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The crash of the global flower trade

bloomberg.com

31–40 of 137 posts

Re: The crash of the global flower trade

#31
post #23
post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And a lot of new industries will arise. They already do.

Out of curiosity, can you mention a few you consider are raising?

E-commerce is booming, courier services are hiring, small mom and pop local retail is quickly embracing internet orders. In my country we are introducing parcelmats at scale and preparing for 'foodmats' or 'fridgemats'.

In general replacing cheap labor with automatisation to avoid human contact will be a thing. Retail, restaurants will look more like in Japan.

Local tourism seems like a sure bet as people probably won't trust claims there is no virus in places like Bali or Thailand. No to mention there will be no cheap flights for years to come.

All the WFH will be a huge opportunity for real-estate and construction very soon as people will start leaving dense urban areas.

Some countries in EU will reform farming and bring strategic production back home which will be huge kick to economy. And there will be unlimited funding for that a'la Marshall plan and Eisenhover era.

Local restaurants, florists, barbers, waiters - collateral damage.

Re: The crash of the global flower trade

#32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Merely using words with shock value isn't going to help your case. Yes when you sneeze often in spring it's because of plant bukkake in your nose and when you eat saffron you are munching on plant dicks. What's your point?

Hiding the facts of something with sugar-coated words isn’t going to help your case. Yes most bizarre and grotesque customs continue as long as agree upon them without questioning their value. It was also perfectly fine to own people as property and throw virgins into volcanoes, once. What’s your point?

Are you genuinely calling flowers a

> bizarre and grotesque custom

And comparing it to slavery?

Re: The crash of the global flower trade

#33
post #19
post #8

I'm really sorry for the Dutch but their response to the crisis to Italy and Spain has been: "you should have saved some money!". I hope now they realize this crisis affects all in one way or another, either with direct deaths or with indirect sales crash, which can translate also into deaths. It's really hard for me now to feel pity for flowers when they didn't care about people dying...

You should take back the part where you accuse an entire nation of not caring about people dying. It's unbecoming. The Dutch just don't want mutualisation of debt. That's not strange at all.

In the end, the Dutch will have to deal with the mutualisation of dept if they choose to stay in the Eurozone. I believe it's pretty much unavoidable as both Germany and France seem to already have agreed on the matter:

https://www.theguardian.com/business/2018/jan/29/how-to-star...

Re: The crash of the global flower trade

#34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I suppose you make all your food look as awful as possible, take no effort with your appearance, live in a room of squalor, for the aesthetic has no value or purpose?

All that because they questions the florist trade? What sort of mental gymnastics does one even make to pull that logic: I suppose you only eat what you kill yourself, adorn yourself with the carcasses of dead animals, live in a house decorated with taxidermy, just for the aesthetic value?

I think you've misunderstood the point. And have tried to wittily turn it around and now you make no sense.

> questions the florist trade?

No, but because he considers it so evil.

The incels really need to get back in their boxes.

Re: The crash of the global flower trade

#35
As an aside, I've worked at Flora Holland, the company (a cooperative owned by a hundred and then some growers) that orchestrates a lot of the logistics; the clip in the article with the carts is a small part of their transit halls. They start in the early morning with the flowers and plants coming out of cold storage and auction them off early on; before midday, the halls are quiet and empty again, hundreds if not thousands of trucks full of carts and containers having been filled and sent off by then. Each and every day.

Besides the actual shipping of plants etc, one of their major logistical challenges is managing the hundreds of thousands of iron carts (pallet sized) and millions of plastic containers (where they put the actual flowers in), those all have codes and deposits to manage, and every day they have to calculate how many they need. (same with how many temps they need, they can vary the amount of people they employ by hundreds if not thousands per day. Highest amounts are around valentine's day and mother's day).

Software-wise it's also interesting. I can't mention much about their current day development, but one factoid is for example the auction hall itself. It's a Dutch auction (see wikipedia), so response times is crucial. It turns out that the exact position you're sitting in that hall already has an effect on the response time and whether you win or lose an auction. They tried to put it on the internet as well so the buyers could do it from home, but they couldn't solve the latency problem (at least not to the satisfaction of the buyers).

Nowadays though, less and less is sold via the auction, and less and less actually passes through the main venue; there's a lot more orders in advance (like shops ordering roses a year in advance for valentine's day), and there's a lot more direct grower-to-customer traffic.

Re: The crash of the global flower trade

#36

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.

A carrot you eat and turn to literal shit.

Flowers like you say lasts a week for multiple people. 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.

To say they are "they are not essential" is saying life itself is not essential, just eat powder and sit in a room if this is the case.

I feel like what you are saying is you don't like flowers so no one else should.

And I really think it's callous for us to forget the "More than 150,000 people now toil on Kenyan flower farms, many of them women." These are the poorest of the poor, to take away what little they have is pretty thoughtless.

Re: The crash of the global flower trade

#37
post #19
post #8

I'm really sorry for the Dutch but their response to the crisis to Italy and Spain has been: "you should have saved some money!". I hope now they realize this crisis affects all in one way or another, either with direct deaths or with indirect sales crash, which can translate also into deaths. It's really hard for me now to feel pity for flowers when they didn't care about people dying...

You should take back the part where you accuse an entire nation of not caring about people dying. It's unbecoming. The Dutch just don't want mutualisation of debt. That's not strange at all.

The Dutch government should take back the part where they accuse entire nations of profligacy and indolence. This happened during the Greek crisis also and it is a tragedy which punishes the poor and the weak.

Without mutual support there is no EU. Compassion for others is in your own self interest long term, but I fear this is easily forgotten in a crisis.

Re: The crash of the global flower trade

#38
post #17
post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not really. The response from the Dutch government was that they did want to help, but did not want to hold the responsibility for paying back the loan from the countries. Which would have been the case with Eurobonds. Instead, they wanted to help but had some financial reform obligations tied to it, which Italy and Spain were not happy with.

Not really. "Mr Hoekstra also infuriated some of his finance minister colleagues this week when he suggested that Brussels “investigate” why some economies did not have the fiscal headway to fight a downturn — a veiled dig at Italy and others for failing to reform in benign times. An EU diplomat quoted by Volkskrant described the slight as a “middle finger to the south”."

How about trying to answer this question? Why is it that the state of Italy has so much problems with their budget?

This is not the first time it has been a problem.

edit: I am Dutch btw, how about you?

Re: The crash of the global flower trade

#39
post #7

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.)

It's an attractive.view as it's easy to understand but ultimately simple view of the world which ignores a range of human experience. Similar to the case for not eating meat, or not going to war. Both of which are noble and good but are more complex deeper down.

Re: The crash of the global flower trade

#40

Basic economics, when times goed bad, you skip the things you want and focus on the things you need.

It's not really economics (yet), even if peopled needed flowers they can't get them because the store is closed.

The basic economics comes next.

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