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Yes, organic farming will kill us all

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Re: Yes, organic farming will kill us all

#221

Post by leecarraher »

codingdave wrote: post #56
leecarraher wrote: post #49

so what would this rube goldbergian harvester machine look like that could be capable of efficiently farming such a dynamic landscape as a multistory(already sounding like we got some marketing terms in the works here) farm... my guess is about 5'10", over worked and from some economically depressed country. yay organic

As opposed to the 5'10" rube goldbergian harvester machine that selects your products at the grocery store, moves them around in a cart for 20 minutes, then stands in line to purchase them? Somewhere along the line, you as a person will always walk around and pick up your own food. (Unless you pay someone to do that for you, too.) Doing it direct from a local food forest, or a farmers market, will always involve less…

seriously your plan is for people to harvest their own food? your comparison is grossly disproportionate, how does 20 minutes at the super market compare to the months of labor required to grow, store, process and plant ones own food. this is the kind of blind zealotry that makes organic farming seem like a ridiculous prospect.

Re: Yes, organic farming will kill us all

#222

Post by CuriouslyC »

roel_v wrote: post #98
rini17 wrote: post #85

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's only your preconceptions that are ludicrous. In 1990s agriculture in Russia partially collapsed, so people turned to their small plots of land and "captured the food production". They were lucky they knew how - the communist government-managed centralized distribution was unreliable so the skill was handy. Of course, there's no hard data from this chaotic period, but being from eastern european country myself, i…

Those home food gardening systems aren't sustainable, if you're implying that. They very often use artificial fertilizers (and in wrong dosages ,too - hey if one gram is great, 2 grams must be better, right?) They are often based on tilling and/or small monocultures with maybe a basic crop rotation system, etc. Sure, they have beneficial aspects that traditional farms don't have, but home-scale subsistence farming is…

You're making a lot of assumptions, and they aren't founded. Of all the people I've met who have gardens, the vast majority of them do some form of composting. Tilling is almost never used as is is too labor intensive, they mulch instead. They plant a diversity of crops, and not just annuals - a plethora of perennials as well. They typically don't spray pesticides, though some will spray soapy water around pests. Most counter pests by creating habitat for birds and beneficial insects like lacewings, and by intermixing pesticidal plants into the garden.

This sort of gardening absolutely decimates conventional ag in terms of food/acre. It is also sustainable, produces better food and creates an attractive green space. Properly performed, permaculture farming principles can even reclaim deserts. The cost is labor, but what if all the people trying to sell you stupid shit you don't need decided to farm instead? Can you imagine beautiful green cities with fruit trees and gardens everywhere? How nice would it be to be able to forage in your neighborhood to get fresh vegetables for dinner rather than go to the store? That can be reality, if we as a species can overcome this idea that we need to produce and collect as many widgets as possible.

Re: Yes, organic farming will kill us all

#223

Post by riprowan »

specialist wrote: post #173
riprowan wrote: post #166

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't understand the question. Can you help me understand why the idea that raising animals cannot be sustainable, when clearly grazing animals can live perfectly well on their own with no care whatsoever from humans (as they have for millennia) on areas of land that are not suitable for farming? I think the direct answer to your question is that clearly carnivorism is environmentally sustainable, as it has been pr…

Name two examples of sustainable ranching. In the USA. If it's hypothetically possible, surely someone somewhere is doing it. What I like to call an existence proof.

Sure, here's the first two that I looked up:

http://juharanch.com/

http://www.yellowstonegrassfedbeef.com/node/100

QED. I'm sure if you bother to research this you'll find many others.

If you stop and think about your question more deeply I think you'll unask it.

Organic produce farming requires manure. Something like 1/4 of the land mass of the USA requires grazing animals to maintain an ecological balance.

That manure and those animals are requirements, not luxuries.

Sustainable produce farming requires sustainable animal farming, because nature is inherently symbiotic.

Re: Yes, organic farming will kill us all

#224

Post by loup-vaillant »

ptaipale wrote: post #167
yjftsjthsd-h wrote: post #126

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Amusing, but the real question is why it's safe for humans to eat corn laced with pesticides when (I assume?) we use essentially the same digestive process as the targeted bugs. Or, "why is it safe to eat food that is literally designed to have poison in it?" I would speculate that the answer is that the pesticide in question doesn't affect humans, but it's a legitimate concern.

The poison is in the dose. Of course all pesticides can be harmful, at least if the dose is a 200 litre barrel that is dropped on your head. Even pure water is harmful, and the dose for this is that drinking 5 to 10 litres will kill you.

> The poison is in the dose.

Not always. Endocrine disruptors work at very, very low dosages. Some pesticides have such an effect.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Endocrine_disruptor

Re: Yes, organic farming will kill us all

#225

Post by specialist »

Noseshine wrote: post #213
specialist wrote: post #173

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Name two examples of sustainable ranching. In the USA. If it's hypothetically possible, surely someone somewhere is doing it. What I like to call an existence proof.

