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Long Live Microbiomes

blogs.scientificamerican.com

11–20 of 50 posts

Re: Long Live Microbiomes

#12
Just a question for those in the know: is regenerative farming even scalable to meet the needs of a booming population? Can grow enough food without current industrial agriculture?

Re: Long Live Microbiomes

#13

Just read the beginning so far, but it sounds like home-grown is safe (even if not self-started plants) ? Ie, the article (so far) makes it sound like it's an issue of soil microbiome. If that's the case, and I no-dig grow my own veggies, I'd be okay?

They are saying corn is toxic because it has round-up chemicals in it - and they can't be washed off. So growing food in your backyard, assuming you don't spray it or have heavy metals in your soil that are ingested by the crop, are likely fine. How alive is your backyard's soil? A lab would have to analyze it. It may or may not have the right minerals, depending on what you're trying to grow.

Can't you just get ecological produce or elsewise produced without round up?

Re: Long Live Microbiomes

#14
post #11

Wow, so some food has had their nutrients decreased by 100%? Seems a bit far fetched to me.

'Minerals and trace elements'. Makes you wonder how they calculated the 'trace elements' (whatever those are) in food from decades ago? Easy! Just say you did.

Re: Long Live Microbiomes

#15
post #4

I just can't make it very far in articles like this anymore. I've heard too many breathless food/nutrition takes vectored in too many different directions, and now I'm utterly desensitized. And part of me is screaming for citations while the other part knows that an examination of the literature would reveal the same structures, just one level deeper---one or more warring camps that aren't even talking to each other…

How do you use a small set of scientific studies to prove one is better? Studies are reductionist, which is a very powerful and useful perspective...but not as useful when you have to measure a dynamic living system that can be optimized along maybe 100 dimensions or more? Worse, what is the funding source of these studies, and what incentives are tied to it?

So you have many different types of soils, and that will produce variations. You have different histories on those soils, you can measure for a dozen minerals, but what about those tiny trace minerals? Top soil optimization...nutrient run-off that creates fungal blooms in the ocean killing life in the ocean, price per pound to produce produce, shelf life of produce, how it looks, is the taste in fashion ----- so take those dimensions that you can measure things on --- and then multiply that by the number of different veggies and fruits and all their different types (eg. how many different apples are there??)

It's too massive problem space to solve with a few studies...and the financial incentives and ideological thinking further muddies the waters.

Re: Long Live Microbiomes

#17
post #12

Just a question for those in the know: is regenerative farming even scalable to meet the needs of a booming population? Can grow enough food without current industrial agriculture?

I'm not sure if the amount of plants grown for direct human consumption is still too big. Especially the protein rich ones, like beans, lentils.

I believe the booming population thirsty for beef, chicken and similar massive products is driving the agriculture of corn, soybean and wheat to its limits.

Re: Long Live Microbiomes

#18
post #5

Just read the beginning so far, but it sounds like home-grown is safe (even if not self-started plants) ? Ie, the article (so far) makes it sound like it's an issue of soil microbiome. If that's the case, and I no-dig grow my own veggies, I'd be okay?

You'd probably be ok, if you only ate the veggies you grew yourself. But what about meat, dairy and other animal products? What about bread, rice and other cereals?

you don’t necessarily need meat, dairy, other animal products, bread, rice, and other cereals.

Re: Long Live Microbiomes

#19
post #9

Why would Scientific American have a blog post from an organic farmer devoid of any reference to studies or actual science?

Scientific American is another magazine like Quanta. A lot of exacting discussion of very little substance.
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