
Why Chinatown Produce Is Cheap (2016) - bilifuduo
http://www.saveur.com/chinatown-produce-prices?ikvwCXcYamcvbSBg.01
======
metaphorm
this rarely gets mentioned in these articles but it's extremely important. The
Chinese food culture is substantially different than the Western food culture,
and I don't just mean the items on the menu.

Chinese don't eat raw foods at all, and especially not vegetables, which they
correctly (by the standards of Chinatown produce) view as being unsanitary
until thoroughly cooked.

They have created a market that is efficient by eschewing the standards of
sanitation that Western produce markets use. That's not to say that this is
_bad_. Their food culture is fully adapted to it and it doesn't produce
epidemics of food-borne illness in their community because they handle and
cook food appropriately. The same approach wouldn't work if it was mostly
Westerners buying the food though. A taste for raw baby kale salad makes this
entire approach to food marketing non-viable.

~~~
stcredzero
_The Chinese food culture is substantially different than the Western food
culture, and I don 't just mean the items on the menu._

Things I've noticed about the particular Chinese food culture of my
girlfriend: Ginger goes in Chicken soup. Garlic does not. Broccoli is only
cooked until bright green. Black pepper is used, basically never. All
vegetables are to be rinsed, even the things in Trader Joe's packages that say
"Triple Washed, Ready to Use." Almost no claim on the package should be
trusted, ever.

Meat is _always_ well cooked. (And there are plenty of ways to make meat very
tasty without having it be super-rare.)

~~~
contingencies
These are pretty good general rules of thumb. Interestingly the Vietnamese, by
contrast, are very much in to rare meats.

Broccoli and other vegetables are cooked only slightly because it is
considered wasteful of the natural qualities of the food to overcook it (and
probably because it wastes fuel also, which is also the reason for everything
being cut small before cooking).

~~~
digitalzombie
> Interestingly the Vietnamese, by contrast, are very much in to rare meats.

I blame the French.

Indochina happened.

The biggest evidence for this is Vietnamese word for beef is Bo. Which is a
borrowed French word.

[http://www.asian-
central.com/stuffasianpeoplelike/2010/05/21...](http://www.asian-
central.com/stuffasianpeoplelike/2010/05/21/featured-topic-french-loan-words-
in-vietnam/)

~~~
contingencies
It does seem likely that _bo_ is French _boeuf_ -derived, but according to
Wiktionary[0] the historical Vietnamese pronunciation of the Chinese character
for beef (牛) was _ngưu, ngọ, ngỏ, ngõ, ngâu_. It is interesting that these are
so similar to pan-Taic languages _neua_ and Cantonese _ngau_.

[0]
[https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/%E7%89%9B#Vietnamese](https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/%E7%89%9B#Vietnamese)

~~~
meric
Probably because two thousand plus years ago the area that is now called
Guangdong, and the area that is now Vietnam, was inhabited by the same people;
And then the Guangdong area was conquered by China. The people who lived in
Guangdong inter-married with the Chinese migrating south and also had a lot of
influence on Cantonese.
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Southward_expansion_of_the_Han...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Southward_expansion_of_the_Han_dynasty)

Vietnam is "Yue-nam" in Chinese, and Cantonese is "Yue-yu" in Chinese, whose
literal meaning is "Language of Yue".

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

~~~
SilverCurve
Vietnamese here. I don't think your explanation is correct.

First, most of the Viet-Cantonese words are likely brought by Chinese
migration since the 15th century. When the Ming dynasty fell, many Chinese
fled to South Vietnam and helped Viet people annex that land from the
Cambodians
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hoa_people](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hoa_people)

