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I know someone close who grows oranges in Spain. He has to go through hell, had to rework multiple times the fields so that they pass the strict Spanish regulat
by franciscop 4mo ago
I know someone close who grows oranges in Spain. He has to go through hell, had to rework multiple times the fields so that they pass the strict Spanish regulation for organic produce. They get evaluated not only on the final product being pesticide free, but also on the full process being compliant, with heavy fines for non compliance.
This is fine-ish, except that the imported oranges get checked only seldomly (if that) and are given a lot of leeway, making it very hard to compete if you grow them locally. Last couple of years saw some profit for growing them locally, but it's been times where there was literally no profit at all for 5+ years.
Funny story: he requested a permit to build a well, and ofc it takes forever so he just waited. After 4-5 years waiting, having even forgotten about it, someone called him: "we're here to inspect the well". What well? You haven't given me permission yet. "yes, we know, but people build them anyway before getting permission so we thought you'd do the same".
- jenadine 4mo ago> strict Spanish regulation for organic produce. Organic labels are a different thing than official regulation though. IMHO organic labels optimize for the wrong things.
- tfourb 4mo agoThere is an official eu organic label. It’s not compulsory of course, but it’s the baseline for organic food production in and for Europe. Other (private) labels have stricter rules and are usually certified in addition to the EU label.
- franciscop 4mo agoNo, this is definitely an official gvmt body that can fine you if you try to sell fruit as organic that doesn't follow the regulations. It IS definitely compulsory if you mark your produce as organic.
- lukan 4mo ago"IMHO organic labels optimize for the wrong things." What do you mean? I only know of "Demeter", that also has some very esoteric requirements (homeopathy, cosmic energy flow rituals) - but otherwise organic label optimize for: - no or little pesticides and herbicides - more space and better condition for the animals My only other grievance is that they also all ban GMO
- fsflover 4mo ago> no or little pesticides and herbicides From Wikipedia: > Pesticides are allowed as long as they are not synthetic.[28] See also: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48451194 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48451194
- lukan 4mo agoAm aware of that, bug glyphosat is definitely not allowed and likely a result of neighbors spraying plentiful in bad wind conditions (there are strict regulations in theory, that are usually ignored in reality)
- jenadine 4mo agoThey optimise for natural. So you can still have pesticides and herbicides. If you find your poison in some plant, it is fine. If you synthetize the same molecule in a factory, then it's not allowed. As for the animal welfare, true, but there are also labels specifically for that that.
- culi 4mo agoBiodynamic at least requires farms to produce their own fertilizers. For that reason alone I try to buy it. Fertilizer dependency will be the end of us I ignore all the magic stuff (in fact, if you have some spiritual devotion to the food you're growing I think that's just fine)
- interludead 4mo ago[dead]
- CalRobert 4mo agoI was surprised after moving to Ireland to discover that you can break the law and nothing will happen. I went through hell with planners (idiots who don’t believe in climate change and hate eaves) while people around me put three mobile homes on their land as well as building two permanent homes with no permission (and ripping out ancient hedgerows) and successfully got retention. Why even bother?
- trick-or-treat 4mo agoSure, but you have to move to Ireland. That's a deal-breaker for most folks.
- CalRobert 4mo agoYeah, we ended up leaving in part because of how lawless our area was (the midlands)
- rendall 4mo agoI'd love to hear more about this if you have the time. What specific things happened?
- CalRobert 4mo agoFamily next door had 17 kids (yes, from one mother), 5 dangerous dogs, and absolutely despised us (somehow we thought having a few acres of land would make worrying about neighbours less necessary). There was an ongoing decades-old land feud with the farmer behind both of our homes. The aforementioned dangerous dogs killed several of the farmer's sheep, so the farmer finally shot and killed one of the dogs during an attack on said sheep, which escalated tensions. We had 2 and 4 year old kids who, it's worth noting, were roughly the size of sheep and about as tempting for the dogs to kill, so we were basically terrified to let our kids outside. Neighbours routinely insulted us, yelled at us, and threw garbage (including old chemical containers, sharp metal, etc.) on to our land. They also routinely trespassed and shot fireworks over our thatch roof (the roof was part thatch, part modern) - very concerning when your roof is more flammable than kindling. Finally they left a dead crow in a bag by our door which felt like a threat, so we sold the place at a €100k loss and moved to the Netherlands. Gardai were absolutely lazy, uncaring, and useless, and did absolutely nothing. Now I encourage everyone I can to stay as far away from rural Ireland as possible.
