Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Historic fertilizer crunch threatens food security

bloombergquint.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

81–90 of 575 posts

Re: Historic fertilizer crunch threatens food security

#81

Post by throwaway4aday »

ryanmercer wrote: post #58
2000UltraDeluxe wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not at all. Those fields are now fertilized with cow manure, though. Without the cattle, you'd need more artificial fertilizer for the crops you intend to feed humans with. Would it be good for the environment? Quite possibly. Would it result in more fertilizer available on the market? Not really.

Most commercial cattle aren't pasture fed, they aren't free ranging it in a field eating whatever they forage. Hobby and small farms, sure, but the operations that raise the most heads the cattle generally spend the bulk of their life standing in a dirt pen (a feedlot) eating from a trough. They're then fed a mix of corn, soy, ruffage (grasses). Here is an example of a feedlot https://www.bilaterals.org/IMG/jpg/33a3a…

So why not argue for a return to pasture and grass fed and finished cattle then? A lot more people would be willing to agree with you. Intensive use of feedlots has only been going on since the 60s due to an increased demand for beef. The message should be to moderate our consumption of beef and give the cattle a better life at pasture rather than crammed into a feedlot.

Re: Historic fertilizer crunch threatens food security

#82

Post by gruez »

kickout wrote: post #50

Mostly good comments in here. My take is we have at least 1-2 years of global supply of most grains. This is a completely political problem; its not like we're getting 2012 US Midwest levels of drought in back-to-back years (now THAT would be a crunch). Food waste is a problem, yes. Animal protein is not a problem. There is plenty of land in the US only suitable for grazing. Much better than that synthetic soup of Im…

>Animal protein is not a problem. There is plenty of land in the US only suitable for grazing

Only in the sense that you can theoretically produce meat that way, but in reality most meat is produced on CAFOs that use grain.

Re: Historic fertilizer crunch threatens food security

#83

Post by ReactiveJelly »

godmode2019 wrote: post #59
_8j50 wrote: post #26

If all the land and resource that goes into feeding cows is used for crops, a lot more people can be supported. It has never been a lack of global food shortage, it is always regional anyways.

When you feed a cow you are essentially trading up. Animal meat is much more bioavailable and nutrient dense. Especially when they are eating grass on land unsuitable for crops.

I thought most beef, pound-for-pound, was factory-farmed, not grazed?

Re: Historic fertilizer crunch threatens food security

#84

Post by macinjosh »

peoplefromibiza wrote: post #35
the8472 wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

1/3rd of the US farmland being used for pasture and 80% of global crops being fed to livestock are not mutually exclusive on their own. Edit: Surprisingly our world in data has a breakdown of land uses (which includes grazing) but not of crop use. This study[0] says that about 40% of global crop use (by calories) is used to feed livestock and that it takes about 3.7 crop calories for 1 calorie of animal product. So y…

it can be argued that they actually are. if that farmland could be used to make human food, which is a lot more remunerative, they already would.

Cows are human food.

Re: Historic fertilizer crunch threatens food security

#85

Post by jlengrand »

throwaway0a5e wrote: post #67
jlengrand wrote: post #38

Global food shortage always feels like "well, I'm not concerned many other countries will be hit first". Many countries will literally have issues, but the food will _also_ be a lot more expensive for all of us. The coming years will be "fun" (and I mean bad, to be clear).

>The coming years will be fun I wouldn't call the impending cognitive dissonance "fun" unless one likes being a spectator of ideologically driven mental gymnastics. We've done weird stuff to low levels of our economies. That's gonna have marginal consequences across the board. And a little bit across the board adds up to a lot of hardship.

Good point, I corrected. I didn't mean fun of course. I really feel for all of the folks who are already today barely making ends meet :s.

Re: Historic fertilizer crunch threatens food security

#86

Post by kickout »

jiveturkey42 wrote: post #63

Threads like these reminds me that HN is an overwhelmingly urban community with almost zero exposure to the agriculture sector

It's ok though. I like these threads on HN. Hopefully helps educate people. People on HN have a lot of skills to offer agriculture they likely aren't even aware of. Every article/discussion helps spread the message, hopefully.

ETA: Most people don't understand agriculture or where their food comes from--HN no different. Only small % of people involved in agriculture _directly_

Re: Historic fertilizer crunch threatens food security

#88

Post by londons_explore »

Everyone saying 'we need to grow more crops!' needs to see that the futures markets deal with exactly this. As people see high futures prices for corn, they'll grow more corn because it's more profitable. Some farmers will switch from livestock to corn.

Others who have storage facilities will make money by buying now to sell later and make use of the price difference.

At a certain point, prices get too high for making bioethanol. And that gets eaten by people instead.

Basically - there is no shortage because markets will do their job and mean there is always availability of all goods.

The only time there will be a shortage is when governments do things like cap prices or restrict exports/imports.

Re: Historic fertilizer crunch threatens food security

#89

Post by ryanmercer »

throwaway4aday wrote: post #81
ryanmercer wrote: post #58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Most commercial cattle aren't pasture fed, they aren't free ranging it in a field eating whatever they forage. Hobby and small farms, sure, but the operations that raise the most heads the cattle generally spend the bulk of their life standing in a dirt pen (a feedlot) eating from a trough. They're then fed a mix of corn, soy, ruffage (grasses). Here is an example of a feedlot https://www.bilaterals.org/IMG/jpg/33a3a…

So why not argue for a return to pasture and grass fed and finished cattle then? A lot more people would be willing to agree with you. Intensive use of feedlots has only been going on since the 60s due to an increased demand for beef. The message should be to moderate our consumption of beef and give the cattle a better life at pasture rather than crammed into a feedlot.

There are roughly 1 billion head of cattle in the world, depending on the soil and climate you need anywhere from 2-25 acres per head of cattle to 100% grass feed them (in areas where this is done, obviously 25 acres of desert isn't going to feed a cow).

Even if we assume an average of 3 acres per head, you're looking at 3 billion acres of land just to keep beef going (never mind the 785 million pigs and 33 billion chickens).

If you entirely pasture feed, you're going to get lower slaughter weights too as their weight at slaughter averages about 1,200 pounds compared with about 1,350 pounds for feedlot animals, you'd end up needing something like 30% more cattle to get the same amount of meat https://awellfedworld.org/grazing/

Re: Historic fertilizer crunch threatens food security

#90

Post by refurb »

jiveturkey42 wrote: post #63

Threads like these reminds me that HN is an overwhelmingly urban community with almost zero exposure to the agriculture sector

As someone who works in healthcare, it must be like a healthcare/medicine/biology thread popping up for me.

You'll never see so many people so certain they were right despite lacking the most basic knowledge on the topic.

Post reply on HN