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The U.S. corn belt has lost a third of its topsoil

smithsonianmag.com

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Re: The U.S. corn belt has lost a third of its topsoil

#121

Post by julianlam »

nobrains wrote: post #115

I think everyone needs to learn from the ancient wisdom on the Punjab province in India and Pakistan. Open Google earth and zoom into Punjab. It is the greenest agriculture zone in the entire world. Just look at it yourself. Now I don't know the specifics, but it is a starting point. If we are able to get the knowledge from the locals there on their ancient farming techniques, that knowledge will be net positive for…

You seem to think that GMOs mean scientists are injecting mutant genes into corn and wheat in order to increase yield. This is wrong.

GMO means the crop itself has been selectively bred over time to increase desirable qualities, yield being one of them. Taste, perhaps another.

Are you afraid of GMO foods? Perhaps you should avoid orange carrots, and sweet corn, then.

Re: The U.S. corn belt has lost a third of its topsoil

#122

Post by stefs »

tharkun__ wrote: post #82
titzer wrote: post #58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I come from a long line of farmers. My father was the last of our family to try to hold onto the farming tradition. He grew up on a farm, along with all my aunts and uncles. His generation was the first go to college. He chose business. He made a ton of money, and hated it. After leaving the business world in the mid 1980s to return to farming, it was not the same, and he soon returned to what was effectively day tra…

I'm not sure how much this actually scales and makes enough money but it sure is an awesome tale (saw the movie on Netflix - https://www.netflix.com/ca/title/81031829 ): https://www.biggestlittlefarmmovie.com/ Your dad might love it, even if just for the nostalgia. That said, I think some of the lessons in there are awesome. Both the ones about biodiversity but also perseverance in the light of 'disaster' striking an…

it's a wonderful feel-good movie (i loved it), but i'm not sure whether this is actually a sustainable farming solution. afaik they make the farm profitable tourism, i.e. the guided tours, which wouldn't scale.

Re: The U.S. corn belt has lost a third of its topsoil

#123

Post by Mediterraneo10 »

Veserv wrote: post #94
Mediterraneo10 wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How much of the water that Israel’s farms consume, depends on desalination? So, if it really long-term sustainable?

Desalination is sufficiently cheap to not be a material problem for US consumers (or other developed countries). State-of-the-art desalination plants in Israel are fulfilling contracts at ~$0.40/m^3 [1] and the per-capita water usage in the US is ~1200 m^3/yr [2]. Even if we assumed that the current price of water is $0, this would only amount to a $480/yr increase in expenditure per American which would constitute a…

Your analysis above is remarkably detailed, but it misses the point. When I used the term "sustainable" I was speaking of resource usage and environmental impact, not whether the practice was affordable.

Re: The U.S. corn belt has lost a third of its topsoil

#124

Post by alice-i-cecile »

nobrains wrote: post #115

I think everyone needs to learn from the ancient wisdom on the Punjab province in India and Pakistan. Open Google earth and zoom into Punjab. It is the greenest agriculture zone in the entire world. Just look at it yourself. Now I don't know the specifics, but it is a starting point. If we are able to get the knowledge from the locals there on their ancient farming techniques, that knowledge will be net positive for…

This is a frustrating, mystical simplification of agriculture. We can understand how these things work, and implement best practices, rather than appealing to tradition and eschewing things like synthetic fertilizers and GMO crops purely out of how "unnatural" they are.

Much of the woes in North American agriculture are down to the refusal of farmers to implement known best practices and the incredibly distortionary effect of endless layers of agricultural subsidies.

Ancient practices may have interesting things to teach us, but they're not inherently good. And to actually fix things, the people who control the land need to actually care about doing the right things.

Re: The U.S. corn belt has lost a third of its topsoil

#125

Post by kbenson »

julianlam wrote: post #121
nobrains wrote: post #115

I think everyone needs to learn from the ancient wisdom on the Punjab province in India and Pakistan. Open Google earth and zoom into Punjab. It is the greenest agriculture zone in the entire world. Just look at it yourself. Now I don't know the specifics, but it is a starting point. If we are able to get the knowledge from the locals there on their ancient farming techniques, that knowledge will be net positive for…

You seem to think that GMOs mean scientists are injecting mutant genes into corn and wheat in order to increase yield. This is wrong. GMO means the crop itself has been selectively bred over time to increase desirable qualities, yield being one of them. Taste, perhaps another. Are you afraid of GMO foods? Perhaps you should avoid orange carrots, and sweet corn, then.

