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Historic fertilizer crunch threatens food security

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Re: Historic fertilizer crunch threatens food security

#211

Post by jiveturkey42 »

idiotsecant wrote: post #192
jiveturkey42 wrote: post #126

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Perhaps these issues cannot be solved from a desk and computer. HN might bristle at the idea the Farmer Joe has a more sophisticated mental model of an extremely complex and multivariate system (a field of corn or soy) which evades reduction to a dataset. The solutions I've seen on this board is typically "well let's reduce the variables and grow lettuce in warehouses!" Or trying to build a robot that can pick strawb…

> The food supply will be more resilient when farming gets smaller, simpler, and more distributed Will it? In my area the main agricultural products are apples, dairy products, beef, wheat, and potatoes, because those are the things that my area's climate and geology support. I can already buy those things cheaply and readily and they are farmed efficiently and widely by very large operations. How does farming get mo…

Smaller and simpler was the comment.

The current option is to use industrial farming technology until the raw inputs run out or become cost-prohibitive. Or until tillage soil for field crops becomes nutrient-depleted and barren.

Also, the comment was about using intellectual capital to work on the Markets problem of agriculture, not the act of farming itself

Re: Historic fertilizer crunch threatens food security

#212

Post by hunterb123 »

leokennis wrote: post #201
throwaway894345 wrote: post #174

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My favorite are the threads about how we need to get rid of cars and switch everyone to public transit and cycling. :)

Two counter points. - Where I live (The Netherlands) you don’t have to live in a city to have good PT. There are places that you cannot reach by train or bus but they are few. - While sometimes a car is necessary, the cars many people prefer (insanely oversized “trucks”) are hardly ever necessary.

> (insanely oversized “trucks”) are hardly ever necessary.

As someone with a truck constantly having to lend it for friends to use, I disagree.

Not sure exactly what you meant by insanely oversized, but a lift kit and tires aren't abnormal, they have use for off-roading / mudding which is fairly popular.

It's both a style preference and lifestyle preference. Good luck using a car if you have a lot of outdoor hobbies or work.

Kind of strange to tell a whole population what is or isn't necessary in their life, especially without knowing their reasonings.

Re: Historic fertilizer crunch threatens food security

#213

Post by blacksqr »

usrn wrote: post #173
disambiguation wrote: post #162

This is a story about supply chains and inflation, but the real story is that we're in the century of "peak resources". Fertilizer depends on phosphorous which cannot be renewed or substituted once its gone. Without fertilizer we can't support the multi-billion person population we have today. We're not running out tomorrow, or even this decade, but we may experience peak phosphorous within our lifetimes.

Short of a nuclear reaction it isn't "gone" and some organisms are known to concentrate it when it's scattered.

For example, sargassum seaweed, which floats freely in the ocean, is rich in both phosphorus and ammonium.

There are already efforts in the Caribbean to turn sargassum into compost, because there's so much of it washing ashore that it's become a nuisance.

Medieval Irish farmers relied on seaweed fertilizer to turn much of the island into rich farmland.

Re: Historic fertilizer crunch threatens food security

#214

Post by oh_sigh »

EricE wrote: post #184

We've been doing stupid crap - like subsidizing corn production for ethanol - that seriously needs to end. The amount of government/market mismanagement and interference driven by special interests is beyond ridiculous. The rubber band is beginning to snap!

Doesn't that mean we have extra corn that can be used for human/animal consumption if shit hits the fan? Right now we're growing a bunch of crops that don't feed anyone, but it would not be hard at all to have that be the case. Much easier than the whole process of starting from scratch to get new farmland ready for growing corn.

Re: Historic fertilizer crunch threatens food security

#215

Post by simonsarris »

EricE wrote: post #184

We've been doing stupid crap - like subsidizing corn production for ethanol - that seriously needs to end. The amount of government/market mismanagement and interference driven by special interests is beyond ridiculous. The rubber band is beginning to snap!

Excess agricultural capacity is generally a good idea. If we have zero excess in the system, then when a hiccup occurred we might find ourselves in famine.

