Yes, organic farming will kill us all • Hacker News Board

Re: Yes, organic farming will kill us all

#231

Post by loup-vaillant » Tue, Jan 17, 2017, 3:56 PM UTC

randomdata wrote: post #170

loup-vaillant wrote: post #164

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Hasn't Bayer bought Monsanto by the way? In any case, you're certainly more aware of those firms than I am. It's your trade after all. I have heard those names, but the propaganda I've seen tend to point to Monsanto as the one deserving the torches and pitchforks. > If you selected the two most ideal humans to breed I get the point (super-crops that regress to the mean after a couple generations), but the actual down…

> but the actual downsides seem more serious What part seems serious? That the offspring are not useful for replant? It's really not that big of a deal, honestly. I, like most farmers, don't have the equipment to prepare the seeds for replant anyway, so by the time I contract that out I may as well just buy from someone who is already in the business of selling seeds. Specialization and economies of scale won out. It…

> What part seems serious? That the offspring are not useful for replant?

There is that, but also the cost of maintaining such seeds (seems to be higher than for regular seeds). I get the economy of scale though.

There's also the problem of single point of failure. I cannot help but think that if farmers were self-seeding, the system would be more resilient. I'm not sure.

Yet another problem is one of control. If Bayer controls our seeds the way Alphabet controls our data, this isn't going to be fun when start using that control for something we didn't expect. I mean, it's food. We need it, and they know it.

I don't trust them. I've seen a documentary talking about Indian farmers committing suicide when they noticed their wonderful F1 crops could not breed properly. They thought they they were making an investment. And that's without the even more obvious problems associated with planting crops unsuited to the local climate or weak against the local pests. A crop (F1 or not) that thrives in Arizona may not fare so well in Ethiopia. I believe the "oops it requires too much water" has happened before.

Re: Yes, organic farming will kill us all

#232

Post by specialist » Tue, Jan 17, 2017, 3:56 PM UTC

riprowan wrote: post #223

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.

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 man…

Ok. I'm being a dick. I should calm down. I apologize.

I should have replied "Sustainable ranching is harder than you'd think." I might remove my comments this afternoon, after you've and had a chance to see this apology.

I've worked with ranchers to conserve wildlife, especially apex predators. Indeed, I predict ranching will become a niche source of protein as vat-grown meat comes online (20 years) and taxpayers decide to stop subsidizing it (10 years?). The draughts, draining aquifers, and scourge of wildfires will also make ranching less viable. But I can't guess the timeline of climate change on ranching.

If you've met any (independent) ranchers, you'd see they know their world is coming apart.

Re: Yes, organic farming will kill us all

#233

Post by croon » Tue, Jan 17, 2017, 4:05 PM UTC

bryanlarsen wrote: post #172

pbhjpbhj wrote: post #165

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>Conventional farmers care far more about the value of their land than organic farmers do. [...] // You're going to need some pretty amazing sources to convince me that Organic farmers in general care less about sustainable farming than those practising more conventional techniques. This sort of unsupported claim makes anything else you're saying lack credence IMO.

I didn't say they cared less about sustainable farming, I said they cared less about the value of their land. Value, as in number of dollars the land can be sold for.

Sure, but shouldn't sustainability of the land be the primary factor for the price? (Layman here)

Re: Yes, organic farming will kill us all

#234

Post by riprowan » Tue, Jan 17, 2017, 4:11 PM UTC

specialist wrote: post #232

riprowan wrote: post #223

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 man…

Ok. I'm being a dick. I should calm down. I apologize. I should have replied "Sustainable ranching is harder than you'd think." I might remove my comments this afternoon, after you've and had a chance to see this apology. I've worked with ranchers to conserve wildlife, especially apex predators. Indeed, I predict ranching will become a niche source of protein as vat-grown meat comes online (20 years) and taxpayers de…

> Ok. I'm being a dick. I should calm down. I apologize.

Apologies always accepted here. No problem.

> I predict ranching will become a niche source of protein as vat-grown meat comes online (20 years) and taxpayers decide to stop subsidizing it (10 years?).

Even if all of this comes to pass, why will the resulting ranching industry be unsustainable?

Re: Yes, organic farming will kill us all

#235

Post by croon » Tue, Jan 17, 2017, 4:14 PM UTC

jankotek wrote: post #169

TimonKnigge wrote: post #102

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sorry, but do you have a source for this? The EU only sets a maximum level (50 mg/l apparently [1]), but member states are free to set lower maximums. [1] http://www.eea.europa.eu/data-and-maps/indicators/nitrate-in...

This is bottled water. EU dictates common limits for common market. No source, it is over 10 years ago.

IA(Definitely)NAL, but is this what you're referring to?

http://eur-lex.europa.eu/LexUriServ/LexUriServ.do?uri=OJ:L:1...

