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Organic and regenerative agriculture are revitalizing rural Montana economies

montanafreepress.org

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Re: Organic and regenerative agriculture are revitalizing rural Montana economies

#151

Post by reedjosh »

danans wrote: post #120
blueyes wrote: post #24

Montanan here: This is true. One of the regenerative crop types are pulses (lentils, chick peas), and MT produces a lot. https://www.ndsu.edu/pubweb/pulse-info/resources-pdf/Growing... The state often appears in stories about agriculture in precarious environments (See Jared Diamond's "Collapse" for one example.) Montana is largely a semi-arid desert, especially over the 2/3's of the state that are northern Great Pla…

> Lentils (Lens culinaris Medik.) are produced on over 1.5 million acres throughout the world. They are primarily used for domestic consumption in casseroles, salads, soups and stews. Lentils provide an excellent source of protein (20 to 35 percent), but are limited in the sulphur-containing amino acids methionine and cystine. However, consumption of lentils with cereals provides a balanced diet high in fiber, protei…

From the article.

> They also lease land to neighboring ranchers, whose grazing cattle aerate the soil with their hooves and add organic matter and nutrients via manure.

Meat can and should be a part of regenerative ag.

I recently visited a family friend's place/farm. A year ago, the soil was the typical cracked dry light tan clay ground that I have in my yard. It's quite typical in Oregon.

This time, the soil was a dark color with tons of organic material and great water retention. This was entirely due to the grazing. They have goats and an alpaca. Ruminants are excellent for soil health, and the meat they produce is also great for human health.

Re: Organic and regenerative agriculture are revitalizing rural Montana economies

#152

Post by samatman »

durkie wrote: post #46

Is there an economic argument to be made for increasing the amount of money spent in the local economy? I often hear it cited as a benefit in situations like this, and it has a certain feel-good quality to it, but instinctively it feels like it means people pay higher prices: if you're buying seed from the local seed & feed, it's almost certainly more expensive than if you buy it from XYZ megacorp.

It's bang for buck, basically.

Consider a single (physical) twenty dollar bill. If it enters a small town (remote worker for FAANG withdraws it out of an ATM) and then immediately leaves (from the Walmart till onto an armored truck to the local city center), that's $20 in economic activity.

If it passes between five hands locally before it ends up on that truck, that's $100 of economic activity, five times as many opportunities for people to exchange what they have for what they want.

This is a toy model, there are a ton of things wrong with it, but it does illustrate a real point. In the six-hands scenario, more of the residents are offering goods and services to each other, in the two-hands scenario, everything is being provided to and by the larger economy. Less resilient, less locally-scaled, and it's easier to replace the small town with any other set of producer/consumers who offer lower prices or thinner wages.

Re: Organic and regenerative agriculture are revitalizing rural Montana economies

#153

Post by olivierlacan »

debacle wrote: post #116
saalweachter wrote: post #68

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Honestly? My biggest concern about it is that half its advocates say crazy things. For instance, down-thread we got the line: "[Paul Wheaton] believes that in a decade the soil will be so rich in organic matter with healthy microbial activity (with no chemical history) could produce food that cures cancer. I believe that in an environment where human body is not weakened by the constant bombardment of chemical compou…

Paul Wheaton is a grifter, petty tyrant, and mini Hubbard who has built a cult around himself. He bans anyone from the permaculture subreddit who disagrees with him, which is why there are multiple off-shoot subreddits, including one specifically dedicated to his malfeasance which broaches into criminality.

Found this interesting and surprisingly balanced point of view on the man from people who clearly denounce him and his behvior: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mP9GM-1YJCI

Re: Organic and regenerative agriculture are revitalizing rural Montana economies

#154

Post by aatharuv »

nradov wrote: post #131
tastyfreeze wrote: post #110

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Crops can be integrated and still planted and harvested mechanically. Planting differing height crops or same height crops with different seed sizes you can still use machines and harvest multiple crops from the same time/land. Yield for some crops is actually more after the ~3 year transition period. However, for all crops quality is greatly improved. Better quality means you need to eat less to be satiated.

Better quality only helps if customers are willing to pay more. A lot of crops are sold through middlemen as undifferentiated commodities.

Customers do pay more for organic food and non-GMO food that's certified.

Re: Organic and regenerative agriculture are revitalizing rural Montana economies

#155

Post by metalliqaz »

On this topic, I would suggest reading Animal, Vegetable, Junk: A History of Food, from Sustainable to Suicidal [1]. It's a great book on an issue that everyone should understand.