Second, tt's true that we "might" have lots of connections with the ancient
Yue people, but this is still in debate. Just like the Romans called everyone
on the other side of the Rhine "Germans", the Chinese of 2000 years ago called
everyone south of them "Yue", even though they can be different tribes or
nations. Being named the same thing by the Chinese doesn't actually mean
anything. Genetically we have many similarities with the people of south
China, but the history of vocabularies can be more complicated than that.

~~~
meric
You're right a lot of the loanwords and similarities between the languages
could and likely happened later on.

I think there's no way Cantonese and Vietnamese don't have lots of connections
with the ancient Yue people; A whole people don't just fall off the face of
the Earth, unless there was a most serious kind of genocide. Almost certainly
Cantonese and Vietnamese can trace some of their ancestors to the Yue one way
or another. It's true Chinese at the time called everyone south of them Yue,
but it didn't mean they were that much fragmented into tribes. The kingdom of
Nanyue has borders pretty much exactly matching Guangdong + Vietnam.
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nanyue](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nanyue).
Nan = south, and so does the "nam" in Vietnam. I don't think that's a
coincidence.

But your larger point is very much correct now that I think about it - the
history of vocabularies can be very much complicated.

------
dxbydt
Ha! I figured out the reason even before I read the whole article... always a
gratifying feeling. That said, there are tons of food hacks if you want to
save 30-40% and have a strong stomach. Buy your cashews, cumin seeds,
turmeric, groundnuts, papayas, guavas from the nearby Indian store - there's
tons of them in CA. Most of these are sourced from Fiji, Philippines, India
etc, whereas Safeway would source cumin from Oregon and charge $5 per ounce.
You can literally get a whole pound of cumin for that price - but no, you
don't get the "organic certification", or the bar code or the USDA assurance
sticker or anything that lets you know where the cumin came from in case you
get some food poisoning and want to lodge a complaint. The Indian store lady
dips into a giant cumin bottle and pours out a pound of cumin and takes $5
cash and no sales tax ofcourse wink wink. So yeah, depends on your ethics and
cash situation. Say you want a little pep in your walk and like some extra
endurance - used to be ephedra was legal and you could pop into your Chevron
foodmart and buy a pill. Now it's no longer legal, so you go to the Chinese
store and get the strongest ephedra tea - free market ftw. Ofcourse if you
brew something strong and land up in the hospital, the medic can't really help
you since who knows where that tea came from and what else is in it. Literally
no American supermarket can compete with an Indian store when it comes to say
cashews. Your Target gives you two pounds of cashews for $15. The Indian store
gives you two kgs... that's 4.4 pounds! Ofcourse it won't come in a nice
airtight jar with feel-good marketing on why you must eat your servings of
USDA nuts for optimum health - instead, it's going to be wrapped up in a cone
made of newspaper.

If you have a "tropical palate" and a strong stomach, you should definitely
try some of these shady joints. It's a trip.

~~~
Indy_Dh
> "and no sales tax ofcourse wink wink"

Actually in CA, many groceries are not subject to sales tax, just FYI. I'm not
sure where the distinction is drawn, but it seems like the less processed the
food the less likely it will be taxed.

~~~
rmxt
Not sure why this is downvoted. California, like many other jurisdictions,
seems to make a distinction between groceries/"raw" foods, and "prepared
foods" when it comes to sales taxes. Unprepared foods are generally exempt
from sales tax, while store-prepared foods are not exempt. E.g. an unsliced
bagel in NY is untaxed, but a sliced bagel can/must be taxed. Fruit and
vegetables likely fall into the untaxed category.

From Wikipedia: In grocery stores, unprepared food items are not taxed but
vitamins and all other items are. Ready-to-eat hot foods, whether sold by
supermarkets or other vendors, are taxed. Restaurant bills are taxed. As an
exception, hot beverages and bakery items are tax-exempt if and only if they
are for take-out and are not sold with any other hot food. If consumed on the
seller's premises, such items are taxed like restaurant meals. All other food
is exempt from sales tax.

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

~~~
seanmcdirmid
It is more complex that that: hot food might not be taxed if it is "to go"
(Starbucks and their breakfast sandwiches ....), Whole Foods will always apply
tax to its food bar items, the ice cream parlor down the street will apply
sales tax if you say "for here" but not if they assume take out.

It is very very confusing, and I haven't really figured it out yet.

~~~
rsynnott
Sales tax on food in general tend to be pretty arcane. Notoriously, McVities
sued the British revenue services to have some of their biscuits classified as
cake instead of biscuits, because there's no VAT on cake. (They won.)

------
bjt
This feels like the proverbial dollar left on the street that economists say
should not exist, so I'm racking my brain trying to figure out what's stopping
chains from replicating this. I wonder whether this alternate network is as
scrupulous about source tracking and food safety regulations. Those costs
could be driving up prices on the traditional retail side.

