
From Spain to Germany, farmers warn of fresh food shortages - montalbano
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2020-03-27/from-spain-to-germany-farmers-warn-of-fresh-food-shortages
======
jagger27
Got a butternut squash in your pantry? Maybe a couple of tomatoes? Cook it up
for dinner and save some seeds! Wash off the pulp and dry them out on a paper
towel. It's not too late to start some seedlings, and it's a nice way to pass
the time. I've also been experimenting with different dried beans that we
stocked up on, and most of them have a pretty high germination rate. Roma
beans are super tasty and high in protein, though you need a lot of space to
get a good amount of them. Lentils are super easy to sprout too.

Another great tip is that once you have a good sized tomato plant, it's super
super easy to clone it. You just have to take a cutting at a node and let the
stem soak in water. Rooting hormone helps speed it up, but it's possible to do
it without. I've cloned about a dozen plants from a single tomato I
accidentally started early. Needless to say I'm running out of window sills to
stick them as it's still too cold to transplant them.

Frankly I saw this coming in January and started hundreds of seedlings of
different tomatoes, hot peppers, squash, pumpkins, cucumber, zucchini,
lettuce, and chard to share with my neighbours.

I'm a bit of a gardening nerd and had a big collection of unused seeds from
prior seasons, but you'd be amazed at what you can grow that's already in your
pantry or fridge. Potatoes are easy to get started but can be a little finicky
with soil conditions.

I'm thinking I'll have quite a bit of time to spend in the garden in the
coming months. Hopefully I can make a small difference in my community.

~~~
mft_
Thanks for this! Can you recommend some simple concise instructions on growing
tomatoes?

I’ve explored a little in the past, but always seemed to run into fairly
impenetrable instructions. A basic list of what to buy (in non-gardeners’
terminology) and some simple instructions would be great.

~~~
pvaldes
> Can you recommend some simple concise instructions on growing tomatoes?

Simple and concise: Don't start with those. Tomato is not the more easy crop
to grow. I would suggest to start with Cucurbitaceae like Cucumber or
Zucchini, much more easier as long as they have lots of nitrogen.

If you provide some support to climb, Cucumbers can be raised even next to a
window. The other need much more space. You pick them continuously when they
are still small and non bitter.

You could even raise lattice and harvest it (one leaf at a time) before the
end of the quarantine. Fast growing creature. Their only problem is that they
are mostly water.

If you absolutely want to try tomato and your climate is correct the easier
are the cherry tomato. They give less food par plant but can still produce
lots of tiny tomatoes in a continous harvest. Is much more fungus resistant
than the other varieties and very ornamental.

~~~
Digit-Al
This is not a criticism, nobody knows until they are taught, just trying to
help you improve your use of English (which is otherwise excellent).

The phrase "much more easier" is incorrect. The word "easier" loosely means
"more easy" so "more easier" would loosely mean "more more easy" which sounds
wrong :-)

Correct usages are "easy", "much easier", and "even easier".

In your case above you can lose the "more" and just use "much easier". If you
were to add another suggestion that you thought was easier than cucumber or
zucchini then you would describe that third set of options as "even easier".

(Yes, I am stuck home alone; and yes, I do have too much time on my hands lol)

~~~
pvaldes
I appreciate your correction and effort. Thank you.

------
baybal2
Coworkers in Shenzhen are already saying that more fancier foods are already
getting scarcer in the inland China, and prices are going up by day.

China has done a massive livestock slaughter campaign when the quarantine was
declared. That has actually depressed the food prices quite a bit for the
first months, but after that, the prices have shot up. This is how they got
that much meat: [https://mustsharenews.com/wp-
content/uploads/2020/03/Wuhan-R...](https://mustsharenews.com/wp-
content/uploads/2020/03/Wuhan-Residents-Receive-Frozen-Meat-Via-Garbage-Truck-
Delivery-Officials-Reclaiming-Distributed-Bags.jpg)

The scariest part of it is that China relies _ENORMOUSLY_ on the imported
food, despite accounting for more than 20% of global food production.