Try the one made famous through "The Omnivores Dilemma": http://www.polyfacefarms.com/ But apart from that, just read the comment you replied to. Human history as well as nature itself are the examples. There used to be millions of grazing animals (probably even an understatement).

Ranching. Not farming.

Hope beyond hope, I attempted the Socratic method on riprowan, willing him to attempt a quick google before his concern trolling.

Top hit:

http://www.worldwildlife.org/projects/sustainable-ranching-i...

There. Was that so hard?

Buried lead: Once you learn anything about current ranching practices, you realize its at least as bad as current farming practices. Totally unsustainable.

Edit: Hey! Looks like riprowan found google!

Re: Yes, organic farming will kill us all

#226

Post by riprowan »

Noseshine wrote: post #213
specialist wrote: post #173

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Name two examples of sustainable ranching. In the USA. If it's hypothetically possible, surely someone somewhere is doing it. What I like to call an existence proof.

Try the one made famous through "The Omnivores Dilemma": http://www.polyfacefarms.com/ But apart from that, just read the comment you replied to. Human history as well as nature itself are the examples. There used to be millions of grazing animals (probably even an understatement).

It even goes past that.

Try doing sustainable farming without animals. It can't be done. Animals are a requirement for sustainable farming.

Re: Yes, organic farming will kill us all

#227

Post by YeGoblynQueenne »

paganel wrote: post #134
bryanlarsen wrote: post #117

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The criticisms of conventional farming are valid, but that doesn't mean that organic farming is any better. I believe that organic farming is much more likely to cause soil degradation and environmental harm than conventional farming for several different reasons: - organic farming's main tool to combat weeds and regrowth is tillage, which causes immense amounts of damage to the soil directly and allowing the soil to…

> It was tillage that turned the fertile crescent of Mesopotamia into the deserts of Iraq. Any sources on that? Or on the bad effects of tillage, generally speaking. I'm just curious as my parents are traditional farmers and they use shoveling and the like instead of pesticides (which they couldn't afford, anyway).

Sorry to butt in but is your nickname by any chance a toponym? I'm thinking of a certain island in the Ionian Sea?

Re: Yes, organic farming will kill us all

#228

Post by akamaka »

ebbv wrote: post #185

This article is a reasonable rebuttal to the usual chicken little statements by people pushing industrial farming of GMO crops as the only way to "feed the world", but there are a couple of things this response misses. 1. If we stop eating so much beef, we really, really don't need to grow so much corn. Cattle feed accounts for an astronomical percentage of the need to grow so much acreage. Dropping the ethanol boond…

I think this is the best comment in the entire thread.

I'd like to add one more point, which is that some folks argue we would be going back to a world of sustinence farming without GMOs, ignoring that much of the improvements in agricultural output have come from developments that can also benefit organic farming, such as land use reform, crop rotation, improved equipment, better irrigation, etc.

See here: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/British_Agricultural_Revolut...

Re: Yes, organic farming will kill us all

#229

Post by CuriouslyC »

msimpson wrote: post #220
CuriouslyC wrote: post #219

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Why? There are many other vital survival tasks that the overwhelming majority of the world's population cannot perform. This is merely the consequence of living in modern society; such efforts are abstracted away from the consumer. People will educate themselves when such information becomes necessary. Depending on your climate, food is one of the most pressing thing to acquire if you don't have it. Our human syste…

You can apply the same argument to fresh water access. Urbanization is not conducive to individualized sustainability. You either come to terms with that or move out to the sticks and adopt a DIY attitude toward survial.

This comes down to how our species survives, and there are really two issues: global sustainability and the human race's fragility to catastrophe.

We to get globally sustainable as quickly as possible, there's absolutely no argument against that. We definitely need to make our agriculture more petrochemical efficient, at the very least.

In terms of urbanization and the human race's vulnerability to catastrophe, we can mitigate a lot of the dangers by just limiting city density, and including intensive food cultivation. That way, in case of a major emergency, you at least have a buffer. Having a lot of people who know how to grow food also allows you to spin up production quickly.

Ultimately, we're looking at a crisis of employment as computer programs take over white collar work. We have millions of years of evolution as efficient mixed source foragers, robots aren't going to take that job.

Re: Yes, organic farming will kill us all

#230

Post by msimpson »

CuriouslyC wrote: post #229
msimpson wrote: post #220

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You can apply the same argument to fresh water access. Urbanization is not conducive to individualized sustainability. You either come to terms with that or move out to the sticks and adopt a DIY attitude toward survial.

This comes down to how our species survives, and there are really two issues: global sustainability and the human race's fragility to catastrophe. We to get globally sustainable as quickly as possible, there's absolutely no argument against that. We definitely need to make our agriculture more petrochemical efficient, at the very least. In terms of urbanization and the human race's vulnerability to catastrophe, we ca…

How does one limit city density? Population growth creates cities. Not the other way around.
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