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Pundit Podcast Episode 2:
Despite COVID-19, Schools Should Not Throw Away A Student's Shot

Down below… the second episode of our new Podcast. We were overwhelmed to receive some exceedingly generous feedback on our launch:

I had to tell you how incredible you are.  I listened to your podcast, “Destructive protests hurt the ones most in need”. Wow … you took on an incredibly difficult subject with grace, compassion, historical reference and a great dollop of common sense … of which we are all greatly in need.

It was very moving, brave and inspiring. Don’t suppose we could talk YOU into running for President of the US?? 

Thanks again for sharing your brilliance.

—Dawn Gray
Dawn Gray Global Consulting
Vancouver, Canada

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Thank you for once again for creating a journalism masterpiece.

We are most blessed to be able to learn from you.  The podcast was outstanding!

Many thanks and best regards to all the family!

—Harris S. Cutler
Race-West Company, Inc
Philip L. Cutler Building
Clarks Summit, Pennsylvania

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Great start Jim! Very good podcast! You look younger without the beard!

—Gene Harris
Senior Purchasing Manager
Denny’s Inc.
Spartanburg, South Carolina

PS. Your “announcer” [Ken Whitacre] did a great job too!

 

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Different medium, same firm command of the obvious. The Podcast says in 7 minutes what has not been said on cable news in 7 days.

—John Pandol
Director of Special Projects
Pandol Bros., Inc.
Delano, California

 

 

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As always, your no BS, tell-it-like-it-is style of analysis hits home. Congrats on your first podcast, and I look forward to listening to many more.

—Lisa Cork
Fresh Produce Strategist
Auckland, New Zeland

 

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Great work Jim. I have been an avid PRODUCE BUSINESS magazine reader for years, now it’s great to be able to watch and listen to your thoughts and insights.

—Michael Simonetta
CEO
Perfection Fresh Australia
Sydney, Australia

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Love it. Like the PRODUCE BUSINESS magazine editorials, but better!

—Lawrence Hopman
President
Hopman Flower Farms
Brantford, Ontario Canada

 

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Like the Podcast move Jim! Looks interesting and just on time. Never stop surprising the industry! Looking forward to more — good luck!

Dudu Ivri
Farming Grapes
Marketing and Strategy
Ashkelon, Israel

 

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Glad to see the Pundit on a podcast and look forward to the keen insight as always.

—Joe McGuire
Chief Executive Officer
Pure Green Farms
South Bend, Indiana

 

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After a “must-read” for our industry, now a “must-hear”. Great work Jim! Congrats.

—Gustavo Yentzen
General Manager
Yentzen Group
Santiago, Chile

 

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What a fantastic development to have you lead our industry (once again) in an exchange of views regarding the broader context of the produce business.

This is timely and necessary.
¡Te felicito!

—Gualberto J. Rodríguez
Chairman at Grupo Navis LLC
Managing Partner at Semillero Ventures LLC
Former President
Caribbean Produce Exchange, Inc.
Catano, Puerto Rico.

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Thanks for the insights, Jim!
Great listen!

—Adolf Kieviet
Freshworld Pty Ltd
Stellenbosch,
South Africa

 

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This Podcast is just amazing and the need of this hour!

—Nitin Agrawal
Managing Director
Euro Fruits India
Mumbai, India

 

 

 

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Great work Jim! As always… extremely professional, spot-on accurate and very enlightening. Keep up this great service to our industry.

—Nic Jooste
Nic Jooste Immersed
Rotterdam, The Netherlands

 

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Watching from Japan, the tragedy of America imploding — your podcast and comments added many points I have not seen in the general media. Good on ya!

Taking up the issue of food desert and lack of inner-city opportunity showed how it is all connected. I very much look forward to further podcasts.

—John (Jack) Bayles
CEO
Alishan
Hidaka, Saitama, Japan

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Congratulations on starting this podcast. I am thankful for your impactful ideas, perspectives, and analysis.

—Philip Brooks
Founder and Chief Coaching Officer
Fresh Potential, LLC
White Bear Lake, Minnesota

 

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Excellent Jim. It is always good to hear your views, which help the industry understand more of what is happening. Your views are very well thought through and very thought-provoking.

