Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

How America Uses Its Land

bloomberg.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

111–120 of 244 posts

Re: How America Uses Its Land

#111

Post by AngryData »

GW150914 wrote: post #35
megaman22 wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Go look at the land that's being used as open range pasture out west. If it was not being used for grazing cattle, it would not be used for anything anyway. Most of it was buffalo country two hundred years ago, so it's not like it's really changed.

Back in “the day” 20 to 30 million bison roamed the US. Today there are more than 94 million cattle in the US, and that’s actually down from a peak of 130+ million in the mid seventies. A lot has changed! Those bison were also wild, lived much much longer lives than farmed cattle which spend part of their lives in feed lots. The bison were also part of the broader ecosystem, hunted by wolves, and in general a net neg…

You should also factor in the fact that the average buffalo are bigger than the average cow. Buffalo are around the size of a holstein cow, the most common dairy cow, but most of the meat cattle we raise are near half the size/weight of them.

Re: How America Uses Its Land

#112

Post by garyclarke27 »

Excellent well presented interesting analytical article. No surprise (but still remarkable) that Americans use more land for Golf than growing vegetables. Tragic though the insane amount of land used to grow biofuel, must be one of the most idiotic decisions ever made by politicians, cow towing to the anti (life giving) CO2 cult.

Re: How America Uses Its Land

#113

Post by CalRobert »

Aloha wrote: post #75
StillBored wrote: post #68

Earlier quoted context omitted.

At least in Texas raising property taxes as such isn't the answer. Rather capping the amount a single owner/organization can claim in ag/etc exemptions, while making it easier for small 20 acre farms to claim the exemption. Right now what you have is the richest land owners paying the lowest rates, while owners of tiny suburban/rural lots get murdered. For example, I give you a few pieces of the 6d ranch, located on…

No one is doing any commercially meaningful farming (not even for a small business) on 20 acres. Consider for grazing use 2-6 acres per cow is needed. 4 cows, isnt even a blip. Nor can you farm most crops meaningfully on 20 acre plots either. On lot 1, most of the taxed value is derived from the improvements, not the land itself.

There appears to be at least one counterexample, if you count "supporting one's family" as commercially meaningful.

Currently reading The Market Gardener and it's surprisingly fascinating for a guide to intensively cultivating on about 1.5 acres - about 140k CAD gross, 60k revenue on 1.5 acres - https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/18406251-the-market-gard...

(the author) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jean-Martin_Fortier

Re: How America Uses Its Land

#114

Post by AngryData »

jdietrich wrote: post #41
mc32 wrote: post #33

If urban (built-up) areas have quadrupled since the 50's, I don't think that pace can continue unabated. Population has roughly doubled since then. It would seem the trend would require denser cities and suburbs, which should not be too difficult given that most metro areas are relatively low density.

The United States has a population density of 86 people per square mile. In Britain it's 704, in the Netherlands it's 1075 and in Singapore it's 20,192. You've got plenty of room. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_and_dependen...

While im sure they don't utilize all of their available farm land, it is worth mentioning that Britain imports almost 30% of their food, which means they are at or near the limit of sustainably feeding themselves, and even then almost 60% of the world's crop yield is the direct result of fossil fuel derived fertilizer, which we are going to have to give up soon if we don't all want to be cooked alive, which will increase the energy costs of fertilizer production 10 fold. The US would be hard pressed to find similar external sources of food if their population density rose significantly higher. Especially on top of all the desert and arid grassland areas that are pretty poor for farming.

Re: How America Uses Its Land

#115

Post by andai »

beambot wrote: post #101
PakG1 wrote: post #95

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I believe so. Other organisms don't really seem to have a concept of value, which would imply they're willing to make trades. Any organism that gathers things seems to hoard at best without any idea what it would trade for what it's hoarding.

> Other organisms don't really seem to have a concept of value. To first-order approximations, most living creatures seem to value their lives & habitat.

This was my first response to "animals have no sense of value", that what is valuable to the animal is what helps it to survive and reproduce. The animal may not know that grass helps it survive and reproduce, but the individual whose instincts draw it towards places where there is grass (the individual who "values" grass) will do better than one who does not "value" grass.

