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

Re: Can We Grow More Food on Less Land?

#271

Post by agsdfgsd » Tue, Dec 11, 2018, 1:23 PM UTC

hinkley wrote: post #267

agsdfgsd wrote: post #262

Earlier quoted context omitted.

On one hand we have physical evidence and scientists, on the other hand we have you saying "my family has been destroying the soil for a long time and learned nothing the whole time". While you may find the latter more compelling, I do not. Weeds are early colonizing species, frequently foreign invasives, not natives. They do not always outperform crop species, as demonstrated by the millions of acres where they are…

> There's a reason the majority of farms in the US and Canada are already no-till. I have heard this several times lately. But I grew up around tilled (sometimes double tilled) farmland, and I still see a lot of tilled earth when I'm out of town and think to look. What do we mean by most and what definition of no-till are we using?

We mean more than 50% of the farmed acres, and the definition is not tilling. Using a no-till planter to seed through the residue of the previous crop or cover crop. Most of the tilled acres are using some form of conservation tillage too, like strip till. Get out of Ontario and go look at a real farm.

Re: Can We Grow More Food on Less Land?

#272

Post by jessriedel » Tue, Dec 11, 2018, 5:34 PM UTC

strainer wrote: post #269

jessriedel wrote: post #268

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> bonding and structural differences which are assessed to be biologically insignificant. Are there specific plausible possibilities in nutritionally required molecules that you are referring to here, or is this just a "no one knows for sure" argument? > Prions for example were easily described as chemically equivalent to their other phenotypes Did anyone ever actually point to a container of prions and mistakenly de…

> People have already subsisted on fully synthetic diets (aka elemental diets) in the past ... they do fine. We managed to establish that what you wrote there is wrong. That was my primary goal because it contradicted my other main comment, but I hope you can take that information in, and perhaps think about what lead you to that mistaken confidence. The elemental diet is not fully synthetic - it is mostly grown... >…

> We managed to establish that what you wrote there is wrong.

No, we just didn't find citations.

It sounds like you're more interested in proving me wrong, and giving a well-worn lecture about scientific modesty, than in telling me something new, so I don't think there's much to be gained from continuing.

Re: Can We Grow More Food on Less Land?

#273

Post by [deleted] » Tue, Dec 11, 2018, 7:45 PM UTC

jessriedel wrote: post #272

strainer wrote: post #269

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> People have already subsisted on fully synthetic diets (aka elemental diets) in the past ... they do fine. We managed to establish that what you wrote there is wrong. That was my primary goal because it contradicted my other main comment, but I hope you can take that information in, and perhaps think about what lead you to that mistaken confidence. The elemental diet is not fully synthetic - it is mostly grown... >…

> We managed to establish that what you wrote there is wrong. No, we just didn't find citations. It sounds like you're more interested in proving me wrong, and giving a well-worn lecture about scientific modesty, than in telling me something new, so I don't think there's much to be gained from continuing.

[deleted]

Re: Can We Grow More Food on Less Land?

#274

Post by strainer » Tue, Dec 11, 2018, 9:17 PM UTC

jessriedel wrote: post #272

strainer wrote: post #269

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> People have already subsisted on fully synthetic diets (aka elemental diets) in the past ... they do fine. We managed to establish that what you wrote there is wrong. That was my primary goal because it contradicted my other main comment, but I hope you can take that information in, and perhaps think about what lead you to that mistaken confidence. The elemental diet is not fully synthetic - it is mostly grown... >…

> We managed to establish that what you wrote there is wrong. No, we just didn't find citations. It sounds like you're more interested in proving me wrong, and giving a well-worn lecture about scientific modesty, than in telling me something new, so I don't think there's much to be gained from continuing.

Yet again it is not true that we didn't find citations - I did for you. This avoidance and complaining about being given a worn out lecture really seems like bad faith. I wouldn't say that but you left our previous argument saying it to me, on the back of a completely erroneous dismissal of peer reviewed evidence I brought - to show you something new. Ok, better faith next time I hope, and when you can show me something new...

Re: Can We Grow More Food on Less Land?

#275

Post by naravara » Tue, Dec 11, 2018, 10:04 PM UTC

weberc2 wrote: post #266

naravara wrote: post #265

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Basically efficiency isn't the chief concern. If you really have a bunch of people with nothing better to do with their time (e.g. Fortnite), then we don't really need to care about allocating labor as efficiently as possible to maximize yield. We can use labor in a very inefficient (where yield is concerned) way if we think it will confer ecological, aesthetic, or sociological side-benefits, as would having lots of…

I'm not sure whether you're taking issue with leisure time generally or the tendency for people to participate in leisure that you believe is inefficient, but both are orthogonal to the question of which type of agricultural system is more efficient. In particular, if your solution is simply "spend less time on [your current] leisure activities!", it can be applied to either aggricultural system. In the case of speci…

I'm not talking about leisure time. I'm talking about structural unemployment.

Re: Can We Grow More Food on Less Land?

