From Spain to Germany, farmers warn of fresh food shortages • Hacker News Board

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

#431

Post by abraxas » Sun, Mar 29, 2020, 1:53 AM UTC

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...

I sincerely hope that Eastern Europeans will not fall for it. After being discriminated, ridiculed and targeted with Brexit now they are being seen as indispensable all of a sudden. English people have no shame. As a Pole I find their xenophobic two faced culture repulsive.

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

#432

Post by tlb » Sun, Mar 29, 2020, 1:55 AM UTC

abootstrapper wrote: post #430

pvaldes wrote: post #375

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What? No more illegal pangolin for dinner?.

Honest question. How is the EPA suspending enforcement aid in the fight against Covid-19?

The EPA says not only that your new chemical plant can't dump waste in the river, but also that before you even start your factory you have to file elaborate plans explaining all the measures you're going to take to make sure it never happens.

If we want companies to quickly spin up new factories for ventilators and masks, it's a good idea to let them start the factory now and file the plans next year.

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

#433

Post by 6gvONxR4sf7o » Sun, Mar 29, 2020, 1:58 AM UTC

burntoutfire wrote: post #264

ALittleLight wrote: post #251

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Since we can't turles-all-the-way-down with this, where does the chain end? What do they do there?

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

#434

Post by jdmichal » Sun, Mar 29, 2020, 2:11 AM UTC

xtacy wrote: post #398

tomp wrote: post #325

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Is there any simple way to speed up / increase chances of germination (of tomatoes, beans, peas, lentils, pumpkins)? E.g. by covering the soil (where the seeds are) with paper / plastic / cloth (as a makeshift greenhouse, to increase temperature and/or humidity), or something similar?

Try the paper towel trick: wrap the seeds in a moist paper towel (not too wet, or it will encourage fungus growth). Then, keep them inside a ziplock bag in a warm place for a couple of days, checking on them every day. I keep them on top of the refridgerator where it's nice and warm. Beans sprout super fast! For very dry seeds (lentils, beans, peas, edamamme) you could soak them in water overnight and just use the se…

Ditto. The only downside to this method is having to transplant twice: once to soil pots after sprouting, then to the ground.

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

#435

Post by empath75 » Sun, Mar 29, 2020, 2:11 AM UTC

infinite8s wrote: post #406

empath75 wrote: post #396

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So pay more than $25 an hour. There is surely a salary that people will accept to do the work. I don’t know why everyone assumes that manual labor only deserves near poverty wages.

No one will pay $5 for an avocado.

People said similar things about cotton before slavery was abolished. The world managed to survive.

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

#436

Post by kasey_junk » Sun, Mar 29, 2020, 2:13 AM UTC

makomk wrote: post #399

en4bz wrote: post #389

This doesn't really track with Agricultural futures. They are all down in the last few months [1]. Either this is bait for retail investors or the pros are asleep at the wheel. [1] https://www.cmegroup.com/trading/agricultural/

The bulk commodities which have futures markets will likely be fine. Grains are mechanically harvested, so they don't need much in the way of labour. Meat might be a little more in short supply, but not due to labour shortages so much as problems in China. The problems are with fresh food like fruit and vegetables that aren't well suited to futures trading.

Historically problems in fresh veg supply has translated into higher prices for both meat and grains as consumers switch their preferences.

The futures markets for grains and meats are both running lower right now. The pros think that demand is going down due to economic activity and the supply chain issues aren’t going to make a dent in that.

I have no position but the reading of the markets is that no one is worried about food yet.

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

#437

Post by jtolmar » Sun, Mar 29, 2020, 2:19 AM UTC

Etheryte wrote: post #319

thyrsus wrote: post #156

Low wages for field workers (e.g. picking berries) has stunted automation of these tasks, though I think we're now at the level of robotics (especially computer vision) where it's feasible.

Sadly, I think this is an example of what I would maybe call the HN Dunning-Kruger approach to many problems: "just" use IT/AI/robots/etc. There are many companies who have been working in this space for a long time, there's a reason why it's still manual work — it's freaking hard. Berries are a good example of this, personally I'm intricately familiar with the strawberry industry, but I believe it applies elsewhere…

Like all robotics, a solution needs someone willing to develop expert domain knowledge, not a generalist software engineer with an enthusiasm for the latest out-of-the box AI techniques. And part of that expert domain knowledge is almost certainly going to be knowing to start with something easier than strawberries. My best guess is apples, but I'm not that expert.

But, since you provided a thoughtful analysis of why strawberries are hard, here are some thoughts on the problems you mentioned (to be clear, I don't think I'm solving strawberry picking in a random HN comment, I just thought it was a thought-provoking problem to discuss):

> If you apply too much pressure, it will mulch

My robotics knowledge is super out of date, but AFAIK applying a reasonable amount of pressure is stupid hard. Can you avoid ever touching the strawberry and just always grab it by the cut stem?

> The second tricky bit is that you want to pick strawberries with the right amount of stem remaining

Always grab too much stem, then trim it down on the way to the bin, so you can do this on a known background instead of the middle of a green mess. The trimming cutter may even be designed to round down the stem.

> This is again a very "feel" based movement, too little movement and you miss the berry, too much and you damage the plant.

Can you get away with combing the entire plant to the side, or is the plant fragile too? Failing that, a robot can stick its eyes right in there and scan every strawberry-sized voxel of space.

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

#438

Post by qqssccfftt » Sun, Mar 29, 2020, 2:29 AM UTC

kspacewalk2 wrote: post #335

felipemnoa wrote: post #253

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>> And people were saying that we will never see a famine in Asia in the 21st century. That optimism was premature... I wonder whether people will decide to take their chances with the coronavirus if faced with famine? Something tells me that people will risk it with the coronavirus rather than die of starvation.

In a month or so, once the daily deaths subside, people will risk it with the coronavirus rather than having a recession turn into a depression. This will be the correct choice.

Human civilisation has reached the point where keeping our fake paper moving is more important than staying alive. How exciting!

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

#439

Post by cco » Sun, Mar 29, 2020, 2:33 AM UTC

ekianjo wrote: post #426

vkou wrote: post #377

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And this is where we discover that the most important jobs that keep society running pay the least.

They pay the least because you don't need qualifications to do them, and supply of non-qualified people >>> demand. Simple economics.

The article here, and the discussion above, is a situation where clearly the demand is high but the supply is low.

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

#440

Post by jeffchien » Sun, Mar 29, 2020, 2:34 AM UTC

thyrsus wrote: post #156

Low wages for field workers (e.g. picking berries) has stunted automation of these tasks, though I think we're now at the level of robotics (especially computer vision) where it's feasible.

It's not simple as that, and that's a problem that people have been working on for a long time. Some crops need to be reengineered to be friendly to mechanical pickers: https://99percentinvisible.org/episode/how-to-pick-a-pepper/

And even then the yield is bad:

* https://www.npr.org/sections/thesalt/2018/03/20/592857197/ro... * https://www.growingproduce.com/fruits/berries/florida-bluebe... * http://www.beilkefamilyfarm.com/blog/2015/7/blueberries-mach...