With corn-for-ethanol, the US gov is paying to keep farmland productive that has no human-or-livestock feed value. But you could imagine a situation where more human or livestock feed is needed (massive disruption of cropland, say), and in those or subsequent years we could convert basically-for-ethanol fields to consumption fields.

Or if you are running out of fertilizer instead of running out of food, then you can divert expected and stored fertilizer for ethanol fields onto human-and-livestock feed fields. Once again the excess capacity acts in your favor. (Or ought to)

This is assuming that governing bodies and farmers are making coherent rational decisions and in addition responding to local conditions. I have no opinion on that. Just explaining why subsidizing what looks like superfluous excess capacity is not necessarily a dumb thing to do.

Re: Historic fertilizer crunch threatens food security

#216

Post by cortesoft »

krzyk wrote: post #204
jiveturkey42 wrote: post #185

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A sure-fire indicator that someone exists in a purely urban mental-model of reality

The alernative view is also freqently purely US-centric suburban/rural one. In many densely populated countries, rural areas have quite good public transport.

Yeah, but the US isn't one of those densely populated countries.

Re: Historic fertilizer crunch threatens food security

#217

Post by mauflows »

kickout wrote: post #132
vegetablepotpie wrote: post #106

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Animal protein is not a problem. There is plenty of land in the US only suitable for grazing. This statement is wrong. Livestock grazes early in its lifetime, but is moved to feed lots and feed corn and soy to prepare for slaughter. The US spends a quarter of its corn crop on feeding animals, whereas less than 10% is directly feed to people. Animal protein is a significant opportunity cost to US agriculture.

Nope. Go after ethanol if you want wasted corn. We like/need meat, and there is plenty of corn production or grazing land to accommodate that production. Something like 30-50M buffalo lived and grazed in North America before they were all killed. The ecosystem can most certainly sustain 30-50M cattle grazing. They wouldn't be as _profitable_ as corn-finished cattle, but they produce meat.

We don't need meat.

And there are many price and institutional barriers to completely grass fed cattle. The primary being that slaughter is centralized to FSIS inspected facilities where most non-poultry spend their final weeks packed in eating soy and corn.

Re: Historic fertilizer crunch threatens food security

#218

Post by [deleted] »

oh_sigh wrote: post #214
EricE wrote: post #184

We've been doing stupid crap - like subsidizing corn production for ethanol - that seriously needs to end. The amount of government/market mismanagement and interference driven by special interests is beyond ridiculous. The rubber band is beginning to snap!

Doesn't that mean we have extra corn that can be used for human/animal consumption if shit hits the fan? Right now we're growing a bunch of crops that don't feed anyone, but it would not be hard at all to have that be the case. Much easier than the whole process of starting from scratch to get new farmland ready for growing corn.

[deleted]

Re: Historic fertilizer crunch threatens food security

#219

Post by bitwize »

CapricornNoble wrote: post #155
JohnJamesRambo wrote: post #66

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That makes much more sense, I wish they had stuck with that.

I thought they would, considering they introduced the Goddess of Death in Thor: Ragnarok, but...NOPE. Cate Blanchett delightfully hamming it up as a supervillian only lasted one film.

Death is a separate character from Hela. So the possibility is still there.

They even teased it at the end of The Avengers: the Chitauri leader tells Thanos "to challenge [humans] is to court death", at which time Thanos grins eagerly. But with Earth-199999's Thanos dead, they're going to have to invoke some multiversal malarkey if they want to develop that storyline now.

Re: Historic fertilizer crunch threatens food security

#220

Post by onemoresoop »

cinntaile wrote: post #194
jiveturkey42 wrote: post #172

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't blame the individual IT staff or engineers for being foot soldiers of corporate mandate. I do blame the mindset of 'every problem can be solved with enough data'

If you have the right data, I don't see why not?

In theory yes but..

How do you know when you have the right data and how do you know you're solving the right problem and not causing others? So far confidence and hubris came with myopia.

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