A source: smakosze.pl
The grimaces of capitalism
Food destruction is not an American idea. When developed countries saved their people from hunger?, surplus food was often destroyed. Naturally, this caused a stir in society. In Russia, as is known, the flow of indignation has not prevented the destruction of more than 32 thousand tons of sanctioned food products of animal and plant origin. These steps, at first glance barbaric, have a serious economic justification.
At first, this is done because, what is “not allowed”: at the legislative level, sanctioned products are prohibited in Russia. Secondly, the state cares about the stability of the internal market: illegally imported goods can reduce prices for similar products, and this is already a threat to the employment of the population and their level of income. Even the French are not averse to sometimes destroying exquisite delicacies of their own production., protesting against the import of foreign analogues.
The situation is very similar to the energy market with the existing cartel of leading oil producers. In both cases, a decrease in supply leads to an increase in the cost of the product. And it’s not just food products that are going under the knife.. So, in April 2014 year the Belgians destroyed 1,5 tons of smuggled ivory as a protest against poachers. AND, naturally, seriously raised prices for this product on the black market. In Singapore, the skin of monitor lizards and pythons is regularly destroyed at customs. Indonesia five years ago became famous for destroying tens of thousands of medicines and cosmetics..
The second reason for the destruction of contraband, or, as is the case with Russia, sanctioned goods, may result in non-compliance with sanitary and epidemiological surveillance standards. Smuggled meat, dairy products or, for example, canned food may well cause mass poisonings, and sometimes outbreaks of infectious diseases.
To the list of reasons why most countries refuse to distribute food to the poor, to be destroyed, corruption can be attributed. It turns out, it’s much easier to dump hundreds of kilograms of poached caviar, than giving local officials the right to distribute food. Who will give a guarantee, that in the future this will not become part of the shadow business?
A source: lenta.ru
US officials during the Great Depression were among the first in history to decide to destroy food.. At the same time, in one part of the state, people stood in line for free lunch., and in another, farmers poured tons of milk into the ground. it, by the way, was regulated by law: in the United States with 1933 years, the government purchased meat and vegetables from farmers for subsequent destruction. The reduction of cultivated areas was also strongly encouraged. Farmer Assistance Program (Agricultural Adjustment Act) - this was the name of the corresponding initiative of Franklin Roosevelt, aimed at mitigating the consequences of the overproduction crisis. Grain, for example, could simply be taken to the ocean and dumped in the water. At the same time, even at food recycling points, half-starved Americans were not allowed to replenish their meager food supplies. John Steinbeck writes in The Grapes of Wrath:
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"It is a crime, who has no name. This is grief, which cannot be measured by any tears. This defeat, which destroys all our successes. Fertile land, straight rows of trees, strong trunks and juicy fruits. What about children, dying of pellagra, must die, because oranges don't make money. And investigators must issue certificates: death due to malnutrition, because food has to rot, because they deliberately rot her. People come with nets to catch potatoes from the river, but the guards drive them away; they come in rattling cars to pick up discarded oranges, but the kerosene has already done its job. And they stand in a daze and look at the potatoes floating by, hear the squealing of pigs, which are cut and covered with lime in ditches, looking at the orange mountains, along which landslides of foul-smelling slurry slide down; and in the eyes of people there is defeat; anger brews in the eyes of the hungry..."
A source: cont.ws
In those days, tough economic interests prevailed over humanism - in 1933 year the government purchased immediately 6 million. pigs for destruction. As a result, the famine of the Great Depression became truly great and claimed several million lives.. At the same time, the population had practically no cash, for which they could simply buy food for themselves. As a result, purchasing prices fell, and farmers, without prompting from the government, independently poured milk into the ditch. Now the world is ruled by coronavirus and, looks like, that the troubled times of the 30s of the last century are returning to the USA.
