To be honest I’m not sure how they could include those in this country. Prices of fruits and vegetables swing all over the place. “Oh look, inflation of 250% this week.” “Hey, this week it’s 48% deflation!”
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Week to week, month to month, things can be volatile, but on a longer time frame, things should be less volatile. If not, something is seriously wrong, and if that’s the case, then why hide the issue? Heck, it’s not even possible to hide the issue. The government in Srilanka can say that inflation is under control all they want, but people know that’s not the case. Not saying Taiwan is an inflation basket case.
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Definitely seeing large price increases being passed on to the farmers, since last year fertilizer prices soared.
Dutch farmers have been protesting for quite a while now, the Government is pushing green policies.
But not just the Dutch, it seems Italians and Polish farmers are protesting too, although I am less sure exactly what they are protesting about.
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in my home country, farmers are protesting against the high margins of the supermarkets and distribution chains.
there are only 2 or 3 mega companies that buy produce from farmers and distribute it to stores, they mark it up 4 or 5 times by the time it gets to the consumer.
Farmers see that what they sell for 1.5 per Kg is sold in supermarkets down the road for 9 per Kg and want more money, especiallysince their costs (labour, chemicals etc.) also went up.
how ever, since they cant switch easily between distributors, they are stuck…
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All the doomsday bitcoiner types have been going on about rising fertilizer costs for a while now, lots of scary charts being forwarded around. I don’t know though, it’s only one of many farming input costs. I’d love to know what the actual proportion of their costs fertilizer represents.
The first article you linked about Dutch farmers is about a government plan to reduce nitrogen pollution, this is a separate issue they’ve had for years that the government is trying to tackle.
I don’t think we need to characterize the observation of a rise in fertilizer prices with “doomsday bitcoiner types” that has the ring of suggesting people who are observing this rise are conspiracy theory types.
Axios notes the rise is about 131% and this article which I searched on percentage of their costs looks like fertilizer is about 15% of their total expenditure.
Farmers Struggle to Keep Up With the Rising Costs of Fertilizer - Modern Farmer’%20profits.
As the article notes some of the fertilizer cost are up more than the 131% which means it’s a significant chunk of change. Perhaps this one item increases operating costs by as much as 20%.
From what I read about some Dutch farmers, the stupid rules EU is placing on them in regards to emissions (methane farts or whatever) would wipe out the cow industry there.
They could not afford to follow those stupid rules.
Hence, you may have seen videos of them (or may food farmers) shooting wet manure onto the police at the barricades.
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The margins on commodity crops are razor-thin, a few hundred US$ per acre. And since most farmers are completely dependent on synthetic amendments and machinery (which needs fuel) these increases make it uneconomic to plant a whole bunch of stuff. I heard the other day that farmers in the Philippines have stopped planting sugarcane (a very demanding crop) because it’s just not worthwhile. TBH that’s a good thing - it’ll do wonders for the nation’s health - but the same thing will happen with other crops.
I’m completely baffled by what’s happening in The Netherlands. WTAF are “nitrogen emissions”? I assume they mean nitrogen oxides, or possibly nitrogen runoff, but that’s not a problem of cattle per se. It’s a problem of the industrial model and the over-use of fertilizers. If they hadn’t set up the rules to enforce that kind of thing in the first place, they wouldn’t now be in the position of making new rules to reverse their own stupid decisions. Cows and soil fertility perfectly complement each other. All you have to do is let nature do its thing; farmers make money, everyone gets their meat and dairy, and there’s no pollution. The only people who lose their jobs in that model are the penpushers and the men with clipboards.
I’m just looking forward to seeing Greta Thunberg making speeches about evil people releasing nitrogen into the air.
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The UK.
Next week, the special offer is a wheelbarrow full of cash. The cash can be used to make a fire.
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Are those anti-theft security devices—on cheddar cheese?
Guy
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Yes
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Damn. I thought Vancouver looked rough. 
Guy
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The funny thing is that seems to be about NT$143 (£3.99) for 900 grams, so it’s like 20% of the normal price of cheddar cheese in Taiwan…
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So, the elites broke the backs of the truckers, starting in Canada.
Seems like they are trying to do the same to farmers in Netherlands, Italy, Germany, Poland, etc.
Over 30,000 Dutch farmers have risen in protest against the government in the wake of new nitrogen limits that require farmers to radically curb their nitrogen emissions by up to 70 percent in the next eight years. It would require farmers to use less fertilizer and even to reduce the number of their livestock.
In protest, [Dutch] farmers have been blockading streets and refusing to deliver their products to supermarket chains. It’s been leading to serious shortages of eggs and milk, among other food items.
There is a malaise in the West currently, where ideological goals are pursued at the expense of the lower middle and working classes. Whether it’s truckers in Canada, farmers in the Netherlands, oil and gas companies in the United States, ideology, not science or hard evidence, is dominating the agenda, gratifying the elites while immiserating the working class.
Ha ha. The wife follows a Taiwanese YouTuber and she sent it me but didn’t know the price of the cheese.
My wife was like what the fuck?
I said we probably pay more at Costco. Costco isn’t that expensive though is it?
If you wanted to defeat the security thing all you had to do is pull the string until it cuts the cheese into pieces.
Having followed the “trucker” story carefully as it unfolded, I would like to nominate this as one of the least accurate takes I’ve seen in a while. No doubt @TT could add more.
Guy
I mean, they haven’t had decent cheddar cheese at Costco for ages, but I remember the larger blocks (probably not 900 g) used to be around NT$250-300. The ones in Carrefour are NT$169 for 200 g, and that’s on the cheap end in Taiwan.
I think even the orange American plastic cheese might be considerably more expensive than the Aldi cheese in the photo. I wouldn’t steal that, though. I’d be reluctant to take it free…
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Used to be 200. It is 220 odd now. I bought it once before. That isn’t real food. I can’t imagine anyone eating it. I melted it and the way it separated was ….unusual. Once it cooled down, I couldn’t eat it. Could have probably used it to fix my inner tube though.
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