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The fertilizer shortage will persist in 2023

modernfarmer.com

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Re: The fertilizer shortage will persist in 2023

#81

Post by tnel77 »

ilostmyshoes wrote: post #73
mattpallissard wrote: post #58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm not sure why the general tone of HN seems to be that modern farming isn't changing at all. Erosion has been on everyone's radar for decades. We went from plow -> till -> low till -> no till. Believe me, the folks who do this talk about plowing practices and cover crops. They also discuss GMO crops and the crazy legal restrictions around seed that come with it. > Brown earth has a deep top layer where most of the…

What they don't seem to be talking about is learning from indigenous farming communities who use things like diversity in crops and rotation to keep soil quality high. These problems were solved decades ago, just not by the industrial farming community

Crop rotation seems to be pretty widespread. I remember as a kid learning about it and knowing I’d see different crops each year to help the soil for future harvests.

Re: The fertilizer shortage will persist in 2023

#82

Post by hedgehog »

ilostmyshoes wrote: post #73
mattpallissard wrote: post #58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm not sure why the general tone of HN seems to be that modern farming isn't changing at all. Erosion has been on everyone's radar for decades. We went from plow -> till -> low till -> no till. Believe me, the folks who do this talk about plowing practices and cover crops. They also discuss GMO crops and the crazy legal restrictions around seed that come with it. > Brown earth has a deep top layer where most of the…

What they don't seem to be talking about is learning from indigenous farming communities who use things like diversity in crops and rotation to keep soil quality high. These problems were solved decades ago, just not by the industrial farming community

Like the rest of industrial age development, farm automation has historically been built around treating everything uniformly (even distribution of seeds bred for easy harvest in evenly spaced rows evenly fertilizied with no rocks etc etc). Moving away from that introduces all kinds of complexity, mechanical problems, data problems, etc, which are not easy to solve even when you have historical existence proofs of potentially better ways to do things. It's happening though.

Re: The fertilizer shortage will persist in 2023

#83

Post by Avicebron »

narrator wrote: post #59
Avicebron wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

While it's cool and all to want to work on AI+Robots, because obviously that's where this thought is coming from because who wants to actually work in the fields am I right?\s I think it's more important to think about market fit and margins of farming, in what world is introducing a complex, expensive machine to an already thin margin industry a practical solution? The reason it's inefficient and wasteful isn't beca…

AI robots that do companion planting with robots. There's a free idea for you. Harvesting would not work with combine harvesters. You'd have to harvest corn planted with beans like you were picking strawberries, but with robots, maybe it's doable.

Maybe, but that's a lot of degrees of freedom of movement and machine vision to use "3 sisters" farming techniques, interplanting works because of the system of moisture, structure, and nitrogen fixation that each unit provides. Not saying it's not a good system/cool project idea.

Re: The fertilizer shortage will persist in 2023

#84

Post by sleton38234234 »

photochemsyn wrote: post #19

A remarkable amount of the fertilizer applied via modern industrial farming practices is just wasted: > "According to an average of 13 global databases from 10 data sources, in 2010, 161 teragrams of nitrogen were applied to agricultural crops, but only 73 teragrams of nitrogen made it to the harvested crop. A total of 86 teragrams of nitrogen was wasted, perhaps ending up in the water, air, or soil. The new research…

Well, that explains why our water is so high in nitrates. I've been looking into our local water supply. Out of the over 200 contaminants, the one that exceeds the EWG's limit by the most margin is nitrates which is said to come from fertilizer run off.

Re: The fertilizer shortage will persist in 2023

#85

Post by kragen »

heisenbit wrote: post #55
Waterluvian wrote: post #2

Few things have a single cause, but I think it's not outlandish to hypothesize that potential pending famines could be driven by a fertilizer shortage, driven by Russia's invasion and global economic issues, driven by the pandemic. Maybe this is obvious to those smarter than I, but I'm beginning to have a sinking sense that direct deaths by SARS-COV2 will be a shockingly small minority of total deaths caused by the p…

Sooner or later energy prices will increase and fertilizer will get more expensive. Step functions and impulses are useful ways to probe the inner working of a system and in this case helped to highlight the dominant role energy plays everywhere. We re-learned what we forgot or ignored since the last energy aka. oil price shock in the '70. In the long run the situation for food security is challenging unless we switc…

energy prices are decreasing, not increasing; solar power is half as expensive as coal power in most of the world already, and it's likely to get even cheaper over time as pv production scales up

(of course in northern europe this year that is not the case because they were relying on russian gas, but that's not 'sooner or later', that's just right now)

Re: The fertilizer shortage will persist in 2023

#86

Post by sleton38234234 »

ilostmyshoes wrote: post #73
mattpallissard wrote: post #58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm not sure why the general tone of HN seems to be that modern farming isn't changing at all. Erosion has been on everyone's radar for decades. We went from plow -> till -> low till -> no till. Believe me, the folks who do this talk about plowing practices and cover crops. They also discuss GMO crops and the crazy legal restrictions around seed that come with it. > Brown earth has a deep top layer where most of the…

What they don't seem to be talking about is learning from indigenous farming communities who use things like diversity in crops and rotation to keep soil quality high. These problems were solved decades ago, just not by the industrial farming community

Crop diversity is great. And you also need lots of organic matter to go on top of the soil: to build life in the soil. that's much better than trying to duct tape the matter with fertilizer.