If so, it says under (19) that member states are free to set more stringent limits if they so please.

Re: Yes, organic farming will kill us all

#236

Post by riprowan » Tue, Jan 17, 2017, 4:17 PM UTC

specialist wrote: post #225

Noseshine wrote: post #213

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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! Lo…

> Ranching. Not farming.

Not two things. One thing. Polyface is a farm and a ranch. How can you do sustainable farming without animals?

You were the one asking for examples, so you should have used Google yourself. I thought about replying with a LMGTFY link, but I don't like being a dick.

You say you were trying to get me to think? That works both ways.

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

"Current" practices. Interesting modifier. I thought we were talking about ranching generally.

Please define what the "current" farming and ranching practices are in the USA. Please be sure that your definition includes the practices of everyone currently ranching or farming in the country. Obviously nobody can provide this definition. So let's drop the "current" modifier.

You challenge the idea that ranching - even in the abstract - can be "sustainable." To me the question is absurd, because animals and carnivores exist sustainably in nature.

The question is, what are the practices that will allow animals to continue to exist in nature, with humans as one of their predators?

Also, what sort of environmental impact will exist if farm animals go away? Where will all the animal manure come from to grow sustainable produce? Sustainable farming requires animals. Imagine if all the US heartland was sustainably fertilized. That's a lot of manure, man. There used to be a couple million (sustainable) bison that provided that manure. Humans sustainably ate them for tens of thousands of years. Then came fences and the end of bison herds. To replace them, it'll take a few million head of cattle.

Nobody here was arguing that "current" ranching practices (whatever that broad term means) are "sustainable." I am simply pointing out that there exist millions of acres of ranchable but not farmable land in the USA which can obviously support edible grazing animals sustainably without competing even with even one acre of arable land; and that sustainable farming requires grazing animals. If you question these obvious facts, then I suppose we're done here.

---

Oh, also. It's "buried lede."

Re: Yes, organic farming will kill us all

#237

Post by paganel » Tue, Jan 17, 2017, 4:25 PM UTC

YeGoblynQueenne wrote: post #227

paganel wrote: post #134

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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?

No problem :) Nope, it's after the name of a Jules Verne character from this novel: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/In_Search_of_the_Castaways. The 1980s Soviet TV series which based on the book left a strong impression on me when I was a kid, so that was that (http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0088635/reference)

Re: Yes, organic farming will kill us all

#238

Post by yoz-y » Tue, Jan 17, 2017, 4:27 PM UTC

jeromenerf wrote: post #89

yoz-y wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Marked will decide. In France I already see more Bio (Organic) shops around than those selling conventional food. I don't go there because of the price but the demand is clearly growing. Most of the organic food is produced by the same companies that do conventional farming anyways, shift will come.

"Market will decide", as if. Governments can (and some do) help to bootstrap a saner "organic" economic landscape by creating demand through regulations such as "school restaurants food should be 50% local and organic by 2020, 100% by 2030".

Government could do that, but it should only be necessary if the claims that "you can produce more calories per acre of organic food compared to traditional agriculture" are false.

If it is cheaper to produce more, of more expensive produce, you can bet that the agriculture industry will shift.

Re: Yes, organic farming will kill us all

#239

Post by mamcx » Tue, Jan 17, 2017, 4:33 PM UTC

ThePhysicist wrote: post #5

The thing with conventional farming is that a lot of the costs (in terms of environmental damage which needs to be repaired) are currently externalized, i.e. payed for by the society, which indeed makes industrial farming more cost-effective than organic farming, at least for the farmer (though in many countries you can charge a good premium for organic food, which will often outweigh your additional cost). The same…

From the old times exist the idea that is necessary to let the terrain to "rest" and let it to the nature mercy (in the bible was for a year each 7-years for example). Is https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crop_rotation

So I wonder why not mix both?

Re: Yes, organic farming will kill us all

#240

Post by CPLX » Tue, Jan 17, 2017, 4:38 PM UTC

krzyk wrote: post #116

throwaway1892 wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Farming lobby in Europe For my perspective in France, here the farming lobby is inexistant/inefficient, since farmers had to big pretty big actions all over France just to raise the price of milk. So I think it's not the farming lobby, but the fertilizers and pesticides lobby.

French farmers are the biggest group of farmers that is subsidized by EU. For me it is the source of everything what's wrong with farming in EU. Because of subsidies they produce crops that are not developed in efficient way (because they will receive subsidy either way). Because of them e.g. Polish farmers are forced to produce less milk than they have ability to - milk producers are given fines if they create to mu…

In exchange for this "problem" however the French get the French countryside, which is fucking awesome. When people discuss this issue without at least somewhat acknowledging that motivation it seems hard to take the argument seriously.