The government has expected to shut everything down, including food
production, and weather the crisis by relying on the remaining food in the
supply chain. China has spent a big portion of its national food reserve too:
[https://pbs.twimg.com/ext_tw_video_thumb/1220714156753653760...](https://pbs.twimg.com/ext_tw_video_thumb/1220714156753653760/pu/img/YgmN0Rm1tncDvuf9.jpg)

They planned to restock quickly with overseas imports after the lockdown was
to be lifted. Now that overseas supply is a big question mark...

I heard the same is going in much of the world. Agricultural business is
facing shutdown, and they are cashing out their livestock, seedstock, and
trying to get an early harvest done before the lockdowns hit their countries.

And people were saying that we will never see a famine in Asia in the 21st
century. That optimism was premature...

~~~
dirtyid
Likely coming to the US too, big suppliers are ringing very small producers to
fill in orders because US can't get any Mexican farmhands in. Canada is
exempting and flying in migrant labours. There's also panic in meat supply
chains with Tyson strikes. I'd like to think Canada is safe but prices would
probably get nutty if there's excess US demand unless we ban exports. Also
migrant labours live like sardines, 20+ sharing a 2 bedroom kind of density.
Huge infection vector.

RE: China, last I read, China is nominally food secure - produce enough
calories to feed everyone domestically on basic staples. There's also massive
waste and spoilage in the supply chain. I don't predict a famine, or 5 missing
meals to revolution, but shortage of luxury items is probably expected.

That said, global food supply shortage/shock due to everyone adjusting to
COVID is definitely "the cure is worse than the disease" scenario.

~~~
Spooky23
I have friends who are locomotive engineers, none of them have been called out
for 3 weeks. Everything is stopping.

I think the US is going to learn why it’s dangerous to centralize food supply.
Most of the local farmers in my region (upstate ny) are bankrupt, and much of
our production or processing of food is from far away. The half and half from
my grocer is processed in Virginia.

~~~
ricardobeat
The crisis started not even a month ago. What kind of business are people
running that go bankrupt in a couple weeks?

At least where I come from, most local farmers can't "go bankrupt" as they are
family businesses and have very low operating costs - worst case is sitting
idle at home.

~~~
ObsoleteNerd
There's "family farming" where you have a plot of land handed down to you and
you tend to it yourself. A few tractors with PTO extensions, and handled by
your family and maybe a few local workers. You'd sell to local grocery chains
and markets.

Then there's "family farming", where you have a fleet of GPS-and-climate-
control-equipped John Deere's on finance and invest heavily in automated
irrigation and sell to wholesalers who provide to national chains.

The former are probably fine. The latter, who provide food for the country,
are generally running on huge credit lines with payments to meet and in
uncertain times like this can (and regularly do) very quickly go bankrupt.

~~~
hilbertseries
A bill to bailout farmers will pass the house and senate with broad bipartisan
support.

------
scanr
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...](https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2020/mar/28/fruit-and-veg-will-
run-out-unless-britain-charters-planes-to-fly-in-farm-workers-from-eastern-
europe)

~~~
catalogia
Why have eastern europeans do the work instead of the normal workers? It's not
like eastern europeans have any special resistance to corona, nor are their
lives worth less.

~~~
Daishiman
The cost of picking fruit such that it being affordable is not coherent with
the cost of living of Britain. Such is the case in a lot of places in the
first world.

You can keep having affordable fresh fruit, or you can pretend you can pay
laborers local prices, driving up the price dramatically, reducing the total
size of the market (because nobody's going to be able to afford the new
prices), and having even less produce being made, further driving up costs as
economies of scale become less effective.

~~~
ALittleLight
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.

~~~
burntoutfire
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.

~~~
vkou
Russia does, from the former Soviet 'Stan republics.

I assume Ukraine does as well.

~~~
moltar
Russia even had North Koreans logging.

------
carapace
Plant your Victory Garden now. (You should have a garden anyway or you're just
not living the good life, eh?)

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Victory_garden](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Victory_garden)

One packet each of your favorite veggies: $10-$30. The next three months of
spring & summer: _priceless._

If you live in an apartment or condo _fill your windows_ with plants using
little planter boxes and whatnot. Every bit helps.

