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No, you're right, I was being provincial, just talking about North America. Globally, yes, there will be famine. I don't have enough information to do other t

No, you're right, I was being provincial, just talking about North America. Globally, yes, there will be famine. I don't have enough information to do other than speculate but even though it seems likely at this point I would be surprised if it happens due to lack of food rather than failures of distribution. I believe that, if we can just get our act together a little bit, we can weather the virus and repair the economy and no one has to starve. We have the capacity to grow and deliver the food. - - - - I have to add, I was watching John Oliver's show the other day and he had a clip of that Alex Jones guy advocating cannibalism, talking openly about how he's down to eat his neighbors! I'm looking at him thinking, "You got a lotta meat on yer bones to talk like that fella." When this all first started I was worried about the failure of the food system and the possibility of "long pork" appearing in city butcher shops. Once I got more information I felt silly: at it's worst this virus can't kill enough people fast enough to disrupt the system badly enough. The worst-case scenario still isn't that bad. It's still horrible, but at least we won't have to eat each other.

TeMPOraL 7y ago
Yeah, it won't come to cannibalism in North America. But I would be worried about pork prices if I were you. Or really, all food prices. The thing is you (in the US) and we (in the generalized Western world) theoretically have enough capacity to grow and deliver food, but caveats abound. Right this very moment, farmers in the US are destroying fields of perfectly good produce, because with HoReCa market disappearing, the supply chain can't readjust fast enough to redirect all this food to grocery stores and food banks. Processing, packaging, shipping and certifications are all a problem, so as a result, whole harvests go to waste, and the farmers that won't be bankrupted by that may be very careful about what, and how much, they plant next season. (My favourite, early example of that is flour being forever out of stock in some countries, like the UK. Turns out, it's not for the lack of flour, but lack of packaging - as bakeries lost a big chunk of their market and people started baking bread at home, there isn't enough capacity to package the flour in consumer-sized bags. But if you want to buy flour by 50 kilo bags, you can easily find someone who'll accommodate you.) Similar stories from the US wrt. meat processing - farmers struggling to find ways to euthanize and dispose of hogs, as meat processing plants around the country suffered a series of COVID-19 outbreaks. There's no way to buffer hogs; they take lots of space and food, and keep growing in size beyond what the pipeline is able to process. Last I checked on /r/supplychain, the processing capacity is reported to have risen again to 71% of the usual. Then, for more varied fruits & vegs there's the ongoing migrant worker problem that I don't think has been resolved, though it has fallen off the news cycle a while ago. But in April, farmers were worried that they'll have to destroy their whole fields because without cheap migrant labor, they can't sell their harvest. (With the exception of massive meat processing plant shutdowns, the I hear the same stories all around Europe as well.) -- As for the poorer countries - remember that locust plague we discussed on HN early this year? They're still out there, and on their way to eat India.
- carapace 7y ago
  I agree with you, caveats abound. (As a Permaculture enthusiast the whole agricultural system looks like one big caveat to me! But that's a tangent.) I hope people and information come together well enough to mitigate the worst of the waste and shortages. (Frankly I haven't heard enough Americans saying, "Let's roll!" on this. We should be nailing it down and positioning ourselves to be ready to help the harder-hit nations in the next few months. That's the American way!) All the noise about "sacrifice the weak to save the economy" (coming from about ~15% or 3/20 folks only) is IMO a distraction from focusing on the vital systems and figuring out and doing what has to be done to keep things stable. As long as people don't starve we can sort the paperwork. If you have a bunch of hungry people and a bunch of food in fields there has to be some synergy there, eh? (Not trying to be flip, just upbeat.)

TeMPOraL 7y ago

Yeah, it won't come to cannibalism in North America. But I would be worried about pork prices if I were you. Or really, all food prices. The thing is you (in the US) and we (in the generalized Western world) theoretically have enough capacity to grow and deliver food, but caveats abound. Right this very moment, farmers in the US are destroying fields of perfectly good produce, because with HoReCa market disappearing, the supply chain can't readjust fast enough to redirect all this food to grocery stores and food banks. Processing, packaging, shipping and certifications are all a problem, so as a result, whole harvests go to waste, and the farmers that won't be bankrupted by that may be very careful about what, and how much, they plant next season. (My favourite, early example of that is flour being forever out of stock in some countries, like the UK. Turns out, it's not for the lack of flour, but lack of packaging - as bakeries lost a big chunk of their market and people started baking bread at home, there isn't enough capacity to package the flour in consumer-sized bags. But if you want to buy flour by 50 kilo bags, you can easily find someone who'll accommodate you.) Similar stories from the US wrt. meat processing - farmers struggling to find ways to euthanize and dispose of hogs, as meat processing plants around the country suffered a series of COVID-19 outbreaks. There's no way to buffer hogs; they take lots of space and food, and keep growing in size beyond what the pipeline is able to process. Last I checked on /r/supplychain, the processing capacity is reported to have risen again to 71% of the usual. Then, for more varied fruits & vegs there's the ongoing migrant worker problem that I don't think has been resolved, though it has fallen off the news cycle a while ago. But in April, farmers were worried that they'll have to destroy their whole fields because without cheap migrant labor, they can't sell their harvest. (With the exception of massive meat processing plant shutdowns, the I hear the same stories all around Europe as well.) -- As for the poorer countries - remember that locust plague we discussed on HN early this year? They're still out there, and on their way to eat India.

carapace 7y ago
I agree with you, caveats abound. (As a Permaculture enthusiast the whole agricultural system looks like one big caveat to me! But that's a tangent.) I hope people and information come together well enough to mitigate the worst of the waste and shortages. (Frankly I haven't heard enough Americans saying, "Let's roll!" on this. We should be nailing it down and positioning ourselves to be ready to help the harder-hit nations in the next few months. That's the American way!) All the noise about "sacrifice the weak to save the economy" (coming from about ~15% or 3/20 folks only) is IMO a distraction from focusing on the vital systems and figuring out and doing what has to be done to keep things stable. As long as people don't starve we can sort the paperwork. If you have a bunch of hungry people and a bunch of food in fields there has to be some synergy there, eh? (Not trying to be flip, just upbeat.)