Re: How America Uses Its Land

#116

Post by Arnt »

perfmode wrote: post #105
hueving wrote: post #99

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>Does the Mojave have to be useful to humans to be a valuable thing? Yes, humans are the only creatures we know of with the concept of valuing land.

huh? do other creatures not inhabit space? does a creature need to have a concept of value in order to value things?

Yes, iff "value" is to have a meaning distinct from other verbs in the opinion of that creature.

Re: How America Uses Its Land

#117

Post by EliRivers »

PakG1 wrote: post #95
jaggederest wrote: post #91

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm pretty sure the Oregon high desert is really good at being high desert. Does the Mojave have to be useful to humans to be a valuable thing?

I believe so. Other organisms don't really seem to have a concept of value, which would imply they're willing to make trades. Any organism that gathers things seems to hoard at best without any idea what it would trade for what it's hoarding.

I disagree. Here are some other people who disagree too. Some animals trade goods and services.

https://www.quora.com/Do-any-non-human-animals-trade-with-ea...

https://www.seeker.com/parrots-barter-with-nuts-1767294582.h...

Re: How America Uses Its Land

#118

Post by hiddevb »

garyclarke27 wrote: post #112

Excellent well presented interesting analytical article. No surprise (but still remarkable) that Americans use more land for Golf than growing vegetables. Tragic though the insane amount of land used to grow biofuel, must be one of the most idiotic decisions ever made by politicians, cow towing to the anti (life giving) CO2 cult.

> Tragic though the insane amount of land used to grow biofuel

Out of curiosity, why do you think it's tragic? Aren't these fuels used for experimentation with sustainable energy?

Re: How America Uses Its Land

#119

Post by jethro_tell »

tspike wrote: post #104
jay-anderson wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes! I think a lot of people miss the water part. The land will not grow a lot of the plants we eat or large trees without irrigation. However cows and other animals can eat the scrub that grows there naturally so it makes some sense to raise cattle in these areas. It'd be interesting to see that pasture range broken out a bit more (feed lots, open grazing land, etc.). That said, I'm all for lowering our overall meat…

I was under the impression cattle require a lot of water, is that incorrect?

A grazing beef cow will drink about 7-10 gallons during the day. If it is hot, they will drink 25. Wheat yields around 1LB for 130 -150 gallons over the growing season. An avocado (1lb) requires about 90 Gallons over the growing season.

There are a lot of things to factor into this, crop yields aren't static and there are a lot of other things that can change the yields. Cows have legs, so you don't have to 'irrigate' them, they just have to be pastured within a couple thousand feet of water, and you can set up temporary solar pump + water trough if you have water within a couple miles.

Beef Cattle will give you 5-600 lbs of meat at about 1200 Calories per pound, with an average grazing time of 12 months. works out to 150cal/gallon.

Avocado has about 700+ cal per pound so about 8cal/gallon. (I'm not as sure on this, it could be lower as a 'medium' avocado is about 1/3 of a pound, but I've never grown avocados so I don't know the exact here.)

Calories in a whole grain wheat is about 1500/lb, so 1500/150 is about 10cal/gallon.

So it's kinda relative, but the only way you're going to harvest edible nutrients from scrub land is buy herding or hunting grazing animals that process the stuff with 4 stomachs.

There's a larger question of the value that grazing provides and if we need that as a food source. Before modern farming and shipping, if you lived in a semi-arid scrubland style climate, you were very much dependent on some type of animal to turn that stuff into a digestible food source for you.

Re: How America Uses Its Land

#120

Post by distant_hat »

hueving wrote: post #99
jaggederest wrote: post #91

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm pretty sure the Oregon high desert is really good at being high desert. Does the Mojave have to be useful to humans to be a valuable thing?

>Does the Mojave have to be useful to humans to be a valuable thing? Yes, humans are the only creatures we know of with the concept of valuing land.

Territoriality is coded really deep in evolution. Even animals as simple as the fruit fly get aggressive when another fly takes its space.
Post reply on HN