~~~
koheripbal
It takes a full acre of land to feed a single person.

~~~
carapace
I'll grant you that for the sake of discussion (although I don't think it's
strictly true), but that acre doesn't have to be all in one place eh? Every
bit helps.

My sister's neighbor farmed in his (San Francisco) backyard and got about 3~4
crops a year, all year round. It wasn't enough to feed their whole family but
it helped.

~~~
koheripbal
In fact, 1 acre is actually very difficult to get enough food out of. The more
common estimate is actually 3 acres for a more varied diet.

1 acre full of potatoes is not what I want in my life.

------
en4bz
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/](https://www.cmegroup.com/trading/agricultural/)

~~~
makomk
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.

~~~
kasey_junk
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.

~~~
throwawayjava
_> The pros think that demand is going down due to economic activity_

Does that make any sense? Do people eat fewer grains when economic activity
goes down?

~~~
jldugger
People aren't the only consumer of grains. You have biofuels, as well as
livestock feed. Biofuels are likely having a bad time with the breakdown in
OPEC. With livestock, people might eat a bit less meat, but I donno if that's
really gonna move much. But directly to your point, grain alcohol products
might drop a smidge with restaurants out of commission for months. Even if
people only drink marginally less, they'll be paying way less for it and I
imagine some of that margin cut trickles down the supply chain.

More darkly, there may be 1 percent fewer people around to eat bread, steak
and drink vodka.

------
patall
Since restaurants are one of the major sources of food going to trash, I was
wondering whether the current crisis would not actually have an opposite
effect with more food being on the market. Sure, not all types of food but on
the other hand people have been buying a lot of nonperishable goods from what
i have seen last few weeks which would also indicate lower demand in the near
future.

~~~
ginko
>restaurants are one of the major sources of food going to trash

Is that the case? I would have assumed that restaurant kitchens are a lot
better at avoiding wastage and random spoilage than home cooks. I guess
there's left-overs, but you'd also have that at home.

~~~
TeMPOraL
AFAIK catering (not eat-in/take-out restaurants) waste ridiculous amounts of
food, because they overprovision for events and then throw uneaten food away.

~~~
catalogia
If the host plans ahead and brings some cheap cardboard cartons, they can tell
guests to take what they like before leaving. Maybe in some places regulations
or liability wouldn't allow this, but I've seen it done and it results in very
little food being thrown out.

------
mindcrime
It may seem a little overly paranoid, but I went to the store a couple of days
ago and bought enough new fishing line to re-spool all of my reels (which have
sat mostly untouched for nearly 20 years, as I'd drifted away from fishing for
fun), and some new lures, bobbers, etc. And tomorrow I think I'm going to go
out and do a little fishing, just to make sure I still remember how, and to
make sure my gear all still works.

I don't necessarily _expect_ to be reduced to needing to fish to feed myself,
but at least I have one backup plan if all else fails. Now, note to self... go
order that roll of snare wire that I meant to order months ago, and forgot...

~~~
SupplyChainGuy
Except ALOT of people fish for fun. Most lakes are stocked, and as soon as
food becomes a shortage i'm pretty sure lakes will stop being stocked.

~~~
mindcrime
Yep. I'm not saying one could support oneself through nothing but fishing
(depending on a lot of details, of course). But I see no reason not to make
that one component of a strategy for procuring food. And even if it only
serves for a limited period of time (until your local fishing hole is all
fished out), that may be enough time to bridge to the point where other
options become available.

I think that ideally, one would use a combination of fishing, trapping,
hunting, foraging for wild edibles, gardening, plus buying whatever food
remains available for sale, to handle a shortage situation. Perhaps no one of
those mechanisms is sufficient by itself, but the combination may be.

------
nootropicat
If you have pets, don't forget they have to eat too. I just ordered a half
year supply of dry food. I wouldn't be surprised to see pet food shortages as
global food shortage rears its head.

------
toomuchtodo
Tangentially 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-...](https://www.npr.org/2020/03/18/816644358/covid-19-threatens-
food-supply-chain-as-farms-worry-about-workers-falling-ill)

~~~
Zenst
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.

~~~
kharms
>Undocumented migrants have for all effect become the modern day equivalent of
slavery without the associated compasion.

Except for the fact that it's a choice - they aren't kidnapped and sold, they
are choosing to work in (to us) shitty conditions because the conditions in
their home countries are even worse. If you want to talk compassion - have
some compassion for what they are running from.

I'm actually a little stunned at your disregard for the realities of slavery,
both modern day and historic.

