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Investors say agroforestry is climate friendly and also profitable

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Re: Investors say agroforestry is climate friendly and also profitable

#131

Post by Ericson2314 »

armenarmen wrote: post #67
konschubert wrote: post #62

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Wouldn’t it be easier to just plant something else every other year? I thought this was solved literally 1000 years ago: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Three-field_system

I was always confused by this as well. Then I spoke to a person working in agriculture, apparently chemical fertilizers are cheap enough to make crop rotation redundant.

Yup. When the problem is we refuse to price in the externalities, technological solutions are probably doomed, or at least nothing to be broad of.

First jack up punitive taxes, then let tech do it's job. Market economics works far better when demand comes before supply.

Re: Investors say agroforestry is climate friendly and also profitable

#132

Post by Ericson2314 »

hosh wrote: post #107
JoeAltmaier wrote: post #95

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Much of big Ag is an effort to shortcut all this. Use a chisel plow to break up compacted soil. Add ammonia. Use earth movers to create more flat land with useful soils. Etc. The advantages are clear: you can decide when to do these things, and do them on a short schedule. Its hard to argue waiting 5 years for some remediation project to maybe work, when I have a chisel plow right over there in the shed.

Yeah. Big Ag is not incentivized to be sustainable, let alone be regenerative. Big Ag is certainly not resilient. Its very reward system (like modern commerce in general) is based on the extraction of resources (whether that be in the earth, or people resources), and then controlling access to them. Overharvesting always happen, because we're culturally conditioned to define wealth and status in terms of how much one…

I love "decentralization" as much as the next person on HN, but one the problem is not pricing in the externalities, I am not sure centralization is the problem.

A few bleeding hearts can run a parallel economy for good X with an alternate value function, but this doesn't really scale in and of itself.

Now, if someone combines alt grid / alt farms with lobbying for punitive tax in the smallest surrounding jurisdiction that can enforce it, perhaps that might work.

Re: Investors say agroforestry is climate friendly and also profitable

#133

Post by tootie »

hosh wrote: post #116
tootie wrote: post #64

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How long until we can deploy fleets of microdrones capable of killing pests with computer vision and lasers?

Or, I can plant things that repel specific pests, plant things that attract the natural predators of that pest, or plant sunflowers and tobacco as sacrificial plants. I can let the chickens go after the pests. I can recognize that sometimes, the pests are a solution to a different problem, and adjust things accordingly. All of those solutions are more resilient than microdrones, computer vision, and laser. These high…

If that were true farmers would already be doing it.

Re: Investors say agroforestry is climate friendly and also profitable

#134

Post by ellis-bell »

tootie wrote: post #133
hosh wrote: post #116

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Or, I can plant things that repel specific pests, plant things that attract the natural predators of that pest, or plant sunflowers and tobacco as sacrificial plants. I can let the chickens go after the pests. I can recognize that sometimes, the pests are a solution to a different problem, and adjust things accordingly. All of those solutions are more resilient than microdrones, computer vision, and laser. These high…

If that were true farmers would already be doing it.

the whole efficient markets argument requires pressure in both directions. no one is short selling farmers.

just like how if a house is overpriced and real estate investors believe it that doesn't mean there's going to be adequate downward pressure (in expectation) to prevent an unlucky family from overpaying on the house. (there is upward pressure, though, because of house flipping)

and since entry into the agriculture industry is pretty steep, it's not like anyone who has an idea can just build a farm with a cool robust idea that is more optimal than the current solution.

the other difficulty is the extensive time horizons to implement the solution suggested by hosh. farmers can't just drop everything they're doing this season, implement regenerative ag ideas today and reap the benefits come harvest this year.

it's the same issue with organic. transitioning to organic is a time and cost intensive process for farmers (it can take a few years to be fully certified). only a small percentage of farms produce organic even though it commands a higher price.

edit: added this year to end of paragraph 4

Re: Investors say agroforestry is climate friendly and also profitable

#135

Post by jirdperson »

core-questions wrote: post #112
hosh wrote: post #107

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah. Big Ag is not incentivized to be sustainable, let alone be regenerative. Big Ag is certainly not resilient. Its very reward system (like modern commerce in general) is based on the extraction of resources (whether that be in the earth, or people resources), and then controlling access to them. Overharvesting always happen, because we're culturally conditioned to define wealth and status in terms of how much one…

> we're culturally conditioned to define wealth and status in terms of how much one has hoarded more than other people. Do you have an alternative to this? This is basically animal behaviour, it's not unique to humans. Most of that hoarding is out of an effort to get a mate, too.