~~~
paulddraper
> Markets also cut costs by eschewing extra technology and certain aesthetic
> choices—the Journal points out that shelves “are typically made of plywood
> and lined with newsprint,” prices are scrawled on cardboard instead of
> printed on stickers, and credit cards are not always accepted.

Some people don't want to buy food with cardboard signs and cash.

Hell, I've heard California even has people who are fans of convenience so
much they will pay for other people to do the grocery shopping.

~~~
thoughtpalette
I pay a service to do my grocery shopping for me. It's a bit of a markup, but
I highly value my personal time, don't own a vehicle and have an extreme
dislike of grocery stores. There's a great market for such services (gig
economy).

Chicago Resident.

~~~
paulddraper
Exactly. I was being facetious, but the point is that rock-bottom prices
aren't everything.

------
lacampbell
Amazing how they manage to stay so cheap while hiring people at at least
minimum wage, with valid work contracts, while paying all relevant taxes and
not having any ethnically discriminatory hiring practices.

That's the real miracle.

~~~
purity_resigns
Does the article handle ethnically discriminatory hiring practices? Neither
"Divers-" and "ethnic"show up in the article, and if it's like Boston's
Chinatown, workers are overwhelmingly Chinese.

~~~
lacampbell
People are often very naive about different cultures. In the west we're
trained to view them as an interchangeable package of foods, languages, and
perhaps dress. The differences are real and substantial, and fundamental
assumptions about how the world works or ought to work are definitely not
shared.

------
technotony
Fascinating. I'm wondering if there's an opportunity for a tech startup to
replicate this network more generally. I could see the network connecting the
sellers with the farmers directly, plus coordinating delivery of the
veggies... it's an easier problem than ubereats delivery as you've got fewer
nodes. Maybe you even skip the sellers entirely, which basically gets you to
CSA boxes but those always felt expensive to me (I'm not sure why)

~~~
rosser
If the people running these shops are eschewing _credit cards_ as part of
their cost-cutting, what could possibly possess you to think that "disrupting"
them with some other form of middle-man is going to play here?

~~~
frandroid
> I'm wondering if there's an opportunity for a tech startup to replicate this
> network more generally.

The goal is not to compete with Chinatown grocers, but to move their model to
other markets.

------
elsherbini
(2016)

previous discussion of the WSJ article mentioned in the text:
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11981063](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11981063)

~~~
applecrazy
non-paywalled article here:
[http://outline.com/rsHPec](http://outline.com/rsHPec) (not my website)

------
jtchang
I think another reason chinatown markets (and mexican mercados) are cheaper is
also because they tend to buy up a wider grade selection of produce. When I
walk traditional markets every tomato, onion, cucumber is roughly the same
size and shape. In a Chinese market they often have a wide variety of sizes
and shapes. This is way closer to what actually gets grown. Not every
vegetable grows the same size and shape though you may think that going into a
normal supermarket.

------
wyager
In other words, ultra-small ultra-low-overhead businesses are good for
consumers.

Problem is, most places in America there's a certain baseline red tape cost
that exceeds the budget of these types of operations.

In an unrestrained market environment, people can make money by eating up
little inefficiencies like a swarm of ants. When you make the baseline energy
cost of existence too high (e.g. with onerous incorporation or registration or
licensing requirements), you kill off all the ants. Now those small but myriad
inefficiencies go unconsumed, and society loses.

~~~
armenarmen
And the big businesses who are supposedly "anti regulation" back lobbyists who
put those regulations in place, so that new competitors have a harder time
entering the market

------
bruceb
Paying non union, employees who might be working under the table as they are
not authorised to work is part of it, same with some restruants.

