[ExI] bees again

[Anders Sandberg]

On 16/04/2013 06:55, spike wrote:
>
> I had an idea related to my earlier urging you to not buy honey this 
> year: do buy almonds.  They will cost a lot this year, but my idea is 
> this: if we go ahead and buy overpriced almonds, then the almond 
> growers will be more able to borrow capital with their almond groves 
> as surety for the loans.  If so, they can use the borrowed money to 
> invest in stationary hives.  Then the almond growers would be less 
> likely to extract honey, which would reduce risk from neonics in the 
> honey-replacement syrup.

Ah, now we have a chance to get into a good, old-fashioned libertarian 
rage! Because this won't work, because of... government central planned 
economics.

I kid you not. Take a look at
http://www.almondboard.com/Handlers/HandlerServices/MarketingOrder/VolumeRegulation/Pages/Default.aspx
The Almond Board is controlling the almond production as per a federal 
marketing order. They literally take a sizeable chunk of the production 
from growers, decide what the optimum price should be to have an 
"orderly" market, and sell it to that price. Growers are not allowed to 
just sell their production to whoever they want for whatever price they 
agree on.

The Economist has some eye-opening articles about the raisin case:
http://www.economist.com/blogs/economist-explains/2013/04/economist-explains-why-america-regulate-trade-raisins
http://www.economist.com/news/united-states/21574522-supreme-court-grapples-tiny-fruit-de-minimis-curat-lex

So, in this case I think one can make a case that government planning is 
killing bees. Because I am pretty confident that this breaks the price 
mechanism that you mentioned: more almond sales will not lead to 
correspondingly higher prices that will allow the growers to have more 
bees. Rather, the board will dampen this effect (since this might be bad 
for the marzipan industry, or whatever).


(The almond tree outside St. Mary's cathedral here in Oxford is 
*finally* blossoming.
http://www.flickr.com/photos/arenamontanus/2284705312/
  I will check for bees, but in my experience Oxford bees are pretty 
indoorsy. In fact, some live in the lion's mouth:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/arenamontanus/3604205031/ ).

-- 
Anders Sandberg,
Future of Humanity Institute
Philosophy Faculty of Oxford University

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