> GMO means the crop itself has been selectively bred over time to increase desirable qualities

That's one thing GMO means. It can also mean genetically modified species that are resistant to a specific herbicide. For example, Round-up ready crops.

That doesn't necessarily mean breeds that have been genetically altered are bad or worse than ones bred over time, but it's incorrect to say that GMO means breeding.

Re: The U.S. corn belt has lost a third of its topsoil

#126

Post by rufus_foreman »

titzer wrote: post #58
gumby wrote: post #2

Modern farming is not the bucolic system drawn on the food packages in the supermarket. It's an extractive industry little different from mining or oil drilling. In fact industrial food is largely eating oil, both in energy intensity itself and the use of oil as feedstock for fertilizers and food additives.

I come from a long line of farmers. My father was the last of our family to try to hold onto the farming tradition. He grew up on a farm, along with all my aunts and uncles. His generation was the first go to college. He chose business. He made a ton of money, and hated it. After leaving the business world in the mid 1980s to return to farming, it was not the same, and he soon returned to what was effectively day tra…

My grandparents were all farmers. They did it for money, not because they loved corn and the smell of pig shit.

As soon as they paid off the loans for the land, they rented the farms out to someone else to work and moved to town to get easier jobs.

I love the smell of capitalism in the morning. Smells like...better than pig shit.

Re: The U.S. corn belt has lost a third of its topsoil

#127

Post by nine_k »

anonporridge wrote: post #113
titzer wrote: post #58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I come from a long line of farmers. My father was the last of our family to try to hold onto the farming tradition. He grew up on a farm, along with all my aunts and uncles. His generation was the first go to college. He chose business. He made a ton of money, and hated it. After leaving the business world in the mid 1980s to return to farming, it was not the same, and he soon returned to what was effectively day tra…

Self sustaining societies will always be out competed and subsumed by extractive ones.

Not always, but as long as the unsustainable extraction lasts. By definition, it has to run out of the stuff it's extracting.

Re: The U.S. corn belt has lost a third of its topsoil

#128

Post by DoctorNick »

awillen wrote: post #116
nobrains wrote: post #115

I think everyone needs to learn from the ancient wisdom on the Punjab province in India and Pakistan. Open Google earth and zoom into Punjab. It is the greenest agriculture zone in the entire world. Just look at it yourself. Now I don't know the specifics, but it is a starting point. If we are able to get the knowledge from the locals there on their ancient farming techniques, that knowledge will be net positive for…

GMO crops allow us to grow more food with less space/nutrients/etc. They are a solution, not a problem, and when people fear monger about them it hurts everyone.

So you'd prefer that farmers get screwed by the onerous IP clauses surrounding them?

Re: The U.S. corn belt has lost a third of its topsoil

#129

Post by tablespoon »

nobrains wrote: post #115

I think everyone needs to learn from the ancient wisdom on the Punjab province in India and Pakistan. Open Google earth and zoom into Punjab. It is the greenest agriculture zone in the entire world. Just look at it yourself. Now I don't know the specifics, but it is a starting point. If we are able to get the knowledge from the locals there on their ancient farming techniques, that knowledge will be net positive for…

> Now I don't know the specifics, but it is a starting point. If we are able to get the knowledge from the locals there on their ancient farming techniques, that knowledge will be net positive for the world.

The locals' knowledge is likely highly specific to their local environmental conditions and crop varieties, so not exportable.

Re: The U.S. corn belt has lost a third of its topsoil

#130

Post by pm90 »

DoctorNick wrote: post #128
awillen wrote: post #116

Earlier quoted context omitted.

GMO crops allow us to grow more food with less space/nutrients/etc. They are a solution, not a problem, and when people fear monger about them it hurts everyone.

So you'd prefer that farmers get screwed by the onerous IP clauses surrounding them?

No, just remove the onerous clauses rather than GMO crops.
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