—George Beach
Mudwalls Farm Ltd
Alcester, Warwickshire
United Kingdom

 

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Congratulations on venturing out into podcasts — another string to the already impressive bow! I’m looking forward to your thoughts as the produce industry continues to rally around as we see the (and I hate myself for saying it) ‘new normal’ in this COVID world and other hot topics — elections, changing labour forces and an area close to my heart even as an Expat, Brexit. 

—Chris Cowan
Insight Director
Formerly with Deloitte, Westminster Forum Projects
and Kantar Worldpanel
Singapore

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Great Podcast Jim. Congratulations on kicking this off. Looking forward to your informative weekly podcasts.

Winstone Chee
Managing Director
Altitude Fresh
Shenzhen City, Guangdong, China 

 

 

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Of course, just because people have found value in the new Perishable Pundit Podcast doesn’t mean they necessarily agree with everything we say. Our email in-box has been filled with lots of questioning, debate and discussion. For example, Gualberto J. Rodriguez, whose kind comment and good wishes you can see above, also let us know he had different thoughts:

“About podcast #1, I respect and disagree with your perspective on the protests…

If you can recall a time when you have been under the boot of a system that’s not respecting your fundamental well-being, it’s hard to ask the person under the boot to come out from under the boot caring for it. There’s a natural rage that comes from feeling truly abused. Not to justify the riots, but I do feel to move forward on racism, we need to seek to understand and be compassionate with all sides. My POV.”

Gualberto and the Pundit go way back. In fact, our families were trading produce in Puerto Rico before either of us were born! Now the Pundit is thrilled to have the opportunity to help the world recognize the important work that Gualberto is doing. We have chronicled some of his achievements in pieces such as:

In Great Turmoil Is Hidden Great Opportunity
Is Now The Time To Invest In Puerto Rico’s Agricultural Sector?
Gualberto Rodriguez Of Caribbean Produce Exchange Tells Us Why He’s ‘All In’ At The Global Trade Symposium

And, just recently:

Miraculously Spared From Puerto Rico’s Devastating Hurricanes And Earthquake, Caribbean Produce Exchange Overcame Years Of Tribulation To Prepare For Moments Like Today…
Now Administers $107-Million Farmers To Families Food Box Program

We have also invited Gualberto to address the industry at our live events: Gualberto Rodriguez Of Caribbean Produce Exchange Makes Compelling Case For Puerto Rico’s Ag At The New York Produce Show And Conference

We will address some of Gualberto’s thoughts in future podcasts and columns, but wanted to make sure everyone knows that this Pundit loves a good debate and would love to hear from you.

We actually think one of the most regrettable and dangerous parts of the current situation is that many people of good will, who could contribute to solutions to serious problems, instead feel obliged to keep quiet less they, their families or their business get attacked by today’s cancel culture. If you have thoughts, comments or suggestions for future podcasts, please do email us at perishablepundit@perishablepundit.com.

The latest Pundit podcast deals with COVID-19 in the context of our society’s ability to handle risk.

 

 

The Wall Street Journal ran an opinion piece signed by both the provost and president of Cornell University explaining the decision to reopen Cornell to residential instruction this fall. 

Not surprisingly, the piece is thoughtful and thorough. The gist of their argument is that, at a school like Cornell, where many students live off campus in apartments in “Collegetown” and other parts of Ithaca, New York, by opening the school to physical attendance — as opposed to all online education — the school maintains authority.

It can compel students to be tested for the coronavirus every five days, demand the students wear masks, ensure the spacing of chairs in class is socially distant, reduce the density of housing and much more.

Relying on an epidemiological modeling effort headed up by Cornell professor Peter Frazier, the authors claim that, in many cases, schools that “play it safe” by moving classes all on line will wind up having more cases of COVID-19, more hospitalizations and more deaths among the people in their community — students, faculty, staff —  than schools that open up and utilize their authority to test and enforce behavior.

This argument seems well researched and is probably true. Although it is not certainly true. After all, maybe young adults forced to socially distance themselves all day may be inclined to get close at night. Of course, it comes off a little elitist as the same argument should apply to everyone, not just university communities.

