Olive tree disease across Europe 'could costs billions' • Hacker News Board

Re: Olive tree disease across Europe 'could costs billions'

#41

Post by mschuster91 » Tue, Apr 14, 2020, 7:06 AM UTC

harikb wrote: post #29

barry-cotter wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And that’s how you burn all trust, like with the WHO lying about masks, human to human transmission of COVID and the effectiveness of border controls. If they’ll lie for the cause and you know it why trust that third is not one of those times?

I understand what you are saying. I wish there was a aolution though. Nobody care about anything 5+ years down the road. Everyone magically assumes some magic invention will undo years of ignoring science. Anyways, in this particular case, it is probably not preventable, but I wish we could quantify the effect closer to a year or two.

Current politicians don't care about anything 5+ years in the future. The youth very well does, see e.g. Fridays for future movement.

We need a maximum age for politicians, and mandate ethnic, gender and age diversity in politics. Additionally we have to incentivize long-term thinking and disincentivize short term optimization. As long as we are in capitalism, an idea would be a 2 million dollar bonus to be paid out 20 years after a politician retires - which is only valid if the decisions this politician took during their time in office had a quantifiably positive impact for general society.

Re: Olive tree disease across Europe 'could costs billions'

#42

Post by madaxe_again » Tue, Apr 14, 2020, 7:22 AM UTC

batushka3 wrote: post #40

mikekchar wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There are other solutions. Institute a minimum wage for farm work. Make it attractive to those who would ordinarily choose to work in a factory to work at a farm. Break the monopolies on food distribution (probably will require the companies to be restructured by law). Create a national food distribution service to compete with the original companies. Provide minimum prices for farmers with the national food distribu…

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Re: Olive tree disease across Europe 'could costs billions'

#43

Post by ess101 » Tue, Apr 14, 2020, 7:23 AM UTC

mikekchar wrote: post #37

jelliclesfarm wrote: post #26

there is some truth to this. same news was posted here on HN last year. but in reality, there is more to it. yes, there is a pathogen. but EU olive industry is moving to turkey and morocco. why? simple. cheap labour. olive trees can live for a very very long time, but there are two kinds of olives harvested. for oil and then for table olives. the former has been mechanised and the latter is not. so it's expensive. it…

There are other solutions. Institute a minimum wage for farm work. Make it attractive to those who would ordinarily choose to work in a factory to work at a farm. Break the monopolies on food distribution (probably will require the companies to be restructured by law). Create a national food distribution service to compete with the original companies. Provide minimum prices for farmers with the national food distribu…

Agree, automation may indeed be the solution in the long term...but we're not there yet. The solution may indeed require subsidizing wages instead of subsidizing farmers.

Re: Olive tree disease across Europe 'could costs billions'

#44

Post by barry-cotter » Tue, Apr 14, 2020, 7:33 AM UTC

mschuster91 wrote: post #41

harikb wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I understand what you are saying. I wish there was a aolution though. Nobody care about anything 5+ years down the road. Everyone magically assumes some magic invention will undo years of ignoring science. Anyways, in this particular case, it is probably not preventable, but I wish we could quantify the effect closer to a year or two.

Current politicians don't care about anything 5+ years in the future. The youth very well does, see e.g. Fridays for future movement. We need a maximum age for politicians, and mandate ethnic, gender and age diversity in politics. Additionally we have to incentivize long-term thinking and disincentivize short term optimization. As long as we are in capitalism, an idea would be a 2 million dollar bonus to be paid out…

> We need a maximum age for politicians, and mandate ethnic, gender and age diversity in politics.

This is a terrible idea. If you can’t vote the power structure will just abuse you without thinking. See the total lack of freedom and respect for children, non-citizens, whether visitors or residents, permanent or temporary, and for felons deprived of a vote. Relying on people being good because it’s nice works much worse than relying on them not harming you because it will have consequences.

If you want a representative pool of politicians mandating “diversity” is the wrong way to do it. Use sortition. Draft legislators in much the same way jurors are compelled to serve. I would not want to have this be the only way legislators are chosen because a legislature with an average IQ of 100 where most people had not graduated college does not seem likely to be full of the highly competent. I’d support one chamber chosen this way and another elected though. Competence isn’t the only valuable thing.