Re: The fertilizer shortage will persist in 2023

#87

Post by Spooky23 »

mattpallissard wrote: post #58
hammock wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There is so little organic matter in the topsoil due to modern farming practices and it gets worse every year. The result is soil that doesn't retain water, it just runs off. This means that irrigation has to be more and more frequent, and it means that fertilizer runs off (causing algal blooms etc) more than it percolates into the soil Lots of places to read more about this issue and here's a start: https://www.nhm.…

I'm not sure why the general tone of HN seems to be that modern farming isn't changing at all. Erosion has been on everyone's radar for decades. We went from plow -> till -> low till -> no till. Believe me, the folks who do this talk about plowing practices and cover crops. They also discuss GMO crops and the crazy legal restrictions around seed that come with it. > Brown earth has a deep top layer where most of the…

I think people see a sea of corn and don’t appreciate nuance.

The bigger issue that farmers are ignoring is water.

Re: The fertilizer shortage will persist in 2023

#88

Post by toast0 »

hgsgm wrote: post #37
GalenErso wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

North Korea uses human waste as a fertilizer. Which causes this: North Korean defector found to have 'enormous parasites' https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-420... > "I've never seen anything like this in my 20 years as a physician," South Korean doctor Lee Cook-jong told journalists, explaining that the longest worm removed from the patient's intestines was 27cm (11in) long. > In 2015 South Kor…

Do human parasites in human poop spread to more humans animals fed on plants fed on human poop, or only of humans eat the plants fed on human poop? Can the parasites be filtered away? Also, couldn't NK parasites be explained by a general lack of health and hygiene technology in NK? Parasites are a major problem in large parts of Africa too, but are controlled when medications are deployed.

Some parasites are human specific, but a lot of them will manage just fine in many mammals. Health and hygiene is likely a major factor, but managing human waste in a sanitary way is one of the big jobs of community health and hygiene efforts; that and access to clean water. Proper health protocols wouldn't allow for untreated night soil to be used as fertilizer, but maybe they don't have access to treatment or other fertilizer, so there you go.

Re: The fertilizer shortage will persist in 2023

#89

Post by Sakos »

heisenbit wrote: post #55
Waterluvian wrote: post #2

Few things have a single cause, but I think it's not outlandish to hypothesize that potential pending famines could be driven by a fertilizer shortage, driven by Russia's invasion and global economic issues, driven by the pandemic. Maybe this is obvious to those smarter than I, but I'm beginning to have a sinking sense that direct deaths by SARS-COV2 will be a shockingly small minority of total deaths caused by the p…

Sooner or later energy prices will increase and fertilizer will get more expensive. Step functions and impulses are useful ways to probe the inner working of a system and in this case helped to highlight the dominant role energy plays everywhere. We re-learned what we forgot or ignored since the last energy aka. oil price shock in the '70. In the long run the situation for food security is challenging unless we switc…

This is such a weird comment. For much of the world, food security is an ever present problem that is heavily affected by energy prices (among other things). Fertilizer prices are already up significantly. This isn't something we have to wait for. It's already been happening for the past decade and it's going to keep getting worse.

You're fortunate that you live in a country where food security on a population level isn't a constantly relevant concern.

Re: The fertilizer shortage will persist in 2023

#90

Post by tastyfreeze »

GalenErso wrote: post #14
debacle wrote: post #7

Recently, I have seen a short-sighted push to allow human waste to fertilize crops. That is absolutely 100% not the solution to anything for probably a dozen very good reasons. The impact of this kind of "recycling" is well studied and the negatives outweigh the positives.

North Korea uses human waste as a fertilizer. Which causes this: North Korean defector found to have 'enormous parasites' https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-420... > "I've never seen anything like this in my 20 years as a physician," South Korean doctor Lee Cook-jong told journalists, explaining that the longest worm removed from the patient's intestines was 27cm (11in) long. > In 2015 South Kor…

Living in borderline survivable conditions makes the body much more susceptible to infection. Add to that a virtually non-existent medical system and people are going to be overall less healthy. Using "night soil" is likely low on the list of causes for higher infection rates in North Korea.

Comparing the health of North Koreans and South Koreans is not a fare comparison. One nation has medical infrastructure, a good food supply, and a functioning economy. The other is a black hole with people regularly starving, no legal economy, and medical care only for the politically connected.

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