~~~
mlthoughts2018
I’m stunned you believe they have a choice. Choice is one of the greatest
fallacies of modern economics, responsible for extreme harm.

------
Gustomaximus
Extremely anecdotal but in Australia we are seeing people from the retail
sector looking at farm work, often the domain of backpackers who are now.not
traveling.

It is a rebalancing so will likely come with some issues but if cafes/stores
etc remain closed perhaps we will likely see these workers head to farms and
balance the issue.

~~~
chris1993
I'm not sure this will happen as the state borders are being closed and
governments are strongly advising people to stay put. Also the federal
government is looking at an 80% of wage scheme similar to the UK which must
reduce the pressure to move just to cover living expenses.

------
nemo44x
In the US I expect prime meat to be considerably cheaper than usual. With
restaurants not buying there will be a glut and I expect regular stores
(instead of just speciality shops and suppliers) will be getting it for
awhile.

If there’s 1 thing the US has it is food and the supply chain is excellent. If
anything this is an opportunity for the US to make a move on trade with
Britain and possibly the EU to export our Ag there, for awhile anyways.

~~~
01100011
Anecdotal but at Costco the other day all beef was sold out except the prime
cuts. I ended up buying some after noticing the price wasn't much higher than
what I used to pay. Now, granted, I don't remember what prime meat used to
cost, so maybe it was always competitive at Costco?

~~~
cryptonector
On the day the President declared a national emergency, all the meat was sold
out at the local HEB, even the wagyu stuff -- everything. But that was... two
weeks ago, and it was probably the start and peak of food panic buying? Today
at the local H-Mart there was plenty of everything.

~~~
01100011
No doubt the supply chain is catching up. I think things will be fine for many
commodities, especially less labor intensive ones like staple crops. I worry
about meat, because, AFAIK, it is fairly labor intensive. I think we may see
shortages and price increases in a month or two if the virus doesn't subside.

------
chewz
So we have labour shortages in countryside and unemployed people in urban
centers. Problem?

~~~
gutnor
The only reason people are unemployed is that they are confined in their
homes.

Once they can head to the countryside to pick strawberries, chances are they
can just head back to their regular job too.

~~~
bluGill
Farms are essential. If you are willing to do "back breaking" manual labor
there are farmers who can give you the papers to get out of your house. You
may not like the location you end up in.

------
thyrsus
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.

~~~
Etheryte
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 too.

Strawberries are very tender. If you apply too much pressure, it will mulch
and one berry going bad is usually enough to get the whole box moldy. The
second tricky bit is that you want to pick strawberries with the right amount
of stem remaining: too little and you risk hurting the berry, too much and the
stem will break other berries in the box, leading to mold again.

One final difficult problem is finding the berries: strawberries often grow
fairly bushy, especially so if you grow one of the varieties that gives large
berries. To find the strawberries in the bush, you usually gently move around
the leaves to see if there are any. This is again a very "feel" based
movement, too little movement and you miss the berry, too much and you damage
the plant.

I'm not saying this won't ever be done. As mentioned before, there are
companies who are actively working in this space, many of them for many years
already. I do think however that the problem is considerably more difficult
than what may be observed at first.

~~~
jiggawatts
It has been done!
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FCivsotZEjk](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FCivsotZEjk)

There's actually several designs out there for picking strawberries, but like
the OP said, expensive robots aren't competitive with cheap labour. If the
labour pool dries up, they're more economically viable.

~~~
Etheryte
There's a very big difference between a proof of concept "can pick some
berries" and a solution that's viable at scale, even if ignoring financial
limitations. The video edgewise admits to it as well:

> The country's largest supplier of berries has made use of the robot at one
> of its berry fields.

The operation shown in the video is likely not viable for actual pick and sell
with a number of the issues I outlined above. As I said, there are many
companies working on it, but claiming it's a solved problem is simply
handwaving away the truth.

------
Zenst
Hopefully 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...](https://ec.europa.eu/eurostat/web/products-eurostat-
news/-/EDN-20171016-1?inheritRedirect=true)

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]

~~~
groby_b
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.

~~~
broahmed
You can grow a surprising amount on even 0.1 acres. Here's a video where a
family grows 6000 pounds on about 4000 square feet.

[https://youtu.be/NCmTJkZy0rM](https://youtu.be/NCmTJkZy0rM)

Granted, they have the whole family pitching in with the labor and it's a
full-time job for them.

