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https://worldpopulationreview.com/country-rankings/potato-co...
> A farm in Saxony has been left with 4,000 tons of potatoes in what Berliner Morgenpost is calling “a story about the absurdities of our food system”.
I dunno; it doesn’t seem too absurd, better to have too many than too few potatoes.
Ultimately this may just move the wastage somehwere else: people may get those for free instead of buying them, leading to waste in supermarkets/shops. Or they might take more than they need because it's free and end up throwing them away. It seems that they acknowledge that they are doing thus because there is a supply glut so potatoes will go to waste in any case... Ultimately this give away is a waste of efforts,…
To be honest it sounds like you (and some other commenters) are just rationalizing because the concept of giving stuff away for free is too much at odds with your world view. Maybe some is going to waste but surely less than would go to waste if they destroyed all of these.
Be kind. Don't be snarky. Converse curiously; don't cross-examine. Edit out swipes.
Please respond to the strongest plausible interpretation of what someone says, not a weaker one that's easier to criticize. Assume good faith.
Distributing free potatoes will likely cause waste somewhere else, as e.g. people will buy less potatoes in supermarkets. The waste just becomes less visible as supermarkets dispose of food every day.
Another current exhibit is the prohibition of using salt for removing snow and ice from the pavements because it's "bad for plants and the ground water". While that is true to some degree, the Berlin policy conveniently ignores all second-order effects: Sidewalks are more slippery, more people get hurt. I see people slipping on snow-compacted ice almost every day. How many trees have to be saved to make it worthwhile for more people breaking their bones?
You can apply for an exemption though, e.g. if you plan to use salt on a driveway to a hospital. Processing fees for such an exemption are up to 1.4k€ [1].
The rent cap is another one. But let's go there another day..
[1] https://www.berlin.de/umwelt/themen/natur-pflanzen-artenschu...
Earlier quoted context omitted.
According to non profits, 1 in 7 Americans, 1 in 5 American children: https://www.feedingamerica.org/hunger-in-america
In the site says “FACT - 100% of Counties - Hunger exists in everywhere – no community is untouched” What I pretty much suspected. But that in USA 20% of children don’t get enough? That is a big TIL for my ignorance. A sister comment states some child eat only at school. Boy I thought (in 2 figure percentage) was only 3rd world.
>"at the household level, food security is defined as access to food that is adequate in terms of quality, quantity, safety and cultural acceptability for all household members." (Gillespie, and Mason, 1991).[0]
These potatoes being given away might not meet all the criteria for food security either. Eg they might not have all the things that are considered a nutritious meal (but I'm unsure).
Second, the website might say "1 in 7 people face daily challenges", but it's probably based on this stat:
>An estimated 86.3 percent of U.S. households were food secure throughout the entire year in 2024, with access at all times to enough food for an active, healthy life for all household members. The remaining households (13.7 percent) were food insecure at least some time during the year.
Ie for the vast majority of these people it's not a daily thing, but something that happens sometimes (but even sometimes is too much imo).
And from the report summary:
>Children are usually shielded from the conditions that characterize very low food security. However, in 2024, children, along with adults, experienced instances of very low food security in 0.9 percent of households with children, statistically similar to the 1.0 percent in both 2023 and 2022. These 318,000 households with very low food security among children reported that, at times in 2024, children were hungry, skipped a meal, or did not eat for a whole day because there was not enough money for food.
I'm not saying food insecurity isn't a thing, but these headlines often paint a different picture than what's really happening.
That said, perhaps the reason why food insecurity is relatively low is because these advocacies say what they say. Food security is a bit like server up-time - it's relatively easy to get 99% uptime, but getting to 99.999% uptime is very hard. With food security the numbers are lower though - relatively easy to get 80-90% food security in a developed country but the last 10% are very hard (or at least that's what it seems to me).
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[0] https://www.fao.org/4/x0172e/x0172e01.htm
[1] https://www.ers.usda.gov/publications/pub-details?pubid=1136...
They should take them to France so they can become… you know the rest, but now I wonder how much weight the oil would add to 4k tons of potatoes.
And nowadays, Belgians eat way more of them per capita than they do!
Unless there’s some funny unit issue going on (I know there are short and long tons…), it looks like Germany consumed around 5000KT of potatoes in 2022. https://worldpopulationreview.com/country-rankings/potato-co... > A farm in Saxony has been left with 4,000 tons of potatoes in what Berliner Morgenpost is calling “a story about the absurdities of our food system”. I dunno; it doesn’t seem too absurd, better to have…
These particular potatoes won't be wasted. But other potatoes likely will be. It's not like people are suddenly going to want more potatoes.
Berlin is a great place to observe policies with good intentions, yet negative second-order effects. Distributing free potatoes will likely cause waste somewhere else, as e.g. people will buy less potatoes in supermarkets. The waste just becomes less visible as supermarkets dispose of food every day. Another current exhibit is the prohibition of using salt for removing snow and ice from the pavements because it's "ba…
Rigorously considering second-order (and greater) effects is a massive undertaking, though. Like: how do you even know how many more people will slip and get hurt without salting sidewalks and how much the damage the salt does to "plants and ground water," without many careful and expensive research projects? And then there's the challenge of weighing such completely disparate things: how many injuries are healthier plants worth?
Basically is seems easier said than done.