If the government ordered citizens to be tested every five days, compelled those who tested positive to be quarantined for two weeks, ordered social distancing on penalty of prison, etc., then there would be less spread of COVID-19. If avoiding COVID-19 is so important, why shouldn’t people who don’t go to college get the same effort made to protect them?

Of course, it is not 100% clear that seeking to reduce the spread of COVID-19 is the right direction. It may not even be possible. German Chancellor Angela Merkel, who has a doctorate in quantum chemistry, has put it this way: “We have to understand that many people will be infected. The consensus among experts is that 60 to 70 percent of the population will be infected as long as this remains the situation.”

In other words, despite our hopes, since there has never been a vaccine against a coronavirus, we have to expect that this problem will not magically go away. We are reminded that although therapies have dramatically improved, diseases such as HIV continue to exist without a vaccine being developed despite decades of effort.

The whole situation is an extension of what we have seen in the food industry for decades — a massive expression of a society that has become unable to deal with risk. The Wall Street Journal published an Op-Ed piece by this author, titled Lettuce Try Not To Panic, dealing with the risk of eating romaine lettuce during an outbreak in 2018.

This was a near hysterical situation, with the government effectively closing down the Romaine lettuce industry by urging that “U.S. consumers not eat any romaine lettuce, and retailers and restaurants not serve or sell any” until the E. coli outbreak was resolved.

What caused this extraordinary recommendation by the US government?. This is what we wrote in the midst of the crisis:

…the odds that eating a serving of romaine will make you sick are about 1 in 11 million, and the odds it will put you in the hospital are less than 1 in 28 million. To put this in perspective, the probability of getting a royal flush in poker is dozens of times as great, at 1 in 649,740, and the probability of an amateur hitting a hole-in-one in golf is hundreds of times as great, at 1 in 12,000. If you are that risk-averse, you should stay away from dogs—the lifetime odds of getting killed by a dog attack are about 1 in 112,000. Even the odds of getting struck by lightning in a particular year are higher than 1 in a million.

To put it another way: If this outbreak were active every day, and you ate one salad a day, on average you would be hospitalized for E. coli once every 77,000 years.

And this likely overstates the problem. In past food-related E. coli outbreaks, the people hospitalized tended to be those with weakened immune systems such as the very old, the very young, and patients undergoing stem-cell transplants or chemotherapy. These groups are often advised by their doctors to avoid eating foods that may contain pathogens anyway. The odds of otherwise healthy people facing hospitalization is even lower than this infinitesimal amount. The CDC never actually discloses the risks it so fervently advises avoiding, perhaps because it would be laughed at if it did.

How does the risk of eating Romaine lettuce compare to COVID-19? Well, for women under 44 years of age and men under 39 years of age — which is basically the entire student body of most universities — the United Kingdom has published observed population fatality rates and found that the rate is less than 0.00!

So, we are off in the third decimal place or less on every five-year age cohort from 0 to 49 in women and 0 to 44 in men. Remember that whatever deaths might occur are often related to co-morbidities — in other words, the very unfortunate child who has cancer or a heart condition and, also, gets COVID-19.

Even for the working adults beyond the age of 49 among women and beyond 44 among men, the percentage numbers for COVID-19 deaths run from 0.01% to 0.08% in five-year cohorts; with men, from 60 to 64, being the most endangered at 0.08%. Again, a very high percentage of these deaths are in people with co-morbidities — diabetes, cancer, heart disease, etc.

As the country is consumed with the Black Lives Matter protests, we need to consider what has led to this movement taking off at this particular time.

Surely, part of the motivation is that the general philosophy of lockdowns serves the interests of two distinct groups — older people who are more vulnerable to COVID-19 and those who are already financially set.

The oldest active NFL player is Tom Brady at 42 years old. The average age of an NFL player is a little over 26 years old and, typically, players are only pros for three or four years. Even the average Pro-Bowl-nominated player only has an NFL career of 12 years.

If you go to all 18-year-olds dreaming of a pro-football career and tell them there is a chance, but less than 0.00% chance, that they will get the disease and then die from it, almost every player will want to play. They would probably say the same if the risk was 1% or higher.

This is their shot. We should let them take it.

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