- verisimi 4mo agoOrganic food can use organic pesticides.
- Ekaros 4mo agoWhich might or might not be safer than synthetic ones. Fundamental job of pesticides and herbicides is to kill stuff. Just because it appears in nature does not mean it is safe.
- woadwarrior01 4mo agoDo you realize that stimulants like caffeine and nicotine (also the supplement sulforaphane comes to mind) evolved in nature as pesticides?
- RetroTechie 4mo agoTrue when talking health of the end consumers. But "organic" also targets soil health, biodiversity, animal well-being, and the environment in general. Some synthetic pesticides / herbicides / fungicides hardly break down in the environment. Which leads to accumulation of a cocktail of such chemicals in soil & ground/surface waters. Ultimately appearing everywhere in air, drinking water & food. Not unlike microplastics, PFAS etc. How this affects humans' health is largely unknown. Generally, chemicals produced by plants also break down naturally. So they don't accumulate in soils over time. So it's kind of "exclude nature as much as possible, cleanroom style" versus "work with nature to keep things in a healthy balance".
- jimnotgym 4mo agoThis is a common complaint in the EU, since enforcement is by ones own government, everyone believes that they are the only ones being held to account. It may or may not be true in general, but it sure gives that impression
- vladvasiliu 4mo agoThe way I understand it, at least here in France, the complaint isn't exactly that some other random EU country has lax enforcement of the EU laws. Rather, it's about the various trade agreements with non-EU countries not known for their strict rules. The latest one being with Mercosur, and the main gripe being with Brazil (presumably because of their huge output, not sure if they're considered worse than the others by whatever metric). Another usual suspect is "ukrainian chicken". Sure, the agreements say that whatever is imported needs to comply with this or that standard, but customs rarely inspect these. So you end up importing produce which is much cheaper than the local-grown one and which also doesn't comply with the strict local laws. That's where the "unfair competition" happens. Sure, I bet French farmers aren't too happy to see tomatoes or whatever grown in other EU countries with cheaper labor flood the local market. However, anecdotally, I never see produce from eastern Europe here in Paris. Non-French usually means Spanish or Netherlands if it's EU, or northern Africa if not. You can mayyybe find son specialty cheese or meat from abroad, but outside the very common Italian varieties and Gouda, it's really not easy to find in regular supermarkets. However, for some reason, apples from freaking Chile and South Africa seem very common, even in season, although apples grow fine here, including that specific variety (pink lady). And when I do find locally-grown ones, they're usually at the same price.
- t-3 4mo agoIt's likely that centralized logistics makes even price-competetive local produce unattractive for large retailers. Much easier to deal with one large supplier halfway around the world than hundreds or thousands.
- franciscop 4mo agoSorry if it was not clear, this is about Spain/EU enforcement in Spain vs EU enforcement in Morocco, where we import tons of fruits from. I think it's plenty obvious that the enforcement level will be different at the source. Edit: I've asked that myself multiple times. There's also some stubbornness there as well TBF.
- retired 4mo agoMeanwhile nobody bats an eye in Spain if you hire illegal African immigrants, pay them far below minimum wage and house them in shacks without electricity and running water. Places like Almería look like slave towns.
- herbst 4mo ago[dead]
- abc123abc123 4mo ago[flagged]
- cucumber3732842 4mo ago[dead]
- throwaway2037 4mo ago> but it's been times where there was literally no profit at all for 5+ years. Why are they still farming? It sounds like an awful crop.
- franciscop 4mo agoBecause it's fields+trees that have been there for decades, and even if there's no profit few years, it still pays for the salaries of the workers and expenses of maintaining the fields. If you stop it, things die and then it's more expensive to restart.
- LoveMortuus 4mo ago>Funny story: he requested a permit to build a well, and ofc it takes forever so he just waited. After 4-5 years waiting, having even forgotten about it, someone called him: "we're here to inspect the well". What well? You haven't given me permission yet. "yes, we know, but people build them anyway before getting permission so we thought you'd do the same". What happened next? Please continue the story~
- franciscop 4mo agoNo well was built since there was no permit. That's it, end of the story.