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Can We Grow More Food on Less Land?

nytimes.com

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Re: Can We Grow More Food on Less Land?

#71

Post by chadcmulligan »

joering2 wrote: post #15

Why is food grow not stuck up vertically? I mean let's go 3D, since at least majority of vegetables and most fruits do not need more than height of 2 feet of space. It also surprised me how old school modern farming still remains. Look at the first picture from this article: a bunch of modern tractors unnecessarily burning oil, unnecessarily operated by humans. By now this should be three times the size field with 15…

This is already a thing I think - Vertical farming its called - here's some links https://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=vertical+farmin.... Though its mainly in land constrained places like Singapore or places that are frozen much of the year, or deserts. There is a solar powered tomato green house in Australia I'm aware of https://reneweconomy.com.au/world-first-solar-tower-powered-... last I heard they were talking about copying it and making them around the world it was going so well

Re: Can We Grow More Food on Less Land?

#72

Post by kieranmaine »

travisoneill1 wrote: post #49
kieranmaine wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Would you eat more chicken instead of beef though? Is there a certain meat you couldn't do without and if so why? I'm not against anyone eating meat (although as an ethical - and hypocritical milk drinking vegetarian - I'd like to see animal suffering reduced) just interested in what meat eaters love about meat.

I don't see stacking as many people as possible on Earth as a worthy goal and therefore I am not interested in changing my behavior for the purpose of achieving it. Your animal suffering point has merit. But what the article is talking about is simply growing enough food to feed more people, so that's what I am addressing. However, I think that this is just another symptom of the same thing. Factory farming is only n…

I agree that we should stop over population, but that involves developing and enriching countries to lower the birth rate. As countries get richer they eat more meat, so the problem may still remain even if the population does decline.

Re: Can We Grow More Food on Less Land?

#73

Post by dghughes »

It's slightly terrifying to see the data about the loss of nutrients in plants around the world due to climate change. On YouTube there was an interesting Veritasim story about plants and their mineral levels.

It seems plants have fewer minerals now compared to 100 years ago. Farmers have fertilizer and the plants grow but they don't have the same levels of nutrition even with all that help. Samples of weeds from the 1800s were compared to the same weeds now and even the weeds have fewer minerals, so it's all plants not just food crops.

Larger farms growing more food may not solve the problem it's the quality of the plant not just the quantity.

Re: Can We Grow More Food on Less Land?

#74

Post by liveoneggs »

CompelTechnic wrote: post #60
saalweachter wrote: post #56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Eh, grains are never the problem. Essentially none of the problems you hear about in agriculture apply to grains. We can produce just staggering amounts of grain on a per-acre basis, and we can ship them without refrigeration and store them for long periods of time without any significant loss of nutritional value. The carbon, energy and monetary cost of shipping huge quantities of grain from the center of the US to…

Well said. I would also argue that concerns over crops taking up too much land are somewhat misplaced until we reach a point where we at risk of not having enough farmland to feed the population. When we reach that point, only food that can be grown in ultra-dense (calories per acre) ways will be affordable, and other foods will be luxuries with a high premium. Until then we are enjoying our relative luxury of plenti…

water will run out far sooner than land :)

Re: Can We Grow More Food on Less Land?

#75

Post by sp332 »

alacombe wrote: post #50
snarf21 wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think this is what it has to eventually be. We all have a garden in our garage. We save tons on transportation costs throughout the chain. It has to be near zero work. People used to all have gardens in their backyard but stopped when they could afford the cheap produce at the store.

> I think this is what it has to eventually be. We all have a garden in our garage. No you won't, at least not with greens. Did you even try to do the math for the required amount of food a single person needs per-year ? Even if you go with rabbits, which are easy to raise, you can only self produce a small amount of meat per year, maybe ~150lb once you get to "scale".

You're right about the quantity, but why don't you eat it yourself? That's much more efficient.

Re: Can We Grow More Food on Less Land?

#76

Post by rohit2412 »

meggar wrote: post #41

Maybe Boring Co and Square Roots can do some underground vertical farming so we don't keep running out of romaine.

Topsoil is needed for plants, which won't grow underground without it. And if you're going to carry soil underground, might as well do it in an above ground building. Or try hydro ponics

Re: Can We Grow More Food on Less Land?

#77

Post by ghthor »

alisson wrote: post #20

There's a great method called Agroforestry that uses forest floors to produce more food: Quick overview of a farmer's land that uses this method: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=stABAx82TbY he harvest around 3x more cocoa per hectare than traditional methods and its one of the most valuable in the world right now. Big producers joining to make it more scalable: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gSPNRu4ZPvE

I love this idea, its something I've thought a lot about. Our large scale farming strategies seem fundamentally ignorant. Nature it full of complex systems of independence that we should be using directly in our farming strategies. I'm particularly interested in fungi to support the nutrient and immune systems of my farms.

See the work of Paul Staments using fungi to treat bee colony collapse.

Re: Can We Grow More Food on Less Land?

#78

Post by njarboe »

AnimalMuppet wrote: post #29
jermaustin1 wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But it would be seen as a "tax" to the corn producers, beef eaters, sugar water drinkers, car owners, and probably a load of other groups who benefit from the artificially cheap price.

Out of that list, the corn producers can get lost. They are not entitled to our subsidy.

Until Iowa is not the first US primary, these corn producers will always have an an advantage in influencing American politics.

Re: Can We Grow More Food on Less Land?

#79

Post by vegasdew »

chadcmulligan wrote: post #68
kieranmaine wrote: post #4

What would make people eat less beef? Since taxes seem a hard sell, would subsidizing chicken + non-meat protein help? As a vegetarian I'm trying to get my head around what would help change the behaviour of the meat eating HN members.

Eating meat is way easier than eating balanced vegetarian imho. I've cut down on my meat lately and it does require more time and involvement to eat vegetarian. E.g. an easy dinner is bbq a steak and chuck out some salad, done. Our entire society is based on convenience of eating meat, to get the same from a vegetarian diet is a lot harder to learn, you really have to want to. I still eat fish and eggs for this reaso…

It is not that difficult, just a matter of taste/preferences. There are 10s of veggies which you can cook in all combinations and with spices. Add bread, rice and you'll have dozens of dishes with all nutrients.

Re: Can We Grow More Food on Less Land?

#80

Post by weberc2 »

snarf21 wrote: post #31
agumonkey wrote: post #3

What if we all had a green wall with aquaponics ?

I think this is what it has to eventually be. We all have a garden in our garage. We save tons on transportation costs throughout the chain. It has to be near zero work. People used to all have gardens in their backyard but stopped when they could afford the cheap produce at the store.

We save tons on transportation costs, but lose many orders of magnitude more on redundant labor and economies of scale (one tractor working in a big field is a lot more economical than 1200 humans working in 1200 gardens). Maybe technological advancements will change all of that--perhaps we could have fully robotic farms, but even then I would expect one big factory farm with a handful of big, expensive robots to outperform many gardens each with a small robot.
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