Many regular supermarkets pay a living wage.

~~~
rb808
Agreed. I was surprised that many supermarket chains are union shops with good
wages, paid time off and healthcare. Trouble is they're having trouble
competing with non-union competitors and are closing down eg A&P. Chinatown
I'd expect a lot of employees aren't even legal.

> Grocery clerks with service of five years or more generally earn the maximum
> rate allowable under the contracts, between $18.71 and $19.80 per hour.
> [http://work.chron.com/union-pay-journeyman-grocery-
> clerk-281...](http://work.chron.com/union-pay-journeyman-grocery-
> clerk-28112.html)

------
peteretep

        > she always assumed the low prices
        > were a reflection of subpar produce
    

Betting against Chinese love of food seems a poor choice

------
pm90
One thing this article doesn't assert too strongly is simply that many western
supermarkets just don't have veggies that are quite common in other countries.
e.g. Gherkins is quite common in India (fresh ones, not the pickled variety),
tender young Okra (without the coarse threads that make it hard to chew) and
something which is apparently called "Chinese Green Beans" but which is pretty
commonly used in my native cuisine.

~~~
vram22
>Gherkins is quite common in India (fresh ones, not the pickled variety),

I've rarely seen fresh gherkins in India. Which cities do you mean? Pickled
ones are available in shops though.

~~~
pm90
Maybe gherkins may not have been the right English word for it. I was talking
about Ivy Gourd [0], which is used in Konkan region/cuisine a lot.

[0]:
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coccinia_grandis](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coccinia_grandis)

~~~
vram22
Had a look at the article. Not sure about the size, but if it is small, e.g. a
few cm in length, I think it is what is called tundli or tendli. Common
vegetable in India. Tasty too.

~~~
vram22
Just did a search, and if this site is correct, tundli is indeed the ivy
gourd:

[http://www.indian-cooking.info/Expert/Indian-To-English-
Term...](http://www.indian-cooking.info/Expert/Indian-To-English-Terms.htm)

------
emodendroket
Maybe this is true in New York, but the produce at the local Chinese markets
where I live is not particularly fresh and in some cases you can tell from the
packaging that it was intended for sale at a different supermarket (I assume
this indicates it wasn't fresh enough for the original place of sale because
it always looks just short of rotten in these cases).

------
tooltalk
I moved to lower Lower Eastside just a few blocks away from Chinatown two
years ago. I can't really say the article is on the money. I was really
excited when I moved here first and thought the grocery shopping would be the
one of the pro's. While I don't cook home (so not much veggie), but I used to
buy a lot of ready-to-eat fruits and snacks. Perhaps it's that particular
supermarket I visit in Chinatown, but they cut corners and the quality is
fairly low. I learned to never to buy anything packaged by the supermarket
themselves. Perhaps, I should travel a bit further into Chinatown to enjoy the
benefit of such supply network. But for now now, I go shop at the Whole Foods
or Eastside Market for all my needs. I no longer want to mess with what I eat.

------
bcaulfield
Cheaper and better? That defies efficient markets theory. I guess any
sufficiently advanced social network is indistinguishable from magic.

~~~
penpapersw
Could it be that they just don't have the cruft & boilerplate & inefficiencies
that traditional retail has? Having been in several types of workforce, I've
seen plenty of missed opportunities that continued indefinitely because of
management incompetence, so I wouldn't doubt it if they're able to have high
quality & cheap produce just by cutting out the middleman and by being
competent.

~~~
thesuitonym
Calling it management's incompetence is probably unfair, although certainly
there is a lot of incompetence in the retail sector. I think it's more
accurate to call it corporate inertia. It's easier to build such a network for
a single stall on a busy street than it is for 500+ retail locations that all
have to be exactly the same to keep the brand image.

~~~
bcaulfield
Or perhaps management competence? If goal is to sell more product to more
people for more money, then perhaps the traditional grocery store model is
better. They're just optimizing for different things.

------
gumby
This resonates with HN article this week end talking about a lot of recent
startups simply being centralizing rent seekers. The Saveur article shows that
an "end to end" model can be cheaper, at least for a specific solution point
(to whit: get it fresh, cook, don't worry so much about the cleanliness of the
rind). While the centralized solution that serves most grocery stores costs
more and promotes boring sameness.

