Yes, organic farming will kill us all

For example we buy 75lbs of onions in October and keep them in the basement. The total cost is about $30 vs. $500 at retail and I'm doing business with a guy 30 miles away instead of buying Chilean onions shipped by a Georgia grower and passing through a half dozen middlemen.

Currently, right now 60% of the produce available in the US comes from a single region -- the imperial valley in California. We're watering the desert, which comes with some obvious long term risks.

We're lucky enough to live in an area in the Northeast that still has some local vegetable agriculture. Business is picking up enough for them locally that some local family farms are doing year round operations. The first crop of high tunnel greens will be for sale February 1.

Sounds like excellent news to me. Keep this up.

However, a key takeaway issue is that everyone in their lab now avoids organic produce as such because of multiple observed parasite incidents - local organic farms tend to replace nitrate-based fertilisers with manure, and thus their produce carries a risk of parasite infections that "classic" industrial farms don't have. For many horrible parasites the only vector used to be improperly cooked wild game meat (or illegally slaughtered home animals), but now with the risen popularity of organic produce, they are also spreading with vegetables.

Gah. Thanks.

Okay, I no longer know what we're arguing about. Topic drift.

OP [Chris Newman] says comparing "organic" to "conventional" farming is apples to oranges and that a particular critic [a commenter on his blog?] is omitting too much from his argument, that conventional isn't sustainable either.

We somehow got to...

"Raising cattle on these lands does not necessarily consume any water, food, or arable land that would be productively used otherwise."

I know of no example of that being the case. I'll re-search when I circle back to this issue (that advocacy stuff I mentioned). The "sustainable" ranches I've looked at are less impactful, but still not sustainable. Also, you omitted "impact on other species and ecosystems" from your definition.

The closest I can think of are the sheep left to their own to over winter in New Zealand and brought in for slaughter. The valleys keep them contained.

I've seen serious proposals for switching to bison, because they do less harm than cattle (bite off food rather than pull up), but I haven't followed up. But even then bison will destroy riparian and wetlands habitat. Maybe use drones? Or pay for more cowboys? Or get comfortable with more predators also on the range? I dunno.

In a separate comment:

"I agree with you on most of your points including that grass-fed beef is not sustainable at the current rate of consumption, but that does not mean that it isn't sustainable at a lower rate of consumption / higher price."

Okay.

I wrote about vat grown meat and ranching becoming a niche source of protein.

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

Well. We might be close in opinion here.

I ask myself "What would sustainable look like?" (As productive as What is art? What is morality?)

Sustainable means:

#1 Given best available science, what accounting system measures everything important, no externalities?

#2 What is the fair market price for resources and services consumed and accrued?

I honestly don't know how to get from where we are to something sustainable. In sum, all of our activity is exceeding the current carrying capacity of our earth. And we lie to ourselves about how much stuff costs.

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

Husbandry or hunting? No matter...

Nature's gone. It's now garden earth, where we actively manage the whole thing, intentionally or not.

Aside:

Else where you mention the necessity of manure for farming. Huh.

You assume some level of sustainable ranching is possible. Whereas I assume farming without manure is possible (and desirable).

i cant speak for commodity farming, but for vegetable farms, fertility doesnt have to be lost. the problem is that farming ceased to be a closed loop system long ago when we started mechanising farm equipment. the environmental degradation is astounding. and unnecessary.

no till farming promotes carbon sequestration. the cascading good effects of no till is well documented. first, it helps with erosion issues...which protects our water from contamination. good soil holds water. irrigation needs are reduced. huge machinery compacts the soil and causes hard pan. we are losing thousands of inches of top soil every year.

imagine if we did this.trying to scrubbing off old tired skin every night and painting an artificial skin everyday in the morning. the only way to maintain good skin is to feed it from the inside...stay hydrated. the more you scrub, the thicker the paint. eventually, you'd have no skin of your own.

it is the same with soil. the eco system is self-correcting. there is tremendous value to this. all the inputs we use..from fertilizers to pesticides to herbicides...become necessary because we have pierced a self correcting, self balancing system. the soil web is so complicated and delicate. it is entirely capable of keeping itself healthy. inputs cost $. more labour. less productivity as more dependence on outside inputs. farms that grow corn or soy or sweet beets do this on 5000-6000 acres. (all of this doesnt equate to 'food' per se..we hardly grow enough grain to be self sustainable..we dont grow millet or 'small grains' which are drought tolerant and more disease resistant.) but our vegetables are grown in succession multiple times in one growing season. maybe this is why our diet is so messed up in america.

agriculture in america is about the care and feeding of businesses. not its population. the debt of farmers is astounding..farmer debt is crushing. the numbers are shrinking every year. eventually there will be no food soverignity here because food will have to come from outside.