I mean, just look at the massive variety of human cultures that have existed since the dawn of civilization.

Re: Investors say agroforestry is climate friendly and also profitable

#136

Post by hinkley »

JoeAltmaier wrote: post #95
hosh wrote: post #94

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah. And not only that, the "regenerative agriculture" mentioned in the article isn't just about sustainable practices, where we put back into the soilwhat we take out. Regenerative practices includes practices where soil fertility is built up year after year as a result of the agricultural practices. In other words, you can take a depleted land and bring it back up into productive land, and potentially, become more…

Much of big Ag is an effort to shortcut all this. Use a chisel plow to break up compacted soil. Add ammonia. Use earth movers to create more flat land with useful soils. Etc. The advantages are clear: you can decide when to do these things, and do them on a short schedule. Its hard to argue waiting 5 years for some remediation project to maybe work, when I have a chisel plow right over there in the shed.

Some of the regen folks hate the chisel plow, think it causes most of the problems you then have to deal with.

Re: Investors say agroforestry is climate friendly and also profitable

#137

Post by danans »

mikeg8 wrote: post #28
freeqaz wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think there are a few benefits that they're (poorly) trying to articulate in the article, so I'll fill in with my own (biased) thoughts. :) - Growing trees in rows alongside feed crops (like hay) is more profitable for farmers because they gain additional income from fruit trees + lumber sales. - More trees that get to grow pulls CO2 from the atmosphere and is good for the environment. - There is a symbiotic relati…

This is a great answer, thank you for articulating. My only disagreement would be in regards to government being the only institution with the economic incentive to do invest here, long-term. From my understanding of the federal governments involvement in agriculture subsidies, the government seems to be much more in support of the entrenched, large-scale industrial farming systems. I hope for a future where our depa…

> My only disagreement would be in regards to government being the only institution with the economic incentive to do invest here, long-term.

If not government what other sort of institution do you think has the ability to make such civilization scale investments, with the associated short-term risks? Corporations won't do it, nor will venture capital, private equity, investment banks, retail investors. What's left?

> From my understanding of the federal governments involvement in agriculture subsidies, the government seems to be much more in support of the entrenched, large-scale industrial farming systems.

Which kind of demonstrates that it's capable of supporting a long-term investment in agriculture, but that it is perhaps putting that support behind the wrong approach considering the threat of climate change.

Re: Investors say agroforestry is climate friendly and also profitable

#139

Post by eru »

Ericson2314 wrote: post #132
hosh wrote: post #107

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah. Big Ag is not incentivized to be sustainable, let alone be regenerative. Big Ag is certainly not resilient. Its very reward system (like modern commerce in general) is based on the extraction of resources (whether that be in the earth, or people resources), and then controlling access to them. Overharvesting always happen, because we're culturally conditioned to define wealth and status in terms of how much one…

I love "decentralization" as much as the next person on HN, but one the problem is not pricing in the externalities, I am not sure centralization is the problem. A few bleeding hearts can run a parallel economy for good X with an alternate value function, but this doesn't really scale in and of itself. Now, if someone combines alt grid / alt farms with lobbying for punitive tax in the smallest surrounding jurisdictio…

And I am somewhat suspicious of the complaints about sustainability.

If modern agriculture is bad for soil in the long run, the owners of the soil surely will have an opinion about that. That's not even an externality.

The only thing holding back soil sustainability would be high interest rates. But that hasn't been a thing in more than a decade.

Re: Investors say agroforestry is climate friendly and also profitable

#140

Post by mrich »

hodgesrm wrote: post #19

It's really surprising to me that we tend to focus on sustainability rather than simple economic benefits when pitching initiatives to combat climate change. Case in point: The US had a great opportunity to sell alternative energy sources as way to get off Middle East oil after 9/11. Instead we continued to consume oil like there's no tomorrow while squandering trillions on fruitless wars.

Where did the money go, whom did it benefit? The military-industrial complex wants to be fed.
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