Right now there is no financial incentive to preserve topsoil. In the future there will be. So why artificially create incentive to pay the higher cost now when we can punt to the future where technology will be so much better and the cost will probably be lower?
What makes your you think that in the future there will be financial incentive?
If there is no financial insetive in the future it's because we don't need top soil in the corn belt and we saved ourselves and he cost of dealing with this problem which ended up being irrelevant.
Yes. But most of the crop grown in that 'corn belt' is not for human consumption, it's for feeding livestock. We're destroying farmland to feed our need for meat. The rest of the crop in the Corn Belt--soybeans--is mostly exported abroad.
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 dad came from a farming family (dad worked in construction, but 3 of his brothers and 2 sisters had farms). Over time, they all lost or gave up their farms because they couldn't compete against the corporate farms. Two of them continued to farm their own land after selling their farms, but they no longer lived there.
Just imagine how much Glyphosate has been dumped on that soil. Don't know if it's true but someone once told me nothing will grow in a corn field for 5 years afterwards unless it is roundup ready.
There has been a lot of talk lately we are like 60 harvests away from disaster.
Just imagine how much Glyphosate has been dumped on that soil. Don't know if it's true but someone once told me nothing will grow in a corn field for 5 years afterwards unless it is roundup ready. There has been a lot of talk lately we are like 60 harvests away from disaster. https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/only-60-years-of-... *Generating three centimeters of top soil takes 1,000 years* We are f...ed the…
> Might have to start gardening locally (back yard)
No reason not to start now depending on where you are. I grow for flavour and value not calories.
Just imagine how much Glyphosate has been dumped on that soil. Don't know if it's true but someone once told me nothing will grow in a corn field for 5 years afterwards unless it is roundup ready. There has been a lot of talk lately we are like 60 harvests away from disaster. https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/only-60-years-of-... *Generating three centimeters of top soil takes 1,000 years* We are f...ed the…
i see neighbors using Glyphosate all the time. don't know how its even still sold in stores.
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…
> globalization
this is it right here. we're extracting all nutrients from a concentrated area and sending the yields far away. There's no replenishment.
Even the water shortages in California is not as simple as "farmers are using all the water". It's the demand for food far, far away.
Just imagine how much Glyphosate has been dumped on that soil. Don't know if it's true but someone once told me nothing will grow in a corn field for 5 years afterwards unless it is roundup ready. There has been a lot of talk lately we are like 60 harvests away from disaster. https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/only-60-years-of-... *Generating three centimeters of top soil takes 1,000 years* We are f...ed the…
I believe it takes 4 years after the end of applications before it can be certified organic. Stuff will grow the following year or so. I think the half life is 90 days. Plus farmers have to pay for the chemicals they spray and try to apply the right amount since over application would cost more. So it should resolve itself fairly fast.