From Spain to Germany, farmers warn of fresh food shortages
1–10 of 589 posts
Re: From Spain to Germany, farmers warn of fresh food shortages
#2Hopefully this may incentivize people to be a bit more self-sufficient. Gardens that you grow your own, allotments - the mentality of that has been driven away over decades and now people are starting to smell the roses and realize they can't eat them. So in many avenues - complacency gets highlighted more and I'm sure many and much will change on the back of this period in time. Overall I'd say for the better. Certainly the environment is doing better, so not all side-effects that bad, but even the bad ones, may well get exacerbated and become fear/panic driven.
Equally many manual aspects of farming have long been on the verge of better automation and with that, robots.
However that drive will only see less people working and the knock-on effects of any change has ripples.
But let's not overlook the whole import/export aspects and SPain for example exports a huge amount of fruit and veg, how that pans out over this period will be of note.
But for some perspective: https://ec.europa.eu/eurostat/web/products-eurostat-news/-/E...
Shows the export and import of food in EUrope as a whole is somewhat balanced. How that balance plays out this year and for few years after will be interesting.
Though I don't see any fear of food shortages, sure may be case of some food items being more expensive.
But such articles, whilst are a caution warning, they themselves can drive fear and panic and they as always do more damage as any toilet roll can attest.
[EDIT spellings and grams]
Re: From Spain to Germany, farmers warn of fresh food shortages
#3Tangentially related, NPR aired an interview the other day with undocumented migrant workers (in the US) living very close together when traveling (sleeping sitting up together in a van) and having very limited access to water for bathing and hygiene when lodging at farms where they were working picking produce; it's likely this causes grave loss of life in the migrant community, and decimates produce farms economically this season.
Edit: This is not intended as a political comment, only an observation of a component of the pandemic macro.
https://www.npr.org/2020/03/18/816644358/covid-19-threatens-...
Re: From Spain to Germany, farmers warn of fresh food shortages
#4Doesn’t the Netherlands export the majority of Europe’s fresh food? As long as the supply chain doesn’t break down, I don’t see how it would be possible for Spain and Germany to run out of food.
Especially since they’re all in the EU, even if the Netherlands wanted to close off their borders, there’s no way they really could.
Re: From Spain to Germany, farmers warn of fresh food shortages
#5Hopefully this may incentivize people to be a bit more self-sufficient. Gardens that you grow your own, allotments - the mentality of that has been driven away over decades and now people are starting to smell the roses and realize they can't eat them. So in many avenues - complacency gets highlighted more and I'm sure many and much will change on the back of this period in time. Overall I'd say for the better. Certa…
Where (physically) do you expect 500.000 (a small town example) people garden their own food? They'd need to travel outside town, garden, then get back (and all this while also commuting to work on a daily basis).
Also, the amount of tools every single person would need to buy.
"Decentralisation" is a goof idea, but not feasible in the real world, IMHO. And this is a small town example, leave alone a huge capital like Madrid or Barcelona.
Re: From Spain to Germany, farmers warn of fresh food shortages
#6Hopefully this may incentivize people to be a bit more self-sufficient. Gardens that you grow your own, allotments - the mentality of that has been driven away over decades and now people are starting to smell the roses and realize they can't eat them. So in many avenues - complacency gets highlighted more and I'm sure many and much will change on the back of this period in time. Overall I'd say for the better. Certa…
Where (physically) do you expect 500.000 (a small town example) people garden their own food? They'd need to travel outside town, garden, then get back (and all this while also commuting to work on a daily basis). Also, the amount of tools every single person would need to buy. "Decentralisation" is a goof idea, but not feasible in the real world, IMHO. And this is a small town example, leave alone a huge capital lik…
Surrounding farmland, greenhouses if necessary. Can't scale now, but this is the result of fragile ag supply chains. Lessons for the future. Not just ag, manufacturing capacity and black swan preparedness in general.
Fragile systems break more easily. Make sturdy systems humans rely on, even if more costly and less efficient.
Re: From Spain to Germany, farmers warn of fresh food shortages
#7Tangentially related, NPR aired an interview the other day with undocumented migrant workers (in the US) living very close together when traveling (sleeping sitting up together in a van) and having very limited access to water for bathing and hygiene when lodging at farms where they were working picking produce; it's likely this causes grave loss of life in the migrant community, and decimates produce farms economica…
Tangentially related:
Yet another reason why illegal aliens must be expelled from the country and not allowed to return unless through legal means.
Of course Republicans love illegal labor because it's cheap and Democrats love it because they don't believe in borders anymore.
Thus the American people and the American worker must wage a two front war against two selfish and entrenched political classes.
Re: From Spain to Germany, farmers warn of fresh food shortages
#8Nobody forced the farmers to become reliant on migrant workers though.
It was just a simple decision for them: cheap labor that's available today or expensive labor... They mostly went with cheap, and now they don't have anyone available.
Tough luck I guess, but it always was just a question of time until this happened.
Re: From Spain to Germany, farmers warn of fresh food shortages
#9Hopefully this may incentivize people to be a bit more self-sufficient. Gardens that you grow your own, allotments - the mentality of that has been driven away over decades and now people are starting to smell the roses and realize they can't eat them. So in many avenues - complacency gets highlighted more and I'm sure many and much will change on the back of this period in time. Overall I'd say for the better. Certa…
This is a very naive take on the world. You'll need at the very least half an acre to feed yourself sustainably, and that's if you're highly optimized.
It's also backbreaking work, and you won't be able to do much else except subsistence farming.
In short, it's not practical for the vast majority of the population. The closest we can probably get to this model is instead CSA memberships, supporting farms right outside the dense urban areas which can leverage economies of scale to feed several hundred people.
I mean, sure, grow your spring onions, your herbs, and a tomato plant. It's nice. It keeps you connected to where food comes from. It's a yummy addition to your plate.
It won't feed you in an emergency, though.
Re: From Spain to Germany, farmers warn of fresh food shortages
#10Tangentially related, NPR aired an interview the other day with undocumented migrant workers (in the US) living very close together when traveling (sleeping sitting up together in a van) and having very limited access to water for bathing and hygiene when lodging at farms where they were working picking produce; it's likely this causes grave loss of life in the migrant community, and decimates produce farms economica…
Undocumented migrants have for all effect become the modern day equivalent of slavery without the associated compasion.
Many happy to lambast such people and yet, be first to complain if their avocados go up in price or out of stock.
Hopefully, some level of amnisty and clean slate is driven here as currently without that, will only shoot themselves in the foot on many levels.
After all, many live day by day, kinda hard to carry on if that is removed from them and more so, kinda hard to isolate if they have no other choice.
That is sadly one area that politics needs to agree upon and deal with, otherwise the impact will be wide upon many fronts.