Sometimes I want that sameness, but as the economy, or the Internet
architecture for that matter, centralizes around a few corporations you end up
with a bland world.

------
sytelus
TLDR;

Chinatown sources from local small producers and are able to get big
discounts. They also reduce cost by skimping on things like good furniture,
printed labels, credit cards etc and keep their margins to 10-12% over
wholesale.

~~~
f4rker
Skimping on things like paying taxes, health standards, hiring people outside
the family network, etc.

------
empath75
I live in northern Virginia, and we have a lot of great Korean markets to shop
at, and they're always slammed with people. It's rare that you go into the
produce section and see less than two dozen people browsing. The local chain
store might have 2 at any given time. And the prices and selection are
incredible. The only downside is you have to do a little bit more picking to
get ripe/fresh/good looking produce.

------
peterwwillis
Off-topic:

Is there a browser plugin that lets you vote on how annoying a site's ads are,
so it can warn you before you go to the site? I have a feeling that kind of
pressure could change the way ads are displayed, but without it we're going to
keep getting our screens engulfed by an ad with no idea how to close it.

~~~
SippinLean
I was interested in this article but accidentally closed it, the interstitial
ad made me think I was on a _completely_ different site.

It was a full-page ad for "STITCH FIX", with it's own layout and, sigh, auto-
playing video. Why would I ever click through that?!

------
mac01021
> Chinatown’s 80-plus produce markets are cheap because they are connected to
> a web of small farms and wholesalers that operate independently of the
> network supplying most mainstream supermarkets.

I don't get it.

Why can this web of small farms and wholesalers sell produce for less than
normal suppliers can?

If Chinatown's suppliers are so much cheaper, why don't the other supermarkets
use them too?

If Chinatown is consuming the entire output of these suppliers (explaining why
the other supermarkets can't use the same source) then why don't the suppliers
raise their prices? Even if some of the chinatown vendors could no longer
afford the food, surely someone else would buy it.

Do plywood shelves at a grocery really make a noticeable difference in food
prices?

------
rb808
A lot of Asian supermarkets have great fish at low prices. I'd like to think
its because of informal network of small independent local producers but I
suspect its illegally caught by sketchy fishing fleets. Can anyone put my mind
at ease?

~~~
molloy
No, unfortunately you're spot on.

------
matz1
Also tax evasion and under the table worker.

------
theprop
280+ comments and no one has mentioned roughly how much cheaper Chinatown
produce is relative to other NYC grocery stores (I didn't see it in the
article either). Anyone care to say?

~~~
schnevets
Your mileage may vary, but my NYC grocery routine involves a nearby no-frills
supermarket (Key Foods) and a trip to a local Asian Grocer. There is usually a
40-60% discount in price at the Asian Grocer. Red Peppers costing $1/lb at the
grocer; spinach is $2 for a much more generous bushel compared to the
supermarket's offering; seasonal berries and other fruit tend to be
unpredictable, but I have seen blackberries and raspberries at $1.50 for a
container that would cost +$3.00 in the store.

Obviously, NYC has a major markup on produce, but the cheap prices at Asian
Grocers are not a regional thing. Growing up in the suburbs, my family always
opted for the Asian-owned grocery store over A&P or other supermarkets. I
think Aldi's may have a similar agreement with distributors.

~~~
Markoff
those sounds like prices of regular European supermarket,I was under
impression that US supermarkets we supposed to be even cheaper than European

these things are permanently in promotion rotating between various
supermarkets: 1kg banana 1.1€, 1kg grapes 2-2.2€, bunch of fresh spinach
1.2-2€, etc

~~~
rsynnott
Fruit and vegetables seem to be weirdly expensive in the US, for some reason;
meat and processed foods are much cheaper than they are in Western Europe,
though. It makes sense that meat would be cheaper (considerably different and
mostly lighter regulation on animal husbandry and slaughter, plus the whole
corn subsidy thing) but the expensive vegetables never made sense to me.

------
tmaly
I have always liked to shop at some of these places.

I can find exotic stuff I need for a variety of Asian recipes that I cannot
find elsewhere.

