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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?

#171

Post by lyime »

analog31 wrote: post #111
jlawson wrote: post #108

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Big farm machines are dumb. If we could instead build swarms of self-maintaining intelligent human-scale robots, perhaps working with genetically engineered work animals (monkeys?), they could hand-plant, hand-till, and hand-harvest crops at a far greater efficiency with far less disruption to the ecosystem. Picture ten thousand dog-sized robots going individually planting and caring for and harvesting millions of pl…

I've read that in colonial times, people simply let pigs loose in the woods, then hunted them down later on when they were fattened up.

This won’t give you predictable yields. Though a combination of that idea and automation could work.

Re: Can We Grow More Food on Less Land?

#172

Post by barry-cotter »

ericd wrote: post #97
ceras wrote: post #93

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Before adopting this approach, please be aware that chicken has substantially higher animal welfare costs than beef -- likely by orders of magnitude. This makes the calculus more complex, such that if you're sympathetic to animal welfare you may very well reverse the recommendation[0]. The safest recommendations are plant-based alternatives (e.g. Beyond Burger) or fueling cell-based meat research. A good book on how…

You have to raise and kill more chickens per pound of meat, but aren't they much, much less intelligent than cows?

Yes, but most meat chickens and egg chickens live out their lives in cages, without enough space to turn around with their beaks mutilated. Most cattle live the enormous majority of their lives in a kind of cattle paradise in comparison, with ever present adequate food, no predators and some modicum of medical care.

Re: Can We Grow More Food on Less Land?

#174

Post by baxtr »

slededit wrote: post #165
strainer wrote: post #141

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> From a fundamental standpoint of physics and available materials, nutrients are relatively easy to get; as far as I know, most vitamins and minerals are pretty cheap to either come by naturally or manufacture, and you don't need that much of any of them to keep a person healthy, so let's assume food energy is the real limiting factor here. Food is more complicated than this picture. So much that nutritionists have…

> There have been many, perhaps endless attempts to synthesize a wholesome food product - it would be worth a fortune. I am aware of zero successes to date and this shouldn't be the case if its not very difficult. We don't even synthesize sugar for consumption - maybe start there, but it is not even clear if/how much it causes diabetes or other diseases. There are lots of synthetic foods. The main problem is marketin…

Could you cite studies and give examples?

Re: Can We Grow More Food on Less Land?

#175

Post by brownbat »

aaronblohowiak wrote: post #164
brownbat wrote: post #154

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> just cutting meat farm subsidies Most farm subsidies do not go directly to meat. In fact, current subsidies probably shift some land away from pastures and grazing to oversupplied field crops: https://www.downsizinggovernment.org/agriculture/subsidies You can absolutely be both against the farm bill and simultaneously in favor of reducing American meat consumption... But you're probably looking at corn and soy subs…

Where do you think most of that corn goes?

Feed, like I acknowledged in my original comment.

> ...corn and soy subsidies that in turn make cheaper feed...

Re: Can We Grow More Food on Less Land?

#176

Post by fyfy18 »

ghthor wrote: post #123
flavor8 wrote: post #99

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Our large scale farming strategies seem fundamentally ignorant. For a great example of this, check out: http://nautil.us/issue/66/clockwork/herbicide-is-whats-for-d...

Wow, that is such an anti earth practice. How can we change this type of insanity? How can we protect our own guts?

Voting with your wallet is a good start. In the EU there are strict requirements on what can be labeled ecological, including the use of the EU ecolabel. I believe the US has similar labelling.

If you local supermarket doesn't have a suitable stock of ecological supplies, write to them and ask for some, or start shopping at an organic shop.

Re: Can We Grow More Food on Less Land?

#177

Post by fyfy18 »

misterprime wrote: post #159
jlawson wrote: post #108

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Big farm machines are dumb. If we could instead build swarms of self-maintaining intelligent human-scale robots, perhaps working with genetically engineered work animals (monkeys?), they could hand-plant, hand-till, and hand-harvest crops at a far greater efficiency with far less disruption to the ecosystem. Picture ten thousand dog-sized robots going individually planting and caring for and harvesting millions of pl…

Or just pay humans?

After Brexit I can only see practices like this increasing in the UK. A lot of the farm work is done by immigrants, because natives don't want to do the work. People aren't going to pay more for food, so the wages can't go up, meaning more 'efficient' farming practices will be used.

Re: Can We Grow More Food on Less Land?

#178

Post by stareatgoats »

fyfy18 wrote: post #176
ghthor wrote: post #123

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Wow, that is such an anti earth practice. How can we change this type of insanity? How can we protect our own guts?

Voting with your wallet is a good start. In the EU there are strict requirements on what can be labeled ecological, including the use of the EU ecolabel. I believe the US has similar labelling. If you local supermarket doesn't have a suitable stock of ecological supplies, write to them and ask for some, or start shopping at an organic shop.

Tangential: what corresponding labels or certifications are there in the US and are they in any way government backed like the EU Ecolabel?

Re: Can We Grow More Food on Less Land?

#179

Post by Fnoord »

08-15 wrote: post #130
beat wrote: post #86

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Isn't that exactly what we're doing, though? The essence of cheap junk calories is grain (flour), soybean oil (another plant with similar growing needs), sugar (largely from grain in the US - high fructose corn syrup - but sugarcane is also easy to grow at scale), and meat from grain-fed chickens and cows. All this stuff is shipped to factories, where it is broken down into refined materials for other factories, that…

> junk food - burgers, sliced bread, candy bars Sliced bread?! What isn't junk food in your estimation?

It might depend on where you live, but whole wheat bread is on its way out here. Instead, bread is getting coloured to look like whole wheat bread.

Re: Can We Grow More Food on Less Land?

#180

Post by slededit »

baxtr wrote: post #174
slededit wrote: post #165

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> There have been many, perhaps endless attempts to synthesize a wholesome food product - it would be worth a fortune. I am aware of zero successes to date and this shouldn't be the case if its not very difficult. We don't even synthesize sugar for consumption - maybe start there, but it is not even clear if/how much it causes diabetes or other diseases. There are lots of synthetic foods. The main problem is marketin…

Could you cite studies and give examples?

What specifically are you looking for? That synthetic foods exist? Google provides many results on the subject. You probably have already eaten some synthetic ingredients.

For a real world example sugar was first synthesized in 1953 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sucrose#Chemical_synthesis

Carbohydrate synthesis is also a well studied field. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carbohydrate_synthesis

Many vitamin additives today are artifical. And of course artificial flavoring has vast commercial adoption. In the case of McDonald's french fries this was used to dramatically reduce the amount of saturated fat while maintaining the beef flavor - they are no longer deep fried in beef talow.

We can't yet recreate the texture of a pepper, but we can certainly create a synthetic smoothie with the necessities of life. Organic chemistry is a rich field of study.

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