~~~
pretendscholar
Is there a good resource for a reasonably educated individual on the theory of
farming. That is the theory about growing any foodstuff or useful growable
product (livestock,plants,edible mushrooms, even houseplants and pets) and
selling those products. Managing the economics, top soil, automation, machine
repair and maintenance.

~~~
evgen
Look for Storey's guides for things like basic country skills and small-scale
animal husbandry (rabbit, goat, etc.) There is also probably an entire aisle
of urban homesteading books to look through at the local bookstore.

------
k__
I also read, the nurses that were commuting from other EU countries to work in
Germany are now going back to help their home countries.

~~~
hocuspocus
That sounds a bit hard to believe. Walk away now and you'll probably never be
employed in the country ever again. If they were OK with wages in their home
country they would not be cross border commuters to begin with.

~~~
rm_-rf_slash
Perhaps they wanted to be closer to their families and the communities they
grew up with.

------
MrKitai
This is false, at least in Spain.

Farms are working normally except that they increased prices a bit. But that's
normal due to the situation.

~~~
asien
Where did you get that info ?

The news in France reported strictly the same situation.

Polish Worker ( which are majority in field work in rural area ) are sent home
due to quarantaine, thus there is not enough workforce to harvest fruits and
vegetables. More than half of the production of small farmer is at risk of
being lost , and theirs salary with it.

Societies are at risk of much bigger collapse.

------
kubav
You can make your own "vegetable" even in big cities. Tomatoes and peppers are
really easy to grow on window or balcony. You can seed them yourself but much
easier is to buy young plants.

I am also using sprouting jar [1]. Just buy any bio quality seeds and you have
you own sprouts grown in 4-7 days, Bio quality is important as normal seed are
often chemically treated.

I also like garden cress which you can easily plant on paper tissues or cotton
wool. It is really delicious with bread and fresh cheese.

It is far from 100% vegetable replacement but it is tasty source of vitamins.
Especially home grown tomatoes are way more tasty than those sold in normal
groceries because they are picked too early to last longer.

[1] Something like this [https://boulderlocavore.com/sprouting-101-homemade-
sprouting...](https://boulderlocavore.com/sprouting-101-homemade-sprouting-
jars-tutorial-diy-mason-jars-giveaway/)

------
partingshots
Doesn’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.

~~~
Zenst
Spain grows most of the fruit and veg, whilst the netherlands grow mostly
flowers.

The demand for flowers has somewhat waned and recently saw an article of
flower farmers in Africa suffering as nowhere to sell and case of piles of
flowers composting away. The impact in that market will be very impacting.

~~~
Freak_NL
> whilst the netherlands grow mostly flowers.

38 km² of flowers in glasshouses and 272 km² of flowers on open ground.

Total agricultural land use is 18163 km², 11815 km² of which is for growing
grass and fodder, most of the remaining 6347 km² is food for human
consumption, dominated by potatoes and grain.

So not even 3%.

We do not grow _mostly flowers_.

~~~
PeterisP
The flowers, however, are overrepresented in most satistics of production and
export measured by value - there's a world of difference in the harvest value
from an acre of wheat and an acre of roses.

------
ur-whale
[https://archive.is/hczJN](https://archive.is/hczJN)

------
downshun
What is limiting robot-assisted telemetric food harvesting? Why cant I connect
to the web with a gaming console, play farmer and be rewarded for it?

The data could eventually be used to develop self-harvesting farms.

There's already automated computer assisted surgery, so is this really that
far off? Is it desirable?

It runs eventually into a similar problem as self-driving cars and the looming
unemployment of truckers.

What's Earth's carrying capacity for humans? We can be our own existential
risk.