Re: Olive tree disease across Europe 'could costs billions'

#45

Post by baud147258 » Tue, Apr 14, 2020, 7:36 AM UTC

jelliclesfarm wrote: post #26

there is some truth to this. same news was posted here on HN last year. but in reality, there is more to it. yes, there is a pathogen. but EU olive industry is moving to turkey and morocco. why? simple. cheap labour. olive trees can live for a very very long time, but there are two kinds of olives harvested. for oil and then for table olives. the former has been mechanised and the latter is not. so it's expensive. it…

Personally, even if it's more expensive, I only buy olive oil from Europe, at least to support where I live

Re: Olive tree disease across Europe 'could costs billions'

#46

Post by clows » Tue, Apr 14, 2020, 7:39 AM UTC

mikorym wrote: post #38

To put this in perspective, it has happened before along similar lines in different produce types. For example, almost all of the vineyards in Europe were wiped out in the 19th century [1]. This is why the oldest vineyards in the world are somewhere in South America. (I think Chile?) Today, as we all know, France is still the most important wine producing country. South Africa has 100k hectares of wine; France has 10…

A minor difference:

> The slow-growing trees take 65 to 80 years to reach stable yields.

https://www.hunker.com/13428601/how-long-does-it-take-for-an...

Re: Olive tree disease across Europe 'could costs billions'

#47

Post by fauigerzigerk » Tue, Apr 14, 2020, 8:10 AM UTC

baud147258 wrote: post #45

jelliclesfarm wrote: post #26

there is some truth to this. same news was posted here on HN last year. but in reality, there is more to it. yes, there is a pathogen. but EU olive industry is moving to turkey and morocco. why? simple. cheap labour. olive trees can live for a very very long time, but there are two kinds of olives harvested. for oil and then for table olives. the former has been mechanised and the latter is not. so it's expensive. it…

Personally, even if it's more expensive, I only buy olive oil from Europe, at least to support where I live

So you want to reduce trade between Europe and neighbouring mediterranean nations like Morocco and Turkey, the same countries we want to take in all the refugees from Africa and the Middle East.

Re: Olive tree disease across Europe 'could costs billions'

#48

Post by ben_w » Tue, Apr 14, 2020, 8:31 AM UTC

rjzzleep wrote: post #32

ChuckNorris89 wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>automation and robotics is the only solution. Maybe to us idealist techies wishing for a fair world, but to the people with big bucks who own and run the show as long as there is someone willing to work for cheaper than it is to develop, buy and run machines it's not worth investing in automation and the world is currently not in short supply of cheap labor unfortunately. There is always a cheaper place with poor op…

The irony is that I think some of these "knowledge economy" jobs i.e. doctors and lawyers(and even software engineers) are easier to replace than say nurses(although there is a big conflict going on where lots of nurses actually have more experience and knowledge than doctors) and cleaners. The idea that creating robots that mimic certain mechanic function is easier than creating something that replaces a person that…

Lawyers aren’t mere human dictionaries — they have an understanding of the system that is the law and how everything works in that context.

Interacting with a legal system without that domain knowledge leads to Freemen Of The Land, or to thinking that Section 69 of the Sexual Offences Act 2003 outlaws all sexual contact with humans “because humans are a type of animal”.

What senior lawyers (and senior pharmacists and senior software developers) have is the stuff people mistakenly call “common sense” — a phrase which is only ever used while complaining someone else doesn’t have it, because the knowledge is not genuinely common, rather it is a set of domain knowledge they and we have learned over a long period without consciously noticing.

Re: Olive tree disease across Europe 'could costs billions'

#49

Post by thaumasiotes » Tue, Apr 14, 2020, 8:51 AM UTC

mikorym wrote: post #38

To put this in perspective, it has happened before along similar lines in different produce types. For example, almost all of the vineyards in Europe were wiped out in the 19th century [1]. This is why the oldest vineyards in the world are somewhere in South America. (I think Chile?) Today, as we all know, France is still the most important wine producing country. South Africa has 100k hectares of wine; France has 10…

> It's a major problem for farmers of all sizes as the people selling the pesticides actually have an incentive to get you to buy more and more.

Hey, this reminds me of the difference between the amount of laundry detergent the washing machine says you should use, the amount the detergent says you need to use, and the amount the detergent has a measuring line for.

Re: Olive tree disease across Europe 'could costs billions'

#50

Post by quietbritishjim » Tue, Apr 14, 2020, 9:07 AM UTC

mikorym wrote: post #38

To put this in perspective, it has happened before along similar lines in different produce types. For example, almost all of the vineyards in Europe were wiped out in the 19th century [1]. This is why the oldest vineyards in the world are somewhere in South America. (I think Chile?) Today, as we all know, France is still the most important wine producing country. South Africa has 100k hectares of wine; France has 10…

> For example, almost all of the vineyards in Europe were wiped out in the 19th century [1]. ... Today, as we all know, France is still the most important wine producing country.

Without any more information than this comment, even if you assume olive producing is like wine making, that analogy just means that in over 150 years from now things will be back to normal. That's not much consolation to people owning failing olive farms now.