Historic fertilizer crunch threatens food security • Hacker News Board

Re: Historic fertilizer crunch threatens food security

#381

Post by hedora » Mon, May 02, 2022, 5:50 PM UTC

simmanian wrote: post #352

Beached wrote: post #297

Earlier quoted context omitted.

from what I understand / have read. yields go down per acre when moving from synthetic fertilizer to organic / natural fertilization. not just in the immediate, but forever. soil health, nutrition, crop resilience all go up, input and input cost go down, but so does overall yield per acre. from all the reading I have done, and in my own experience with a shitty 3acre hobby farm, overall yield per acre never reaches a…

>3 acre hobby farm I've been thinking about getting a hobby farm as well. Do you have any recommendations on where to start or tips? I can't even tell if I can just buy a plot of land in some unincorporated area and use it for whatever I see fit (CA).

Check these three things, at a minimum:

- Zoning

- Soil type

- Water availability.

Your local UC agricultural extension office can help.

Re: Historic fertilizer crunch threatens food security

#382

Post by zdragnar » Mon, May 02, 2022, 5:51 PM UTC

fredgrott wrote: post #363

hinkley wrote: post #326

The fungi guys will tell you that running out of mineral fertilizer is bullshit on roughly 95% of the arable land because all of the minerals your food needs are right there in the sand and clay. I once heard it described that conventional agriculture is essentially a hydroponics system using partially sterilized soil as the substrate. Nearly every symbiotic relationship fungi make is based on buying sugars from plan…

Are you familiar of why India and China move to fertilizer in them 1980s saved the from starving? I assure it is not BS. without fertilizer you do not the explosive yields that we get all over th world including the United States. And it is in fact well documented in a huge collection of science journals.

It's an interesting point, but using China as an example of rational agricultural planning is a pretty poor choice considering how recently the famines resulting from the Great Leap Forward were at that point in time.

Re: Historic fertilizer crunch threatens food security

#383

Post by hinkley » Mon, May 02, 2022, 5:52 PM UTC

tagami wrote: post #366

giantg2 wrote: post #344

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Or from crop rotations of legumes with nitrogen fixing microbes. But that too would require a move away from intensive industrialized agricultural practices.

Yes. Nitrogen fixing bacteria (i.e. R. leguminasarum, s. meliloti) love the sugar exchange legumes offer. Cover cropping and inter cropping have potential to rethink the 113-year old haber-bosch solution.

I don't know if this is my theory or just heavily implied but rarely stated in the literature: chemical fertilizers are giving plants something for 'free' that they used to pay for, and the reason the crops get bigger is not strictly because of the fertilizers, but because they get to spend those calories on more fruit.

There have even been a few studies that warn that some strains of conventional crops are losing the ability to make this exchange. When we hit peak phosphorous and start taxing anhydrous ammonia production, these strains are at risk of going extinct (hopefully not enough of any crop to take us with them).

The wrong question is, "how many calories of can I get out of this field in a year?" The right question is "how many calories can I get total out of this field in a year" and there are a number of people out there demonstrating that they can get about 50% of the conventional yield from an acre, but for 4 different crops, and a few other things thrown in to get over 2x the total yield.

The "problem", in scare quotes, is that these solutions take more thinking and knowing than scourging your fields every year. But since running a farm practically takes a bachelor's degree these days, that's not really a problem of lack of resource in that area. It's more a problem of perspective and focus.

Re: Historic fertilizer crunch threatens food security

#384

Post by triyambakam » Mon, May 02, 2022, 5:52 PM UTC

tastyfreeze wrote: post #351

hinkley wrote: post #326

The fungi guys will tell you that running out of mineral fertilizer is bullshit on roughly 95% of the arable land because all of the minerals your food needs are right there in the sand and clay. I once heard it described that conventional agriculture is essentially a hydroponics system using partially sterilized soil as the substrate. Nearly every symbiotic relationship fungi make is based on buying sugars from plan…

For anybody that is interested in reading more on the symbiosis of plants and fungi: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rhizosphere https://www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/pnas.1906655116 https://regenerationinternational.org/why-regenerative-agric... Some proponents of regenerative agriculture to learn from are: Joel Salatin - https://www.polyfacefarms.com/ Ray Archuleta - https://soilhealthacademy.org/team/ray-archuleta/ Gabe…

And Entangled Life by Merlin Sheldrake (also available on Audible) for a more pop science overview.

Re: Historic fertilizer crunch threatens food security

#385

Post by hedora » Mon, May 02, 2022, 5:54 PM UTC

kwhitefoot wrote: post #342

nkg wrote: post #324

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We waste a third of what we produce. If you take into account what we burn in the process (fertilizer, fuel, water, manpower), you'll realize how bad are our consumption habits. "In the United States 30 per cent of all food, worth US$48.3 billion (€32.5 billion), is thrown away each year." "The food currently wasted in Europe could feed 200 million people (FAO, 2013)." Source: https://www.unep.org/thinkeatsave/get-in…

There are 330 million people in the US so that means the waste is only worth 130 USD per person. Or to put it another way a years worth of food in the US costs only an average of 260 USD, less than a dollar a day. That seems unlikely to me. I'm pretty sure that even poor people in the US pay more than a dollar a day for their food. So where does all the money go?

Middlemen. Farmers are paid below market rates, and below cost of production in the US.

Tax breaks and other subsidies let the farmers stay afloat, and organizations such as the Chicago Board of Trade set artificially low wholesale prices.