~~~
qayxc
> There's already automated computer assisted surgery, so is this really that
> far off? Is it desirable?

It's a question of cost and development effort versus utility. You can train a
good picker/harvester within just a few weeks and that person can work the
fields seasonally for decades while doing other productive things for the rest
of the year.

Designing, building, deploying, and maintaining a machine complex enough to
harvest asparagus, strawberries, and salad, however, is a _very_ costly
endeavour that yields very little benefit. The machines would cost billions to
develop, millions to build, and are only usable for a short time of the year
and for a very limited task.

A minimum-wage field worker can do the job faster and cheaper and a machine
would basically need to run half a century just to pay for itself - and that
doesn't even include the development costs.

Don't make the mistake to underestimate the amount of technology required to
replace a human being for doing "simple tasks". Things that are simple for
humans are incredibly hard for machines and vice versa.

------
contingencies
Meanwhile in Australia: [https://www.sbs.com.au/news/coronavirus-crisis-food-
supplies...](https://www.sbs.com.au/news/coronavirus-crisis-food-supplies-in-
australia-adequate-but-warnings-of-longer-term-supply-impacts)

------
jelliclesfarm
The take away from this article must that we have to automate Ag.

Any job right now that is considered ‘essential job’ and exposes the worker to
covid is the exact job that needs to be automated.

What is happening right now is a cautionary tale and answers the question,
“what jobs should we automate?”

------
montalbano
Another more UK-centric Guardian article that may be of interest:

[https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2020/mar/28/fruit-
an...](https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2020/mar/28/fruit-and-veg-will-
run-out-unless-britain-charters-planes-to-fly-in-farm-workers-from-eastern-
europe)

~~~
robk
Why aren't they just raising wages? There are many people who can work and
need jobs simply a matter of finding the clearing price and passing it on to
us consumers which I'm very happy to bear.

~~~
pjc50
The price is set by wholesalers, especially supermarkets. I'm not convinced
they can re-eqilibriate the market before the harvest spoils.

~~~
lotsofpulp
If the wholesalers want the product to sell it, then they will change the
price so that it makes sense to harvest it.

~~~
s1artibartfast
If this price is too high, the wholesalers will not be able to sell it and
choose not to buy it

~~~
lotsofpulp
Then that would indicate there is no market clearing price for the product so
farmers will stop producing it. I.e. people can't afford it anymore.

------
spanktheuser
I must be reading the introductory paragraphs incorrectly. Because it _seemed_
like a wealthy landowner was complaining that the virus was preventing them
from exploiting the desperately poor to do the actual work of producing a crop
(and opposed to just rent-seeking on some family land). Dooming Wimbledon to
mere cream without strawberries or something.

But I probably misunderstood because mind kept drifting to what would become
of those immigrant farm laborers once covid19 is alight in their country. The
ones we pay so little they don’t have access to decent healthcare. So we can
save €2 on a carton of berries.

------
X6S1x6Okd1st
Anyone have good sources on what foods aren't dependant on farm labor? Can the
world get by on them for now? I.e. corn, beans & oil? Maybe apples?

------
agumonkey
at this point this is the New main topic

médical research and logistics have been reorganized, now critical economic
structure has to be ensured

do countries list immunized people to know who can fill in rapidly ?

should people learn how to ration more ?

------
aazaa
> From Huelva to Hamburg and Newcastle to Naples, Europe’s farmers are
> struggling to find people to bring in rapidly ripening fruits and
> vegetables, which frequently must be hand-picked, usually within a window of
> just a few days. They typically rely on seasonal workers from eastern Europe
> or northern Africa, but fears of the coronavirus are keeping hundreds of
> thousands of migrant laborers from leaving home, and controls on once-
> unfettered borders are stopping many of those willing to make the trip.

This _is_ a recipe for shortage. Unlike funbucks dashed off by central banks
without so much as breaking a sweat, it takes actual _work_ to grow, harvest,
and distribute crops. It also takes time.

All of these things can't be faked the way that currency can.

~~~
Scoundreller
> it takes actual work to grow, harvest, and distribute crops.

I look forward to the test of "Europeans don't want to do _____ work" when the
shit-pay factor is removed.

~~~
phenkdo
do you also look forward to the 10x grocery shit-bill you will be stuck with?