[1] https://www.amazon.com/Animal-Vegetable-Junk-Sustainable-Sui...

Re: Organic and regenerative agriculture are revitalizing rural Montana economies

#156

Post by thehappypm »

kickout wrote: post #101
zachware wrote: post #80

Organic and regenerative ag are built on the assumption that crops must be grown in open air soil. The reality is that crops can be grown in open air soil and, if they are, regenerative ag in particular is significantly better for soil longevity. That said it is not necessarily better to produce all crops in low density, high volatility, season dependent environments. Some material % of crops can move to more intelli…

Sweet, there is only approximately 300 million acres of cropland in the United States alone. Sun == free, rain == free How does indoor ag plan on scaling up for anything other than super high margin vegetables and spices when their competitor (outdoor ag) has no cost associated with sun or rain? Not even to mention soil. edit: I like indoor/vertical ag a lot (when applied correctly) When people try to propose produci…

Sure, sun and rain are free, but the costs for outdoor farming are huge too. Irrigation, pesticides, fencing, harvesting equipment, anti-weed chemicals. Then your yields are super volatile -- weather can be bad, you can just get unlucky, you can have weeds/bugs/mice eating into your yields. Then you need to get your crops all the way from Montana to big markets hundreds or thousands of miles away.

Indoor farming sure does require an input of energy and a high up-front cost, but you can get extremely high yields reliably, and you can dramatically reduce transportation and chemical costs, plus reduced water costs often.

Re: Organic and regenerative agriculture are revitalizing rural Montana economies

#157

Post by lostlogin »

reedjosh wrote: post #109
Scoundreller wrote: post #96

Earlier quoted context omitted.

While cancer is lower, their life expectancy is around the US average. US average lifespan isn’t something to write home about.

Does that account for infant mortality? Life expectancy should really only be talked about in terms of expected lifespan of someone who's already made it to say 3 years old. Otherwise, we get a very distorted view of modern medicine's ability to stave off death. Modern medicine has really done well at reducing infant mortality though.

I agree, but you also distort things by excluding infants, but if that group are included in a separate statistic it would seem ok.

Re: Organic and regenerative agriculture are revitalizing rural Montana economies

#158

Post by zachware »

kickout wrote: post #141
zachware wrote: post #136

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I actually agree with you. It's purely a math problem. Where can predictable yield be profitable (including loss calculations) and where can it not. Vertical as it is today is an excellent nursery solution to feed growable plants into float ponds with little to no loss. As an independent production method, vertical isn't mathematically sustainable. 40% of fresh food is lost before it makes it to the end user (USDA da…

Fair comments. I'm mulling whether we have enough land (at 100% regen practices). I almost think we do. From a system-level, we're over saturated because of ethanol and other things that realistically could disappear and society would be better off. Just need to recalibrate our acres a bit

I don't know the number but I suspect some material % of corn production could go away if we stopped subsidizing that industry for insane things like making gasoline for electoral reasons. :-)

Re: Organic and regenerative agriculture are revitalizing rural Montana economies

#159

Post by black_puppydog »

jazzyjackson wrote: post #49
black_puppydog wrote: post #7

"How to save a planet" just has an episode out on the same topic: https://gimletmedia.com/shows/howtosaveaplanet/76hmbge/soil-... I found it an interesting listen. Of course it's a fairly shallow entry into the topic, but that's what they are about after all; get you interested, give you pointers for more if you feel like it. Just too bad they'll go spotify-only and thus seize to be a podcast... I'll have to stop rec…

a gentle fyi: s/seize/cease

ah, darn... thanks :)

Re: Organic and regenerative agriculture are revitalizing rural Montana economies

#160

Post by EricE »

reedjosh wrote: post #151
danans wrote: post #120

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Lentils (Lens culinaris Medik.) are produced on over 1.5 million acres throughout the world. They are primarily used for domestic consumption in casseroles, salads, soups and stews. Lentils provide an excellent source of protein (20 to 35 percent), but are limited in the sulphur-containing amino acids methionine and cystine. However, consumption of lentils with cereals provides a balanced diet high in fiber, protei…

From the article. > They also lease land to neighboring ranchers, whose grazing cattle aerate the soil with their hooves and add organic matter and nutrients via manure. Meat can and should be a part of regenerative ag. I recently visited a family friend's place/farm. A year ago, the soil was the typical cracked dry light tan clay ground that I have in my yard. It's quite typical in Oregon. This time, the soil was a…

Yes - people dramatically underestimate the value of ruminants that can process plants that we can't.
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