Ghost of the Great Depression
American life has come to a standstill and so far there is not even an approximate time frame for the restoration of previous activity.. If earlier expressions like: “Quarantine is not forever - it will pass someday”, now there are more and more votes for it, that everyone has a new life ahead with fanatical adherence to hygiene standards. for Americans, looks like, the specter of the Great Depression is added to the new reality. As is known, the more highly developed a country is, the smaller percentage of citizens eat at home. Just because, it's much easier to go to a cafe, a restaurant, snack bar and replenish carbohydrate balance, fats and proteins, what to cook at home. And other halves in families of highly developed countries more often work, and they just don't have time to spend time in the kitchen. In the USA, with its traditional gigantic consumption of fast food, this process has been squared. And that's all: public catering is closed, schools and universities with canteens are also in quarantine, and the most powerful agriculture continues to saturate the country with products. In total, consumption fell by almost half. Inertia like that, that excess meat, milk, vegetables and fruits have to be destroyed. Now every day in the USA they pour on fields, into the sewer or just into the nearest ditches almost 14 million. liters of milk! If the coronavirus does not recede soon and the government does not ease the quarantine, farmers threaten to reduce cattle numbers. And these are long-term crisis phenomena, which will be felt for many years after the pandemic. American citizens, accustomed to a comfortable life, may not understand the serious jump in prices for dairy products and meat. The situation with vegetables and fruits is also not the best - many producers are forced to “return to the land” hundreds of tons of crops..
A source: mizez.com
At the same time, the pandemic deals another blow to US agriculture - employees of many farms and processing plants are infected. So, Tyson Foods plant went into quarantine, Iowa's largest meat producer. This giant processed a day 19,5 thousand. pig heads. At the end of April about 15% all meat processing enterprises in the industry in the USA stopped their work for various reasons. In the face of declining demand and, respectively, decrease in profits, It is not profitable for farmers to continue fattening pigs, hoping the situation will improve, and thousands of animals go to slaughter. The American consumption conveyor was so dependent on the appetites of the population, that no capacity was provided for the preservation of products. There are not enough refrigeration units (many of them were even converted to store the corpses of COVID-19 victims), no production capacity for the production of shelf-stable products. But even in these cases, storing agricultural products will cost a lot of money. There have already been precedents in the USA, when manufacturers were forced to pay extra to the client for selling goods, just to free up storage. Let's remember the situation with negative oil prices. The problem is also, that it is difficult for Americans to offer their products for export - the cost of labor in the USA is rather high and third world countries, who would not give up food even now, they just can't afford it. Therefore, farm products go to waste.
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A source: agronews.com
Need to say, that the Trump government did react and allocated order 3 billion. dollars to purchase surplus products from farmers. Decision, of course, not like Franklin Roosevelt, but none of the politicians now wants to face dozens, or even hundreds of thousands of unemployed after the end of the pandemic. In the future, it is planned to redistribute the purchased products among those in need in the country.. true, we were a month and a half late with the measures: destruction process (a, respectively, layoffs) at it's peak. certainly, tramp, moving away from the crisis, will begin pumping billions of dollars into its agricultural producers, hoping for a quick recovery of the economy. But money is unlikely to help quickly restore the breeding stock of cows and pigs, especially since in neighboring countries and Europe the situation is also developing according to a negative scenario. Russia, for example, stops wheat exports, and Canadian farmers, following the example of their southern neighbors, also began pouring milk into manure heaps and slaughtering livestock. In the future there will be no place to buy fresh livestock, and the country will inevitably face rising food prices, a, probably, and with their acute shortage.
The specter of the Great Depression has come, looks like, and to Europe. So, in France, In Italy and Spain, due to a serious decline in demand, winemakers plan to distill their products into alcohol, which the, in its turn, will become the basis for disinfectant sanitizers. At the same time, the main reason for the decline in demand is manufacturers, like in the USA, called restaurants closed for many weeks, bars and cafes. Despite, that Europeans began to drink more alcohol at home, general trend of decreasing consumption (on 30%) makes winemakers think about liquidating product stocks. In the most optimistic scenario, the wine will go to the mentioned sanitizers. New times - new food trends.
Yevgeny Fyodorov