Re: Historic fertilizer crunch threatens food security

#386

Post by hinkley » Mon, May 02, 2022, 5:56 PM UTC

fredgrott wrote: post #363

hinkley wrote: post #326

The fungi guys will tell you that running out of mineral fertilizer is bullshit on roughly 95% of the arable land because all of the minerals your food needs are right there in the sand and clay. I once heard it described that conventional agriculture is essentially a hydroponics system using partially sterilized soil as the substrate. Nearly every symbiotic relationship fungi make is based on buying sugars from plan…

Are you familiar of why India and China move to fertilizer in them 1980s saved the from starving? I assure it is not BS. without fertilizer you do not the explosive yields that we get all over th world including the United States. And it is in fact well documented in a huge collection of science journals.

I think you should look at what's going on with agriculture in India right now. There was a lot of bankrupt farmers in the US in the 80's, and that's happening in India over the last decade. Graphically, some farmers are taking their lives by drinking leftover pesticides when they realize they can't afford their crops this year.

India is, by many accounts, likely to switch to a new-new form of agriculture sooner than some of the rest of us. The combination of bigger problems and a shallower 'tradition' of western farming practices makes that easier.

There was a post here about California covering its irrigation canals with solar panels. A couple of us politely pointed out that a couple of provinces in India have already been doing this for a while.

Re: Historic fertilizer crunch threatens food security

#387

Post by thephyber » Mon, May 02, 2022, 5:58 PM UTC

zo1 wrote: post #284

Beached wrote: post #263

Earlier quoted context omitted.

this is possibly, but yields go way down, in some cases by 50% or more. the amount of land that will need to be utilized for food growth will have to drastically increased. not saying this is a bad thing. soil regeneration and more sustainable farming practices are a good thing Imo. it's just that we can't switch to that instantly. yield goes down, takes time to switch, cost likely will increase to make the same $/ac…

The problem is government which has an incentive to "feed everyone" which means cheap food by any means necessary. Food prices must go up, let them naturally go up. That means less food for poorer people, which in turn slowly means less people (lower birth rates, poor and bigger families struggling, etc), until we reach equilibrium with our environment under the terms we accept. It's the only fair way to do it, IMO.

You are ignoring the time scales, locations of the worst effects, and lots of other side effects like food protectionism and the planning that farmers have to make 9 months before the food shortages happen.

Government isn’t directly responsible for food prices, but they frequently involve themselves because social order/stability requires reasonable food prices. When store shelves are empty in a neighborhood/ region, riots break out. Riots work on the time scale of hours/days. Families having fewer kids is on the time scale of years. Farmers planning for likely yields/costs is months/years.

Your idea of “fair” suggests you would just shrug at the famines caused by Stalin and Mao regimes and blame the people because they weren’t willing to pay enough. When people are food desperate, social order, norms, and predictability break down. This is why governments have strong incentives to intervene to ensure reasonable food prices.

Re: Historic fertilizer crunch threatens food security

#388

Post by jessriedel » Mon, May 02, 2022, 6:00 PM UTC

thinkcontext wrote: post #350

jessriedel wrote: post #290

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well, what it tells us is that corn is a large fraction of the crops fed to animals but a significantly smaller fraction of crops fed to humans. Indeed, it looks like there are 915M acres of agricultural land in the US, and of which 89.5M ( Here’s a pretty good chart: https://www.arespectfullife.com/2018/08/05/41-of-u-s-land-is... So if we accept that the pasture range cannot be used for crops, then what we are looki…

Again, I don't like the way you are using numbers. Your 915M acres figure lumps pasture into cropland, which you are using to make the corn for feed number look smaller. > So if we accept that the pasture range cannot be used for crops, then what we are looking at is the animal feed area (which is both fodder and crops that could be eaten by humans but is eaten by animals). It’s 125M acres, I think, or ~14% of all ag…

Sounds like you are misinterpreting me because I haven’t said anything that disagrees with the Bloomberg article, and in particular I agree more land is used for crops eaten by animals than crops eaten by people.

The amount of land used for pasture is definitely germane to the discussion we were having before you began commenting. See my first comment and the one I was replying to.

If you continue to assume bad faith, I won’t continue the discussion.

Re: Historic fertilizer crunch threatens food security

#389

Post by rmah » Mon, May 02, 2022, 6:01 PM UTC

hinkley wrote: post #326

The fungi guys will tell you that running out of mineral fertilizer is bullshit on roughly 95% of the arable land because all of the minerals your food needs are right there in the sand and clay. I once heard it described that conventional agriculture is essentially a hydroponics system using partially sterilized soil as the substrate. Nearly every symbiotic relationship fungi make is based on buying sugars from plan…

They could prove their case by actually doing it at commercial farm scale. But as far as I know, no one has. Which, to me anyway, shows they're probably (but not certainly) wrong.

Re: Historic fertilizer crunch threatens food security

#390

Post by throwaway894345 » Mon, May 02, 2022, 6:02 PM UTC

typest wrote: post #207

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. :)

As someone who is strongly wants to "get rid of cars and switch everyone to public transit and cycling" -- no one is talking about doing this in rural areas. Should we decrease reliance on cars in cities and focus more on alternative forms of transport? Yes. Will this work in rural areas? No, of course not.

> no one is talking about doing this in rural areas.

Perhaps that's true in your experience, but I hear this fairly regularly including various subreddits, Twitter, and I've heard it here on HN as well (it's been a while, I don't care to dig through my comment history for links to the specific threads). Specifically, the argument takes one of two forms: either we should extend public transit and cycling infrastructure everywhere (including rural areas) or that we should implement policies that expressly accelerate urbanization and penalize rural life (or a combination).