pickers would be paid, so there should be funds available for this assuming that the right people can be found.

2. Recruiting and training people well ahead of time. This would give time for at least some level of training. The initial training could be online in video form so as to avoid wasting too much time for those overseeing the process.

3. Some kind of app to facilitate the process. This could potentially allow growers to reach a much wider audience. It could also help with the time-sensitive nature of the problem ("pickers required at X place now").

There are a lot of people out of work at the moment. It seems that diverting some of these people to food picking would be a win for everyone if it could be achieved.

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

#267

Post by rad_gruchalski »

soperj wrote: post #240
catalogia wrote: post #236

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why have eastern europeans do the work instead of the normal workers? It's not like eastern europeans have any special resistance to corona, nor are their lives worth less.

Yep, they wanted brexit, now live with it.

Except, it is the same in Germany and France.

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

#268

Post by throwaway0889 »

scanr wrote: post #233

Fruit and veg 'will run out' unless Britain charters planes to fly in farm workers from eastern Europe. UK urgently needs 90,000 labourers to pick crops that will otherwise die in the fields, warns charity. https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2020/mar/28/fruit-an...

The UK only needs low skilled workers for soft fruit that need to be hand picked.

It's fine with every other crop. Maybe farmers should just switch to those.

Cheap "British" strawberries are not worth the workes' abuse and low pay.

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

#269

Post by neilwilson »

throwaway0889 wrote: post #268
scanr wrote: post #233

Fruit and veg 'will run out' unless Britain charters planes to fly in farm workers from eastern Europe. UK urgently needs 90,000 labourers to pick crops that will otherwise die in the fields, warns charity. https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2020/mar/28/fruit-an...

The UK only needs low skilled workers for soft fruit that need to be hand picked. It's fine with every other crop. Maybe farmers should just switch to those. Cheap "British" strawberries are not worth the workes' abuse and low pay.

I suspect we'll see a return to "pick your own" that used to be prevalent before Eastern Europe opened up.

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

#270

Post by JadeNB »

Guthur wrote: post #214
dredmorbius wrote: post #201

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Modern market economics is a ... marvel ... of numerous uncosted externalities. Pollution, labour, externalised risk, unaccounted systemic risks, natural resource depletion and formation costs, political power, corruption...

[flagged]

Trying to silence complaints about the evils of capitalism with aspersions on the evils of communism does no good to anyone.
Post reply on HN