#276

Post by mikekchar » Tue, Dec 11, 2018, 11:53 PM UTC

agsdfgsd wrote: post #193

mikekchar wrote: post #150

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Depending on what you mean, either yes or no :-) This is based on my poor understanding of the situation. Someone who is knowledgeable will hopefully be able to correct me. I think there are actually plenty of nutrients in soil (even many "poor" soils). The real problem is that they aren't bio-available. So you'll have lots of different mineral salts in the soil (usually one or two orders of magnitude more than you n…

>Really you want a variety of plants pulling up nutrients out of the ground (because different varieties have different abilities to break down and convert the nutrients in the soil) That doesn't appear to be needed. The plants don't have the ability at all, the microorganisms they attract and feed do it. You can build fertility while growing a single crop year after year, Fukuoka did rice and wheat every year for de…

> Fukuoka did rice and wheat every year for decades on the same land just fine.

Fukuoka also used wild carrots and daikon to bring up nutrients from lower down (source: My friend studied with him). Also white clover to fix nitrogen (and even went so far as to say, "Don't bother experimenting with anything else. I've tried everything and white clover is the best."). Rice is a summer crop and in most places in Japan you can have a winter crop as well, which you use for nutrient migration. Fukuoka's techniques work very well around where I like (my friend's fields are fantastic), but apparently don't work very well in more temperate climes (just from what I've heard).

Re: Can We Grow More Food on Less Land?

#277

Post by agsdfgsd » Wed, Dec 12, 2018, 3:50 PM UTC

mikekchar wrote: post #276

agsdfgsd wrote: post #193

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>Really you want a variety of plants pulling up nutrients out of the ground (because different varieties have different abilities to break down and convert the nutrients in the soil) That doesn't appear to be needed. The plants don't have the ability at all, the microorganisms they attract and feed do it. You can build fertility while growing a single crop year after year, Fukuoka did rice and wheat every year for de…

> Fukuoka did rice and wheat every year for decades on the same land just fine. Fukuoka also used wild carrots and daikon to bring up nutrients from lower down (source: My friend studied with him). Also white clover to fix nitrogen (and even went so far as to say, "Don't bother experimenting with anything else. I've tried everything and white clover is the best."). Rice is a summer crop and in most places in Japan yo…

>Fukuoka also used wild carrots and daikon to bring up nutrients from lower down (source: My friend studied with him).

Not according to him he didn't. Read his books, he was very clear about everything he did. He grew vegetables to eat, in a completely different area, it had nothing to do with the grain field.

>Also white clover to fix nitrogen

Nitrogen is a non-issue precisely because you can pull it out of the air for free. You said you want a variety of plants to pull nutrients from the ground. Clover pulling nitrogen from the air is not support for that idea.

>Rice is a summer crop and in most places in Japan you can have a winter crop as well, which you use for nutrient migration.

But he didn't do that, he used it for a crop. He did rice and wheat, like I said. Both were crops, he sold the harvests. He did it for decades without any decline in yields. The idea that you need a "diverse polyculture" of plants as the current fad calls it is completely unsupported by evidence. They just need a healthy ecosystem to grow in, not necessarily different plants.

>Fukuoka's techniques work very well around where I like (my friend's fields are fantastic), but apparently don't work very well in more temperate climes

The techniques and ideas work fine, but you can't blindly copy his setup as it was. You don't have the season for two crops, so you don't do rice and wheat. You just do wheat. Marc Bonfils has grown winter wheat every year in the same field for over a decade with no inputs, no rotation, and yields increased each year as the soil was restored. If you are in a cold enough climate it might even make sense to compost your straw in the spring in order to warm your soil up earlier, but I am not sure about that yet, I'll be testing it this spring.

Re: Can We Grow More Food on Less Land?

#278

Post by beat » Wed, Dec 12, 2018, 9:31 PM UTC

agsdfgsd wrote: post #261

beat wrote: post #259

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You seem very certain. "Future survival of our own species"? Nah. The last human being will eat the last cockroach. We have made technology to adapt to living on the moon. We might make things painful for humanity in general, might even break civilization (although I think that's unlikely). But survival of the species? We haven't yet invented technology that can wipe out humans. As for our "evil", "obscenely inflated…

>The last human being will eat the last cockroach The evidence is not on your side. >Because the only "solution" I can see to this thing that horrifies you is what the Nazis called a Final Solution. Uh, the solution to do what the article suggests. Grow more food on less land so that population growth doesn't come at the expense of the last shreds of wilderness on the planet. How does one get to the point where you t…

We're already growing more calories per acre than any time in history, by a large margin. Mostly doing the very agricultural practices you decry, the ones that are "destroying the planet". That's one reason the population has grown so rapidly - famine is no longer keeping it in check.