~~~
Scoundreller
Numbers I've read is that farm labour accounts for ~10% of retail food cost
for fruits.

[https://www.prb.org/usfarmworkersfoodprices/](https://www.prb.org/usfarmworkersfoodprices/)

If that doubles because they have to pay local labour rates, the price would
go up 10%. Possibly less if it just eats into the margins through the rest of
the chain.

We might also see a shift toward less laborious foods, which is fine by me.

~~~
g_langenderfer
Farming doesn't strike me as high margin. This increase in costs could send
many farmers out of business. That will push up food prices.

~~~
dodobirdlord
Seems unlikely, the operations would probably just be consolidated with
another agribusiness company. "Farmers" are something of an anachronism in
most of the agricultural supply chain.

------
LockAndLol
Maybe right wingers and xenophobes will finally understand why migrant workers
are a thing. I doubt they'll appreciate all the work migrant workers do after
all this is over, but hopefully the general populace will understand that
voting for a bunch of fear-mongerers might lead to a situation where they
actually have to pick their own produce.

Maybe it has to get worse before people understand just how connected the
world is and that local actions do actually have an impact on the world.

I severely doubt it though...

------
411111111111111
Nobody 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.

~~~
DoreenMichele
Some years ago, I saw a comedian mock the idea that immigrants were a threat
to American jobs by joking that he had always wanted to be an underpaid farm
laborer and can't make that dream work because the illegal immigrants took all
those jobs.

In America, it used to be common for young men in high school and college to
do construction work during the summer. Now, it's mostly immigrants.

When I was still a military wife, they changed the fitness test to be less
stringent for younger members because they were having so much trouble getting
qualified recruits. It really pissed my husband off because they didn't make
his test any easier. He was in his thirties and was told "You've been working
out for years. You are in the best shape of your life."

Developed countries are turning into nations of couch potatoes who turn their
noses up at hard physical labor and probably couldn't do it if they wanted to.
Or could but it would be extremely hard on them and there would be additional
personal costs akin to training for a marathon.

~~~
dragonwriter
> In America, it used to be common for young men in high school and college to
> do construction work during the summer. Now, it's mostly immigrants.

Because college or college-bound adults are, if they are motivated enough to
work in the first place, mostly focussed on work that provides a competitive
advantage in college admissions and post-college careers, which trade labor
mostly isn't.

~~~
DoreenMichele
And because young people are less physically fit than they used to be, so they
don't have the muscle and stamina required by such jobs.

But the reasons why are almost irrelevant. The pertinent detail is that
employers can't fill these jobs without immigrant labor. Most Americans don't
want them at any pay rate.

~~~
banmeagaindan2
It does not need to be most Americans and a lot of office workers would prefer
to be farmers if the wage were correct.

We have markets - let the prices rise and we will see more farmers in the
future.

E; I know it is not your theory Doreen - but it is a popular species of
liberal (meaning democrat + republican) political propaganda.

Everything Moravec's Paradox ever said, everything Peter Thiel ever said about
automation - it's right in front of us now.

~~~
dragonwriter
> It does not need to be most Americans and a lot of office workers would
> prefer to be farmers if the wage were correct.

Most everyone would prefer to be farmers (= farm owners = capitalist of at
least the petit bourgeoisie, if not actually the haut bourgeoisie) instead of
wage laborers.

But, no, I don't think that many office workers would prefer to be manual
laborers, whether farm laborers or otherwise. Sure, with enough of a wage
premium they might be lured away. But there are limits to the ability to pay
higher real wages to farm labor, because food cost is a major basic expense to
start with so higher nominal wages for farm labor necessarily (because while
there is lots of aggregate profit in food, there's not lots of proportion of
profit, which is where the room for absorbing wage increases without price
impact comes from) means higher price index, which reduces real wages for
everyone, including the farm laborers.

~~~
DoreenMichele
Some people do white collar work because they aren't physically capable of
doing hard physical labor.

That includes me.

One thing missing from a lot of conversations is the detail that modern
medicine is good at keeping you alive after a serious medical crisis. It's not
so talented at restoring you to full function. The result is a lot of disabled
people and that fact rarely enters the conversation about labor trends.

