Can We Grow More Food on Less Land? • Hacker News Board

Re: Can We Grow More Food on Less Land?

#211

Post by dajonker » Sat, Dec 08, 2018, 4:27 PM UTC

Growing vegetables in greenhouses can be done very efficiently. The Wageningen University researched high-tech greenhouses in Riyad (Saudi Arabia) and found that it only required 5 liter fresh water per kg tomatoes, compared to 168 liters in a low-tech greenhouse [1]. This is possible using a closed system that recycles the water that evaporates in the greenhouse. The low-tech example is a plastic tunnel without such facilities (the most commonly used type of Greenhouse in the Middle East). The yield per square meter was also 50% higher for the high-tech greenhouse compared to the low-tech greenhouse.

[1] https://www.wur.nl/nl/nieuws/Nieuwe-onderzoekskas-in-Riyad-m... (in Dutch only)

Re: Can We Grow More Food on Less Land?

#212

Post by strainer » Sat, Dec 08, 2018, 4:48 PM UTC

slededit wrote: post #180

baxtr wrote: post #174

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 t…

You didn't referenced anything approaching wholesome food.

Of course there are a few simple compounds which are edible, but most artificial additives are extracted and processed from grown inputs, and this is susceptible to unexpected health problems as happened with exposure to trans fats for decades - now banned.

> we can certainly create a synthetic smoothie with the necessities of life

That is a low bar - being capable at any cost to synthesis a smoothie with 'the necessities of life' including growth? good health? You didnt even reference that.

Re: Can We Grow More Food on Less Land?

#213

Post by ivanhoe » Sat, Dec 08, 2018, 5:07 PM UTC

JohnJamesRambo wrote: post #195

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’m sorry but this fails reason on even a basic level and reminds me of something a snopes fact check would be needed for. There is x amount of energy in sunlight and if it is going through leaves it is not available to your crop to grow. Same goes for the nutrients fueling all those trees etc. He is doing a great job at making a forest web but I’d like some verified figures for that cocoa production vs a real cocoa…

Isn't cacao tree originally a rain forest tree, in which case it's probably naturally adapted to growing surrounded by taller trees in a semi-shaded conditions?

Re: Can We Grow More Food on Less Land?

#214

Post by masklinn » Sat, Dec 08, 2018, 5:08 PM UTC

JohnJamesRambo wrote: post #195

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’m sorry but this fails reason on even a basic level and reminds me of something a snopes fact check would be needed for. There is x amount of energy in sunlight and if it is going through leaves it is not available to your crop to grow. Same goes for the nutrients fueling all those trees etc. He is doing a great job at making a forest web but I’d like some verified figures for that cocoa production vs a real cocoa…

> There is x amount of energy in sunlight and if it is going through leaves it is not available to your crop to grow.

Crops are not necessarily sun-bound, other factors/resources tend to set the growth limits.

And the cacao tree specifically is a small (under 8m) tropical tree, at such a low height it's can't have evolved as a sun-loving plant given it's only ever well below the forest's canopy.

Re: Can We Grow More Food on Less Land?

#215

Post by alisson » Sat, Dec 08, 2018, 5:09 PM UTC

JohnJamesRambo wrote: post #195

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’m sorry but this fails reason on even a basic level and reminds me of something a snopes fact check would be needed for. There is x amount of energy in sunlight and if it is going through leaves it is not available to your crop to grow. Same goes for the nutrients fueling all those trees etc. He is doing a great job at making a forest web but I’d like some verified figures for that cocoa production vs a real cocoa…

The natural habitat of Cocoa tree as usually bellow other trees, like many other species, Coffee too, it likes to be a little shaded by others, and the main thing about this method shown in the videos is very regular pruning and by organizing the organic matter in the ground the nutrients gets available for other species as well as more sunlight, so making very good use of the ecological succession - soil gets better and better naturally with nature processes - which is something very well known and studied in Botany but very little applied to agriculture, this is the gap this farmer is filling. As shown a little in the video, when he's going to grow something very sun hungry like lettuce or corn he does that by opening a big area in the forest and together with the lettuce he introduces seeds of other trees for the next natural succession.