"The last shreds of wilderness" is an absurd hyperbole. There's still a lot of wilderness left, and I think we're approaching maximum land under cultivation. (checks google) As a matter of fact... in 1970, 4.48B hectares were cultivated. in 2008, it was 4.83B, a So where does this leave the original study? Does it assume there will be no improvement in yield? Is farming more land the only solution being tried? Obviously not. What they're breathlessly recommending is exactly what we've been doing for over half a century now (really, about two centuries) - improving yield.

Re: Can We Grow More Food on Less Land?

#279

Post by agsdfgsd » Wed, Dec 12, 2018, 10:41 PM UTC

beat wrote: post #278

agsdfgsd wrote: post #261

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>The last human being will eat the last cockroach The evidence is not on your side. >Because the only "solution" I can see to this thing that horrifies you is what the Nazis called a Final Solution. Uh, the solution to do what the article suggests. Grow more food on less land so that population growth doesn't come at the expense of the last shreds of wilderness on the planet. How does one get to the point where you t…

We're already growing more calories per acre than any time in history, by a large margin. Mostly doing the very agricultural practices you decry, the ones that are "destroying the planet". That's one reason the population has grown so rapidly - famine is no longer keeping it in check. "The last shreds of wilderness" is an absurd hyperbole. There's still a lot of wilderness left, and I think we're approaching maximum…

>Mostly doing the very agricultural practices you decry, the ones that are "destroying the planet".

What are you talking about? We're doing it using the increased atmospheric CO2. Slash and burn is what is destroying the planet, and it has terrible long term productivity. That's why they have to keep slashing and burning.

>There's still a lot of wilderness left, and I think we're approaching maximum land under cultivation.

The acres currently under cultivation is entirely irrelevant. If I burn down 100 acres of rainforest every year and cultivate it, its always 100 acres of cultivated land. But I am destroying 100 acres of wilderness every year. The land that is now a barren wasteland still matters, even though I am no longer cultivating it.

>What they're breathlessly recommending is exactly what we've been doing for over half a century now (really, about two centuries) - improving yield.

Except we're not doing that, which is the point. We accidentally did that with CO2 emissions, but we're reaching the limits of what increased atmospheric CO2 can do. Once CO2 is no longer the limiting factor for growth, no amount of extra CO2 will help. Agricultural science is not interested in producing more food with less, it is interested in producing more profit.

Re: Can We Grow More Food on Less Land?

#280

Post by Chyzwar » Wed, Dec 12, 2018, 10:49 PM UTC

agsdfgsd wrote: post #262

Chyzwar wrote: post #253

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Weeds are just plants that are native. They will always outperform genetically modified foreign crops that are optimized for yield. Some fast-growing crops can dominate weeds but you will still want to till for other reasons. I watched this video and she has no compelling evidence that this can work on a large scale. My family is doing farming for generations. You need fertilizers because crops consume minerals from…

On one hand we have physical evidence and scientists, on the other hand we have you saying "my family has been destroying the soil for a long time and learned nothing the whole time". While you may find the latter more compelling, I do not. Weeds are early colonizing species, frequently foreign invasives, not natives. They do not always outperform crop species, as demonstrated by the millions of acres where they are…

> On one hand we have physical evidence and scientists, on the other hand we have you saying "my family has been destroying the soil for a long time and learned nothing the whole time". While you may find the latter more compelling, I do not.

Do not underestimate farmers. They might not be smart individually but good ideas spread very quickly. If the above scientist shows me a farm that is a 100h size and makes a profit then we can talk.

> Weeds are early colonizing species, frequently foreign invasives, not natives. They do not always outperform crop species, as demonstrated by the millions of acres where they are outcompeted by the crops. You create barren lifeless dirt, precisely the niche early colonizing species evolved to fill. Of course they fill it. Just because you create your own problem, doesn't mean the rest of us to suffer from that problem too.

Cucumber/tomato/potato/radish and are not native to Europe. Not only that but most of the vegetables you eat is heavily modified by selective breeding to increase yield. Weeds, on the other hand, are aggressive plants that optimize for survival. You contradict yourself, how land be barren and lifeless when weeds grow perfectly. Weeds grow because you need have certain spacing between your crops. You either need to use chemicals or labour and tilling to ensure high yield. In some cases, you can reduce tilling when the plant is aggressive enough (corn) in others it is not possible.

> You do not want to till for other reasons, literally the entire purpose of tilling is to hinder plant growth. The fact that it hinders crop growth, as well as weed growth, seems to be lost on many people. There's a reason the majority of farms in the US and Canada are already no-till.

You will till to prepare for sowing. Even "no-till" farmers will till to some extent. There is more no-till because chemical solutions are better. My parents reduced tiling after using herbicide that can be used to target weeds in specific periods after crops are already growing.

> I have no idea what your last point is even supposed to mean. Tilling is labor. "I don't have unlimited labor so I will use my limited labor on a process that increases my costs and lowers my yields" is pretty hard to make sense of.

Because you are not a farmer. Tilling is a very quick procedure that is not labour intensive. By labour, I mean manually removing weeds before they spill seeds or outgrow crops. For many vegetable/fruits, manual weeding is still essential.