EconEats
Tuna

This Tuna is produced in Suriname, exported to Miami, to be reexported to Barbados.  Barbados is relatively close to Suriname in distance.  An example of the difficulties facing small island economies where much of the food supply is imported, without economies of scale and without deep-water ports to take large supply vessels leading to a lack of direct shipments, all contributing to relatively high price levels for simple produce

4 thoughts on “”

  1. Nice work Cebes. Bout time you gave something back to the internet after taking so much from it.
    Connectivity and food are great topics that all expats can't but help reflect on each time we are in the overpriced supermarkets built explicitly for our consumption (exploitation).
    When in Indo, I remember these statistics from the connectivity team about Indonesia – some great factoids.

    • Oranges from China are cheaper to import than oranges from Pontianak (Kalimantan). High domestic transport costs are the main reason.
    • Pineapples in Indonesia are canned abroad because it is cheaper to transport them to Malaysia than to ship them to Java.
    • In some export sectors, such as cocoa, rubber and coffee, more than 40% of total logistics and transport costs come from pre-shipment and inland transportation expenses in Indonesia before international shipment.
    • A truck making a round-trip from Bandung to Jakarta may spend up to 75% of its time parked due to customs processes, warehouse delays, and lift-on and lift-off queues.
    • The price of a bag of cement in certain parts of Papua is 20 times that in Java. The price of a gallon of water in Medan is double that in Jakarta.

    I think I've violated a basic rule of blogs – your comment can't be longer than the post. Apologies – I hope this doesn't break the internet.

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  2. Thanks Faya for your thoughts,

    As you know I like to keep things precise (do to a lack of concentration), so my blog posts will tend to be short.

    Indonesia suffers from very poor domestic infrastructure so flying an orange from China into Jakarta makes sense. My post was trying to understand why a piece of Tuna produced in country (a) has to take a convoluted route through country (b) to get to country (c). Where (a) is very close to (c) in distance. Much like the magic bullet (too soon). I postulate that small-island states do not have the economies of scale to get direct shipments of goods, and have to receive those same goods from the few hubs that they import from, thus adding further transport costs to the final price of the good.

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  3. Good point Cebs, and not only valid for purely economic considerations but also for normal (ie. non-economist) people who want to pursue a healthy, environmentally conscious lifestyle. What I always wondered is whether to prefer organic grown food vs. homegrown food. Is an imported grainfed high-level kobe beef steak from a cow with a first name, family tree and 3 times per week spa treatment contributing more to a world free of animal cruelty than buying a steak from the butcher down the road who might not consider animal dignity in the same way as the Kobe people do, but at least you save the transport costs…

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  4. Good question Martin,

    It depends how you define animal cruelty. At the end of the day the cow is still being killed to end up on your grill. Is it killed more humanely than being shot in the head as would happen in rural Bavaria? Perhaps the Kobe cow gets a fancy electric shock in the brain. As an aside, cows can now be stunned in the head with an electric shock, then immediately hung, and drained of their blood to still be Halal (this is apparently shows the cow more dignity). Anyway, back to the original point, that Kobe cow is consuming so many other resources that could be utilized elsewhere in the economy. If the kobe cow is being massaged, and is being fed beer, does that not push up the cost of massages and beer for us humans by making labor relatively scarce. How do you call this humane? On the other side of it, perhaps the Bavarian cow (do they have cows in bavaria or just wild boor?) is now cheaper for the village folk because you have chosen to import a rolls-royce (BMW?) Kobe cow.

    Like most answers. It depends
    Look most answers. It depends.

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