I don't have an actual verified study to show you :/ But I believe there are a bunch of studies, as I have seeing a few universities making them, but I don't know how to find them. All I have now is my own experience on this topic.

Re: Can We Grow More Food on Less Land?

#216

Post by ceras » Sat, Dec 08, 2018, 5:17 PM UTC

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?

They are, but while intelligence does likely have a correlation with capacity for suffering, it isn't the same thing. For example, a human infant is much less intelligent than an adult, but we do not typically believe their capacity for suffering is lower than an adult.

Cross-species capacity for suffering is still under heavy research, but the general consensus is that birds (including chickens) have a comparable capacity of suffering to mammals. This is considered likely true or at least plausibly true for fish as well, though their brains are sufficiently different from mammals and birds that there's still more research going on to understand it more. Animals that likely have no capacity for suffering are bivalves, for example.

It'll take a lot more research to figure out the concrete answer for those in between (e.g. insects, where the latest I've heard is that the most they can suffer is similar to an annoyance or mild pain from a human perspective).

Re: Can We Grow More Food on Less Land?

#217

Post by sametmax » Sat, Dec 08, 2018, 5:21 PM UTC

We don't need to.

- The part of the world that consumes the most eats too much. A balanced diet would reduce greatly the food consumption.

- The part of the world that consumes the most wastes a huge quantity of the food it produces.

- Human don't need to eat meat to be healthy and we are past the need for hunting for survival. We can even produce non animal b12 supplements if we ever need to. Since most food are grown to be fed to cattle, if we stop eating meat, we suddently multiply our food flow by a huge amount while diminushing the water consumption, pollution, and a lot of public health issues.

Food is not a production problem anymore. It's a social and political one.

Re: Can We Grow More Food on Less Land?

#218

Post by metalrain » Sat, Dec 08, 2018, 5:25 PM UTC

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.

Price, if supply keeps somewhat constant but demand raises I think many would (have to) choose otherwise.

Re: Can We Grow More Food on Less Land?

#219

Post by [deleted] » Sat, Dec 08, 2018, 5:34 PM UTC

JohnJamesRambo wrote: post #195

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’m sorry but this fails reason on even a basic level and reminds me of something a snopes fact check would be needed for. There is x amount of energy in sunlight and if it is going through leaves it is not available to your crop to grow. Same goes for the nutrients fueling all those trees etc. He is doing a great job at making a forest web but I’d like some verified figures for that cocoa production vs a real cocoa…

[deleted]

Re: Can We Grow More Food on Less Land?

#220

Post by agsdfgsd » Sat, Dec 08, 2018, 5:35 PM UTC

randyrand wrote: post #134

maccam94 wrote: post #132

From a recent Bloomberg article[1] The last two graphs show that 41% of the land in the contiguous 48 states is used for feeding livestock. More than 33% of the 48 states is just pasture, most of which I believe is used by cattle. What would it take to shift protein consumption from beef (3% efficient) to products like poultry (21%) and eggs (31%)? [2] I think we have to take a hard look at taxes, fees, and subsidies…

wow. those numbers are so cool. never knew poultry was so efficient. No wonder it’s so much cheaper. What would it take to make beef production more efficient? genetic engineering perhaps. People wil naturally switch to more efficient food as population goes up and food resources become more scarce.

>What would it take to make beef production more efficient?

Nothing. Large animals that live long lives are inefficient by their very nature. The bigger an animal is, the more of its energy consumption goes to maintenance rather than growth. And the longer it lives before reaching slaughter weight, the more that inefficiency compounds. If you somehow turned cattle into 5 pound animals that mature in 6 weeks, they would be efficient, but they also wouldn't really qualify as cattle any more and their meat would likely be noticeably different than beef.