Covid-19

Food security has been an ongoing concern in underdeveloped countries for a long time. I'm sure the pandemic has amplified that. Do I think we'll be forced to grow our own food and live off the land? Nope, still don't. I will admit that I had far more confidence in the industry than I should have. The answers seemed pretty apparent to me. The USDA and OSHA really shit the bed on this one. I suppose that should have been expected with a complete moron in charge. It appears these problems are now being addressed (maybe?), so it remains to be seen how it's dealt with. Everything seems to hinge on how these reopenings go. I admit I don't have a lot of confidence they will go well.
 
Puck told me a very large meat works near him has closed down.
 
Several meat packing plants across the country have closed down due to becoming hotspots for Covid-19 cases. Apparently Trump has signed an order requiring them to open. Many employees have stated they will not return to work if the companies don't take the proper precautions. That is why I mentioned the USDA and OSHA. Work safety should have been a priority, especially in the food industry.

How are things in NZ as far as food production and distribution?
 
We're good for being able to get most things easily. Housemate in Adam's town is a truck driver for supermarkets and he's not getting a lot of work right now though. Not sure how that works since Golf owns a mid sized supermarket and has said that business is booming.

Some hospo workers went fruit picking during business closures since we couldn't import seasonal labour.

Exporters are suffering somewhat, but general public are mostly well fed although foodbanks are doing way more handouts for those who have financial challenges. That's the real problem, we've got food but the wage subsidies aren't enough for quite a few people. I donated money to my local foodbank last week, and likely will do so a few times over the next wee while.
 
... FOOD access is becoming a real problem for a growing proportion of people and that employment -- and thus money with which to gain access to food in an exchange economy -- are shrinking fast, like the jobs that enable all that to function relatively smoothly.
The jobs are not shrinking at all and in fact, food processing facilities are in need of workers. There are more jobs than willing workers right now. The overall economy of food production is not shrinking at all, there is a temporary stoppage in spots because of Covid-19. A few meat processing facilities have run into labor shortages because of this temporary situation, so a few brands of meat might be harder to find, but there is no food access problem. There's a hoarding problem that yields temporary spaces on grocery store shelves, but that is not a food shortage. As far as your gardening idea goes, the produce aisles continue to spill over. The only "food shortage" is fun food, frozen food, convenience food. Anyone who wants to actually cook and make meals from scratch can do it. Please show us specifically where there is a real food shortage. Not random empty spaces due to delivery issues, not random products, but a real food shortage. Where is that happening, specifically?

Essential jobs aren't shrinking at all and in fact, essential businesses are looking at labor shortages right now. Lack of willing workers, not lack of jobs, is what's causing a few meat processing plants to temporarily close. All the same, not all meat processing plants are closed. A few meat processing facilities closing temporarily does not a food shortage make. Do you know how vast the meat industry is in this country? A few facilities are a drop in the bucket and those few are making the headlines right now. 3,773 plants process red meat and 2,979 process poultry. It takes a lot more than a few closed plants to make a meat shortage and even then, a meat shortage is not a food shortage.
 
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We're hoping to cap at 10% unemployment, but that's probably ambitious. Hospo, retail and transport are laying people off. Small businesses are closing. Industries like physical therapy and fitness have ground to a halt. Housemate is one of only 5% of staff still employed and he's lucky to get two shifts a week right now. Building trades went back to doing restricted work just last Tuesday, as did forestry. And we're one of the countries that are least affected (still under 1500 total cases in a population of 4.8 mil). My uncle drives a taxi in Wellington, but probably not right now.

We already have food security issues in significant segments of the population. There is now an increasing the number is people in hardship, even if it's not outright comparative poverty. Hell, I bet the black economy is feeling it, like the cleaner that comes weekly to where I board in work town. The $50-$75 a week she isn't getting just from us right now will be affecting her budgeting. There might be jobs available fruit picking in the Hawkes Bay, but that's not going to be any good to a 60 something woman in the Manawatu.

Jobs are shrinking here and we can but hope that most people who have had a Covid holiday will have work to go back to. We know that not all will.
 
We're hoping to cap at 10% unemployment, but that's probably ambitious. Hospo, retail and transport are laying people off. Small businesses are closing. Industries like physical therapy and fitness have ground to a halt. Housemate is one of only 5% of staff still employed and he's lucky to get two shifts a week right now. Building trades went back to doing restricted work just last Tuesday, as did forestry. And we're one of the countries that are least affected (still under 1500 total cases in a population of 4.8 mil). My uncle drives a taxi in Wellington, but probably not right now.

We already have food security issues in significant segments of the population. There is now an increasing the number is people in hardship, even if it's not outright comparative poverty. Hell, I bet the black economy is feeling it, like the cleaner that comes weekly to where I board in work town. The $50-$75 a week she isn't getting just from us right now will be affecting her budgeting. There might be jobs available fruit picking in the Hawkes Bay, but that's not going to be any good to a 60 something woman in the Manawatu.