I suspect another element is that we have more pollution and what not
impairing the functioning of pretty much everyone, but saying that risks being
accused of being a conspiracy theory nutter. But it's been on my mind a lot
here lately because pollution is down across the globe, traffic is down in my
small town and my energy is -- "coincidentally" \-- up and I'm getting more
done than usual here lately, in spite of my underlying condition being an
incurable genetic disorder.

------
ornornor
Holly shit since this whole pandemic thing has started, I couldn’t stop
thinking about the preppers who must be popping champagne every night and be
so happy all their work was for something after all. Everyone made fun of
them, but now they’re the ones laughing. The rest of us? We’re just clueless.
Seriously, if society was going to collapse I don’t think I’d last very long.
I could maybe trade some tomatoes for a couple bullets but then what?

~~~
Mirioron
Preppers are just a more extreme version of the people who have a gun for
defending themselves. A bad enough emergency can wipe out everything you have.

I guess you could compare this to IT plans for disasters. Most of us have
barely any backups for most things. Yet there are those who have multiple off-
site backups that are tested often whether they work.

------
ojagodzinski
paywall

~~~
dheera
Paste this into the console:

document.body.dataset.paywallOverlayStatus="hide";document.querySelector("#graphics-
paywall-overlay").remove();

~~~
evv
Easier to use a browser that has your back, like Brave or Cliqz

------
trekrich
This is what happens when you dont invest in equipment to harvest in your
crop. Rather than relying on cheap migrant labour.

------
dheera
To get past the paywall, paste this into the console:

document.body.dataset.paywallOverlayStatus="hide";document.querySelector("#graphics-
paywall-overlay").remove();

I think it is unethical to put information regarding an epidemic behind a
paywall.

~~~
Noumenon72
We want information about the pandemic, don't we? If we do not pay for it, all
we will get is what people figure out in their spare time while confined to
their homes. Without paywalls, we would just have Kickstarters like "If
everyone who wants to know whether farmers are able to produce fresh fruit
gives me $5, I will go and ask them!"

You can always get the information by word of mouth or waiting. The amount
you're not willing to do that is the amount you should pay to see it now. (I
don't pay and just read the reaction in the comments for free.)

~~~
dheera
I disagree, I think when it comes to a pandemic or any other public safety
issue, immediate access to information should be free.

FWIW NYT has disabled the paywall on all their articles about coronavirus
(although there's still a loginwall).

We shouldn't be putting prices on human lives.

~~~
Noumenon72
If the NYT gives it for free, that means you should read the NYT, not steal
from people who _don 't_ give it for free.

Putting prices on human lives is a good idea. We do it for food, we do it for
car safety, we do it for relative risk analysis. Putting a price on groceries
means the government can subsidize food fairly, rather than having individuals
break the locks on the grocery stores and say "food should be free".

------
writejournal
not sure if this will help the situation...

------
m0zg
And that's what your average HN reader does not understand when they talk
about keeping the country closed down forever. Groceries aren't put on the
shelves by a grocery fairy. They can't be put there by the government or a
central bank. They actually have to be grown or imported, both of which can be
problematic if you shut everything down and disrupt the supply chains.

------
2ion
I'd go to the fields at once if it be worth my time.

That means 50€/hour plus benefits, and fully paid transportation and
accommodation.

There are enough jobless people in Germany that should be able to pick any
number of fields. For this kind of money, that'd be a no-brainer.

Here we have two problems: Wages are too low to pay for higher food prices
that could sustain local field labour, and the majority of average people are
already having their hands full with and pockets empty from paying rent, gas,
transportation, emergency fund & food as-is. That means, all other jobs also
don't pay that well here, and there is simply no local money that could pay
high prices.

It's the consequence of having an export-oriented economy: labour must at all
cost be as low as possible.

~~~
Torwald
> It's the consequence of having an export-oriented economy: labour must at
> all cost be as low as possible.

In what type of economy would that not be the case then?

~~~
maigret
If you’re not export oriented, you need more consumer purchasing power, so
higher wages.

~~~
Torwald
Seems illogical to me. Companies are paying the wages of only their own
workers, but not of their customers.

