<story><title>Olive tree disease across Europe &apos;could costs billions&apos;</title><url>https://www.bbc.com/news/science-environment-52234561</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>mikekchar</author><text>There are other solutions.  Institute a minimum wage for farm work.  Make it attractive to those who would ordinarily choose to work in a factory to work at a farm.  Break the monopolies on food distribution (probably will require the companies to be restructured by law).  Create a national food distribution service to compete with the original companies.  Provide minimum prices for farmers with the national food distribution service.  Put tarifs on imports.  Remove &lt;i&gt;all&lt;/i&gt; subsidies for food exports (and stop trying to bomb the world food prices in order to offer loans to countries to buy your food exports when they can&amp;#x27;t afford to compete with their own home grown products).&lt;p&gt;Ha ha.  But seriously, automation and robotics will be &lt;i&gt;much&lt;/i&gt; easier to implement.</text></item><item><author>jelliclesfarm</author><text>there is some truth to this. same news was posted here on HN last year. but in reality, there is more to it.&lt;p&gt;yes, there is a pathogen. but EU olive industry is moving to turkey and morocco. why? simple. cheap labour. olive trees can live for a very very long time, but there are two kinds of olives harvested. for oil and then for table olives. the former has been mechanised and the latter is not. so it&amp;#x27;s expensive.&lt;p&gt;it&amp;#x27;s cheaper to raze down old olive orchards and just plant new ones. the new ones can be trellised and have dwarf hybrids or disease resistant varieties. also cheaper labour if not grown in the EU. i suspect they&amp;#x27;d use that ag land for something else. likely development.&lt;p&gt;the same thing happened in central california. one of the major buyers for table olives from EU stopped orders from california. and entire orchards..thousands and thousands of acres were razed down. they simply moved their business to morocco and turkey. (inside source. cant confirm or verify, but i trust this source.)&lt;p&gt;western countries have this plan to outsource ag to developing nations because of labour. it is the most dumbass strategy ever. it is not going to be like IT has been outsourced. it relies on long supply chains by ships entirely dependent on dirty energy. food security is nothing to be trifled with(remember venezuela?)..but labour costs in western nations is nothing to be sneezed at.&lt;p&gt;automation and robotics is the only solution. as long as VCs dont think of it as a data play for commodity ag market only , that tech wont trickle down to food crops. with the current covid crisis, everything will change. everything has to change. local food networks, food security and shorter tighter supply chains are going to become necessary. it&amp;#x27;s time to automate small acreage food farms and reclassify Ag as essential protected industry.&lt;p&gt;i also expect this covid crisis to facilitate the biggest wealth transfer and land grab in the last hundred years. but i am not betting on anything now. things should get interesting.&lt;p&gt;i hope that automation in ag at all levels become a reality and the sector (hopefully along with healthcare) becomes less exploitative. altho&amp;#x27; ag exploits the producers and healthcare exploits the consumers. but that is likely a different topic.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>Mediterraneo10</author><text>&amp;gt; Institute a minimum wage for farm work. Make it attractive to those who would ordinarily choose to work in a factory to work at a farm.&lt;p&gt;If you have ever done fruit-picking yourself, you would find that it is back-breaking work, and anyone who has been in it for more than a few years develops health problems. A higher minimum wage might attract a few more young people to do it for a season or two to make some quick money, but it won’t make fruit picking an appealing career choice by which a whole industry can be sustained long-term. Any Western European with any sense would prefer to do anything else even if it means less money (or simply live on the dole), and rely on desperate migrants from developing countries to do the hard work.</text></comment>
<story><title>Olive tree disease across Europe &apos;could costs billions&apos;</title><url>https://www.bbc.com/news/science-environment-52234561</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>mikekchar</author><text>There are other solutions.  Institute a minimum wage for farm work.  Make it attractive to those who would ordinarily choose to work in a factory to work at a farm.  Break the monopolies on food distribution (probably will require the companies to be restructured by law).  Create a national food distribution service to compete with the original companies.  Provide minimum prices for farmers with the national food distribution service.  Put tarifs on imports.  Remove &lt;i&gt;all&lt;/i&gt; subsidies for food exports (and stop trying to bomb the world food prices in order to offer loans to countries to buy your food exports when they can&amp;#x27;t afford to compete with their own home grown products).&lt;p&gt;Ha ha.  But seriously, automation and robotics will be &lt;i&gt;much&lt;/i&gt; easier to implement.</text></item><item><author>jelliclesfarm</author><text>there is some truth to this. same news was posted here on HN last year. but in reality, there is more to it.&lt;p&gt;yes, there is a pathogen. but EU olive industry is moving to turkey and morocco. why? simple. cheap labour. olive trees can live for a very very long time, but there are two kinds of olives harvested. for oil and then for table olives. the former has been mechanised and the latter is not. so it&amp;#x27;s expensive.&lt;p&gt;it&amp;#x27;s cheaper to raze down old olive orchards and just plant new ones. the new ones can be trellised and have dwarf hybrids or disease resistant varieties. also cheaper labour if not grown in the EU. i suspect they&amp;#x27;d use that ag land for something else. likely development.&lt;p&gt;the same thing happened in central california. one of the major buyers for table olives from EU stopped orders from california. and entire orchards..thousands and thousands of acres were razed down. they simply moved their business to morocco and turkey. (inside source. cant confirm or verify, but i trust this source.)&lt;p&gt;western countries have this plan to outsource ag to developing nations because of labour. it is the most dumbass strategy ever. it is not going to be like IT has been outsourced. it relies on long supply chains by ships entirely dependent on dirty energy. food security is nothing to be trifled with(remember venezuela?)..but labour costs in western nations is nothing to be sneezed at.&lt;p&gt;automation and robotics is the only solution. as long as VCs dont think of it as a data play for commodity ag market only , that tech wont trickle down to food crops. with the current covid crisis, everything will change. everything has to change. local food networks, food security and shorter tighter supply chains are going to become necessary. it&amp;#x27;s time to automate small acreage food farms and reclassify Ag as essential protected industry.&lt;p&gt;i also expect this covid crisis to facilitate the biggest wealth transfer and land grab in the last hundred years. but i am not betting on anything now. things should get interesting.&lt;p&gt;i hope that automation in ag at all levels become a reality and the sector (hopefully along with healthcare) becomes less exploitative. altho&amp;#x27; ag exploits the producers and healthcare exploits the consumers. but that is likely a different topic.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>ess101</author><text>Agree, automation may indeed be the solution in the long term...but we&amp;#x27;re not there yet. The solution may indeed require subsidizing wages instead of subsidizing farmers.</text></comment>