Jobs are shrinking here and we can but hope that most people who have had a Covid holiday will have work to go back to. We know that not all will.

It sounds like NZ is doing pretty well at containing Covid! I hope most S Pacific Island nations are? I haven't heard.

Btw, I figured out "hospo" means hospitality, not hospital, from your context. it's not a common abbreviation here in the US!
 
It took me a few to figure out hospo as well lol

We do have some food lines here. It is surreal to see people in new cars waiting in line for basic food items, but it illustrates a problem with our society. In this (now past) supposedly booming economy people were really living paycheck to paycheck. I'm tooling around in a 2002 Lincoln while people are sinking most of their paycheck into a new Lexus. Priorities, I guess.

So far I've noticed the same things Karen mentioned. No real food shortages in stores.
 
It wouldn't kill any of us to eat less meat. Less air pollution and maybe a bit less meat eating are temporary benefits of the pandemic, imo.

Now, tRump is panicked at the thought of his hamburger source drying up. And he's fine if brown people, who are the majority of meat plant workers, die to keep him in burgers.
 
.... maybe a bit less meat eating are temporary benefits of the pandemic, imo.

I agree that any meat "shortage" will actually do us a world of good. A "shortage" of meat and fun convenience food is not a food access problem, it's a boon to our collective health. I'll start taking these food conspiracy theories seriously when kale and apples are nowhere to be found.
 
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The jobs are not shrinking at all and in fact, food processing facilities are in need of workers. There are more jobs than willing workers right now. The overall economy of food production is not shrinking at all, there is a temporary stoppage in spots because of Covid-19. A few meat processing facilities have run into labor shortages because of this temporary situation, so a few brands of meat might be harder to find, but there is no food access problem. There's a hoarding problem that yields temporary spaces on grocery store shelves, but that is not a food shortage. As far as your gardening idea goes, the produce aisles continue to spill over. The only "food shortage" is fun food, frozen food, convenience food. Anyone who wants to actually cook and make meals from scratch can do it. Please show us specifically where there is a real food shortage. Not random empty spaces due to delivery issues, not random products, but a real food shortage. Where is that happening, specifically?

Essential jobs aren't shrinking at all and in fact, essential businesses are looking at labor shortages right now. Lack of willing workers, not lack of jobs, is what's causing a few meat processing plants to temporarily close. All the same, not all meat processing plants are closed. A few meat processing facilities closing temporarily does not a food shortage make. Do you know how vast the meat industry is in this country? A few facilities are a drop in the bucket and those few are making the headlines right now. 3,773 plants process red meat and 2,979 process poultry. It takes a lot more than a few closed plants to make a meat shortage and even then, a meat shortage is not a food shortage.

How am I supposed to respond to this?! Folks staying home because of a government mandate to do so, or in order to avoid a deadly viral infection, is being called "a labor shortage". No effort was made to actually look into food security issues. This is not an honest conversation here! It's propaganda.
 
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I agree that any meat "shortage" will actually do us a world of good. A "shortage" of meat and fun convenience food is not a food access problem, it's a boon to our collective health. I'll start taking these food conspiracy theories seriously when kale and apples are nowhere to be found.

WHAT FOOD CONSPIRACY THEORIES? Now you are dismissing longer term analysis of a food crisis as a "conspiracy theory"! Did you even TRY and do some research into the valid questions before dismissing concerns about near term food security as a "conspiracy theory"? A rhetorical question, of course. I know you have not. You still think that if the grocery stores where you live are working that everything must be fine. That's not rational. It's not scientific. It's just small minded.
 
Anyone who can do a Google search can know right now that the entire world is having a global food crisis right now. Go ahead. Try it. Use words like "world" and "global' and "food crisis" in your searching. Now I ask you..., do you think because you live in the USA, or in some other special and privileged country, that there is no way this global food crisis will come to your town? How do you know it won't and can't?

Do you REALLY know that because you don't eat meat, or eat it often, that the absence of a previously routine quantity of meat and fat in the total system won't affect the price and access to other sources of protein that you routinely use in your diet?

Are you sure that when countries stop exporting rice and other staples that this won't impact your food costs and access? How much do you really understand the global economy, really? Do you simply imagine and hope that you have a handle on it? I bet you do!
 
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You still think that if the grocery stores where you live are working that everything must be fine.
I didn't say near me, I said all. I also asked you to provide a specific example of a specific region of this country (or the world, for that matter) that is experiencing a food shortage, a place where healthy food is unavailable because of the Covid situation. Where exactly is this food access problem happening, besides in theories?
 
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Massive quantities of meat which would otherwise have been in the system are being "culled" -- read tossed away, wasted.

https://www.medicaldaily.com/top-7-dht-blocker-shampoos-stop-hair-loss-442849

Massive quantities of vegetables and fruit are similarly being wasted because the farmers cannot sell it because they are not set up to redirect food which would have gone to schools and restaurants.

