Olive tree disease across Europe 'could costs billions'
there is some truth to this. same news was posted here on HN last year. but in reality, there is more to it.<p>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&#x27;s expensive.<p>it&#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&#x27;d use that ag land for something else. likely development.<p>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.)<p>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.<p>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&#x27;s time to automate small acreage food farms and reclassify Ag as essential protected industry.<p>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.<p>i hope that automation in ag at all levels become a reality and the sector (hopefully along with healthcare) becomes less exploitative. altho&#x27; ag exploits the producers and healthcare exploits the consumers. but that is likely a different topic.