------
Isamu
See also cheap bulk spices at Indian markets. They are a goldmine for stuff
that can be costly elsewhere, even if you are not interested in Indian
cuisine.

My theory is that, in addition to having the right connections for cheap
import, their customer base probably demands a certain price point for bulk
spices.

~~~
jandrese
Spices are cheap in those markets only because people are used to the
completely nonsensical markups you see in grocery stores. Those little jars of
mustard seed that cost $12? That's almost entirely markup. McCormick is a
total racket.

For stuff like potatoes or beans it's really hard for me to care enough that
I'm paying an extra $0.50 compared to the market down the street. Vegetables
are cheap, unless someone slapped that organic sticker on it. It's just not
worth the effort. But for spices I'll make the trip.

------
throwaway9283
It's not just the Chinese though. In Seattle, Rising Sun produce in Ravenna is
often better than say Uwajimaya and other stores down in Chinatown.

That said, I found Chinatown to be the most interesting neighbourhood in
Seattle :P

------
elefanten
Where does the food in these secret warehouse networks come from? Is it
actually equivalent in quality and oversight to the "mainstream" farm
networks?

~~~
sotojuan
Anecdotal, but I've been buying cheap fruits and veggies from Chinese markets
for years and I've never gotten sick once. They taste the same. I'm no food
expert, though.

The only negatives are that the markets are not pleasant places to be in and
some don't take cards.

------
erikb
This doesn't seem logical at all. Big chains usually have the lowest price,
because they can enforce unfair deals on logistics and producers. Most things
you buy cheaper from the super market than from the factory. Why should it be
different with vegetables? It's not like the garden is next to the Chinatown
shop.

Also Chinese people are not known for their empathy. They are usually
fighters. If they run more efficient than another shop/chain they just conquer
them. That they stay that small means they can't beat the big chains.

------
sotojuan
The amount of secret networks and deals Chinese/Chinese Americans pull off is
astounding. I don't mean that in a negative way, I'm mostly impressed (I live
near Brooklyn's Chinatown).

~~~
markplindsay
I wouldn't say it's "secret," it's just regular business conducted using a
language most Americans can't read or understand. Probably even in dialects
that most Chinese people can't speak.

~~~
sotojuan
I think the fruit thing isn't "secret", but my friend's families do a lot
community-wide legal and financial gymnastics to pay as little tax as
possible.

------
tn135
As a fish loving Indian, I was totally surprised to see that in Capitalist
America the choice of fish was absolutely pathetic. At American fish places
you only get "shrimps" may be "large shrimps" and "small shrimps". Salmon,
Bass, Red Snapper and just few handful of usual fish. My small village fish
market offers at least 20 varieties of fish in India's coastal region. A
proper fish market would offer at least 100.

Then I entered 99Ranch and since then my respect of my eastern neighbours has
gone up significantly. Not only they had Tiger prawns and King Mackerel, they
actually understood the difference between Pampino and Pomphret.

~~~
look_lookatme
For whatever reason Americans just don't eat a lot of seafood. This is why the
choices are so bad in "Capitalist America" \-- there's not enough demand. It's
literally capitalism at work.

Some theorize that this is due to American's avoiding flavor in general [1].

[http://www.npr.org/sections/thesalt/2014/07/01/327248504/the...](http://www.npr.org/sections/thesalt/2014/07/01/327248504/the-
great-fish-swap-how-america-is-downgrading-its-seafood-supply)