Grains which were imported into the USA are being held in countries for fear of hunger at home.

And yet folks here are saying there is no problem!?

If a significant portion of our food supply is destroyed or blocked by distribution, as is happening, you can be CERTAIN that the price will be going up on all food. That's just obvious. But as that price of food in general goes up what is happening? A growing percentage of folks are losing jobs, and these are not a minor, temporary job loss. Any economist worth her/his salt will tell you we're in at least a very deep and long recession, and are probably in a depression now. Imagine what no money and expensive food spells for our future?

America's real coronavirus job losses worse than we thought

https://www.msn.com/en-us/finance/m...es-could-be-worse-than-we-thought/ar-BB13kz1k


Caronavirus affecting food supply in multiple ways
https://patch.com/california/lamorinda/coronavirus-affecting-food-supply-multiple-ways
 
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I didn't say near me, I said all. I also asked you to provide a specific example of a specific region of this country (or the world, for that matter) that is experiencing a food shortage, a place where healthy food is unavailable because of the Covid situation. Where exactly is this food access problem happening, besides in theories?

Thousands upon thousands of Americans have been lining up for help from food banks, with lines being sometimes four and five miles long.

https://www.npr.org/2020/04/17/8371...at-one-texas-food-bank-as-job-losses-hit-hard

What you apparently don't understand is that food access is an equation involving money access, price and availability. Any one -- or a combination -- of these can cause real hunger and desperate need.

Just because Whole Foods has lots of produce in the isles does not mean there is no food crisis.

But my concern is not about right now, it's about the near future. All of the signs reveal a worsening condition for food access even here in the "first world". As for the rest of the world? That's what google is for. Have a look at Africa, for example. https://youtu.be/mZJhc3_A0hc
 
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. I'm tooling around in a 2002 Lincoln while people are sinking most of their paycheck into a new Lexus.

This is some of the issue here, although it's less the Lexus and more just the Toyota that many families needed to put on finance in the first place. There is a lot of household debt being serviced in this country because our cost of living is generally pretty high, especially housing. We're also coming into winter, so power costs are rising, especially as people now stay home more. Sure, there's a small saving on petrol and takeaways (although they've reopened this week) but financial hardship is growing and I'm sure this is only the tip of the iceberg. I know Adam and I are extremely fortunate by now to be in permanent, salaried jobs with no consumer debt, but we're a minority. Many people, even without debt, live paycheck to paycheck in NZ, and the 80% wage subsidies aren't enough.

(Sorry about the hospo confusion, yes it's definitely hospitality. I also forgot to mention that our tourism and education sectors have been devastated by the very necessary closing of our borders. NZ is generally in what we call, "deep shit" economically. I really hope our still rather socialist leanings mean that we can save our vulnerable from outright poverty.)
 
Gah...I was writing a post and my computer burped and I lost it.

I personally am squirreling away lots of shelf-stable dried and canned goods (and some frozen, but freezer space is relatively limited) because I don't want to be one of the people waiting in line six feet apart with face masks on in 90 degree summer weather in the hope that they have what I need and let me buy as much as I want. Already Market Basket is like going through the TSA at the airport, except they don't make you show your passport and remove your shoes. I've made a couple of runs to Hannaford this week, where they at least have a self-checkout and there is no one standing guard at the door. We also have a local family-run dairy farm that is not likely to stop operating, so I'll be able to get certain things there, although I expect that the demand for their products will increase severely if the dairy industry also experiences disruptions. I just want to avoid the public scene as much as possible.

In other news, this coronavirus has been great for my work. I work for the same company Mags does, and they have been so busy, I was able to pay my own electric bill this month instead of asking our roommate for money from his life-insurance policy again. But I'm using his money to buy all this food, so... :eek:
 
Overabundance is not indicative of a food shortage. A whole industry those farmers sell to is practically shut down. They aren't throwing out food that would normally go to the grocery. Nobody is saying that's not a problem. I am saying that is not the problem you are claiming it is. It is a short term economic problem. In my state restaurants are going to open on Monday, I think, in most of the state. Many states have similar plans.

There is no doubt we are in a recession that is probably worse than the Great Recession we had under Bush. Recovery won't happen overnight, but it will happen.
 
Anyone who can do a Google search can know right now that the entire world is having a global food crisis right now. Go ahead. Try it. Use words like "world" and "global' and "food crisis" in your searching.

I did as you demanded, and one of the top hits was from the trusted NY Times. With 7.6 billion people in the world, the article says that by year's end, those at risk of starvation could double, to 254 million. That's a small percentage of the world's population, and will affect areas already at risk.

https://www.nytimes.com/2020/04/22/world/africa/coronavirus-hunger-crisis.html
 
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