~~~
tw04
Which we should all rejoice. Because the oceans are already being over fished
to the point we're facing a very real likelihood of collapse. If Americans
were pulling at the same rate as nations like Japan or India, we'd all be in a
very bad place already.

~~~
smallnamespace
No, this is actually a terrible thing in the long run for one simple reason:
fisheries are being destroyed everywhere [1], and the US is the only nation
currently with the clout to really push to change this. But since seafood
isn't even on most Americans' radar and we live in a democracy, it's very
unlikely any politician will ever spend political capital on it.

Fisheries are being destroyed is because blue water fisheries are a commons --
no nations own them, so whoever vacuums up the fish first reap the profits.
Not to mention global warming and ocean acidification are stressing fish
breeding grounds worldwide.

This model made sense up until WW2, and was in line with how international
waters were historically governed, but it is an ecological disaster in the
making because technological developments during the war (sonar, deep sea
nets, etc.) allowed huge fishing fleets to completely destroy blue water
fishing grounds.

The only way to change this is for someone to push at the international level
to rewrite the agreements on fisheries (restrict them by quotas, manage them
by an international body with an eye towards conservation, etc.), and the only
superpower that has the political capital to really get the ball rolling is
the US.

But most Americans don't eat much seafood so it's not on anyone's radar. Enjoy
your seafood while you still can. Maybe rich nations will have farmed fish or
domestic freshwater sources, but cheap seafood from the ocean will basically
not exist within a few decades.

[1]
[https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2016/jul/07/global-f...](https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2016/jul/07/global-
fish-production-approaching-sustainable-limit-un-warns?CMP=share_btn_tw)

~~~
mikekchar
I don't really like getting into political arguments, but I'd like to point
out that the US is not really that much more forward looking than other
nations wrt fishery conservation. They, after all, increased quotas for
pacific salmon fishing that decimated the Canadian fisheries for years. Why?
In retaliation for the unsustainable Canadian softwood lumber prices (that
were shutting down all the US mills). It's politics all the way down,
unfortunately.

I do agree that we need international level agreements, but I trust the US
exactly the same as I trust most other governments on this issue. I think one
of the biggest problems is that it's a bit like global warming. Most people
simply deny that there's a problem. In fish-loving Japan, where I live,
_nobody_ will listen to me. They sell cod illegally fished from the grand
banks in the super market. They even have a big sign "Grand Banks Cod!!!" I
think if I brought an east cost Canadian fisherman to Japan, they'd go postal.
But, if I try to educate someone, the response is always, "It has to be a lie.
Look at all the cheap fish in the super market. If it was really getting
scarce, then there would be no fish there. People in other parts of the world
just want to complain about the Japanese. That's all it is".

If the US was a fish eating nation, I have very little doubt that the same
thing would be happening, unfortunately.

My supervisor at university did fish population simulations as his research.
He published a paper, maybe 30 years ago now, where he predicted the collapse
of all wild fisheries. Nobody paid any attention to it. It seems to be on
track now...

~~~
hutzlibu
"Look at all the cheap fish in the super market. If it was really getting
scarce, then there would be no fish there. "

But it sounds very logical, so why is this not true?

~~~
smallnamespace
Because the fish can't be stored very economically once you harvest them, the
cheapness of fish now is due to overfishing, and directly contributes to
future scarcity.

Strangely, the best place to 'store' fish is right in the ocean, and for an
overly harvested fishery, you even get paid interest for it.

~~~
hutzlibu
"future scarcity"

But if there is too much fish taken away, then it is harder to catch them,
right, so scarcity. But the remaining fish then have much more space and food
to reproduce ... so they go ack to the old levels quickly, so where is the
problem (unless some species go literally extinct)?

~~~
smallnamespace
You're right that at _carrying capacity_ , the limiting factor is food and
space.

But most of our fisheries are far below that now. Fish can only breed as fast
as there are breeding fish available, but we're eating them faster than they
are being born.

You can view a fishery basically as a giant fish-making factory. If you eat
away half your fishery's biomass, then to a very rough first approximation,
your factory will only produce half as many fish.

~~~
hutzlibu
"your factory will only produce half as many fish."

But then why is fish still so cheap and plenty of it avaiable, which was the
main point?

(but again, I don't know that, I am just refering to the argument)

~~~
smallnamespace
One reason is that many governments are essentially paying people to take fish
out of the ocean [1], to the tune of tens of billions a year. Japan, China,
and Taiwan are some of the main players. They do it to keep fishermen
employed.

Related to this: because technological change has made it really cheap and
easy to catch fish [2], and up to now, that has more than offset the decreased
productivity from damaging our fisheries.

[1]
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fisheries_subsidy](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fisheries_subsidy)
[2]
[http://archimer.ifremer.fr/doc/00222/33368/35784.pdf](http://archimer.ifremer.fr/doc/00222/33368/35784.pdf)

