The fertilizer shortage will persist in 2023 • Hacker News Board

Re: The fertilizer shortage will persist in 2023

#131

Post by undersuit » Fri, Feb 03, 2023, 5:29 PM UTC

Scoundreller wrote: post #123

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.

I wish we normalized taking a piss on the footprint of my backyard Apple tree or where my tomato garden will be. Supposedly one person is capable of providing enough fertilizer through urine for a few hundred square meters of crop per year.

I watched a video on YT about a man in Arizona or New Mexico who put in a piping system to his backyard fruit trees that is fed by his outdoor urinal. He lives in the middle of a standard urban neighborhood.

Re: The fertilizer shortage will persist in 2023

#132

Post by eru » Fri, Feb 03, 2023, 5:30 PM UTC

kragen wrote: post #106

ClumsyPilot wrote: post #93

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> High prices might prompt some people elsewhere to reduce their consumption By dying. There is a famine in madagascar right now.v > in favor of ones more in need. Do you need 1 kg of bacon more than a poor family in madagascar needs 10kg of wheat that was used to feed your bacon? > How is my thinking dangerous? Because men than need to feed their children might grab torches and pitchforks Free market does not store…

there is a famine in madagascar right now because the government imposed price ceilings on rice, flour, sugar, cooking oil, gas and cement last april http://country.eiu.com/article.aspx?articleid=662033449&Coun... predictably this resulted in widespread food shortages by contrast, all other poor countries are not experiencing famines right now

> by contrast, all other poor countries are not experiencing famines right now

Well, apart from basket cases like North Korea perhaps. But that fits right into your explanation.

Re: The fertilizer shortage will persist in 2023

#133

Post by eru » Fri, Feb 03, 2023, 5:32 PM UTC

kragen wrote: post #76

sofixa wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm not sure i follow. How exactly will the people "awarded with outsized profit for addressing the shortages" help those starving due to lack of affordable food? "The market" doesn't work for goods whose demand is inelastic, such as food and medicine. Letting people starve "to allow the market to function" is cold blooded greed.

the market does work for goods whose demand is inelastic at the cme wheat costs 8.38 dollars per bushel, 31¢ per kg, and 1 kg of wheat is roughly two person-days' worth of food, 57 dollars per person-year (of course an actual diet needs to be more varied and therefore slightly more expensive, but even just cooked wheat will extend your survival time under famine conditions by quite a lot) let's start by dividing the…

And while the demand for food in general might be somewhat inelastic, the demand for wheat is very elastic, because you can substitute.

(Also keep in mind that we have huge buffers because of animal husbandry. If plant matter becomes too expensive, people can switch to eating it directly instead of feeding it to livestock first.)

Re: The fertilizer shortage will persist in 2023

#134

Post by eru » Fri, Feb 03, 2023, 5:33 PM UTC

LeifCarrotson wrote: post #20

Waterluvian wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Then, the ignition is lost in the flame. Goosebumps from this line. It's apt and thoughtful. I'm thinking about how these events can be fractal-like. The past few years of active pandemic have felt like the "flame" but could be seen as the "ignition" for countless other, possibly even worse global events. It's like a Great Tree Shaking: all non-resilient systems began showing cracks of one size or another, cascadin…

We spent the first 50 years of the information age building systems to be as hyper-efficient as possible, with ruthless competition eliminating resiliency first in existing commercial, social, and political structures, and then in the education and life experience of the people that built those structures later. Like a Californian wilderness, we've been accumulating surface fuel load for decades.

If you ban 'price-gouging', you remove incentives for suppliers to be resilient.

Re: The fertilizer shortage will persist in 2023

#135

Post by randomdata » Fri, Feb 03, 2023, 5:34 PM UTC

eru wrote: post #127

randomdata wrote: post #119

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Many years ago one of my neighbours tried not rotating is crops. It worked out okay the first couple of years, but it wasn't long before his yields nosedived and within the five years he was bankrupt.

Why did your neighbour try?

Soy on soy (on soy, on soy...). Disease soon sets in if not regularly rotated.

Re: The fertilizer shortage will persist in 2023

#136

Post by eru » Fri, Feb 03, 2023, 5:35 PM UTC

ClumsyPilot wrote: post #80

ajross wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't see how that's sustained by the article. This is just another face of the energy crunch. Oil and gas are somewhat rarer more expensive, and so everything made from them is more expensive and the economy needs to seek to a new price equilibrium. In this case, that mostly means "reduced travel and air freight" and "reduced gas heating usage". But as a side effect farmers need to scramble to match their own mark…

There is a famine in Madagascar now, although not related to fertiliser. The system is fragile

That's entirely the fault of their inept and corrupt administration there.

Re: The fertilizer shortage will persist in 2023

#137

Post by danuker » Fri, Feb 03, 2023, 5:35 PM UTC

kragen wrote: post #76

sofixa wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm not sure i follow. How exactly will the people "awarded with outsized profit for addressing the shortages" help those starving due to lack of affordable food? "The market" doesn't work for goods whose demand is inelastic, such as food and medicine. Letting people starve "to allow the market to function" is cold blooded greed.

the market does work for goods whose demand is inelastic at the cme wheat costs 8.38 dollars per bushel, 31¢ per kg, and 1 kg of wheat is roughly two person-days' worth of food, 57 dollars per person-year (of course an actual diet needs to be more varied and therefore slightly more expensive, but even just cooked wheat will extend your survival time under famine conditions by quite a lot) let's start by dividing the…

I absolutely agree, and admire your comprehensive explanation.

While the market may sound greedy, you can't legislate away human nature. People just won't work for free.

If you also want to address inequality, then by all means implement progressive/negative income taxes. But mess with production and distribution incentives (like implementing price controls) and you have a recipe for disaster.

Re: The fertilizer shortage will persist in 2023

#138

Post by kortilla » Fri, Feb 03, 2023, 5:35 PM UTC

Spooky23 wrote: post #87

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…

I think people see a sea of corn and don’t appreciate nuance. The bigger issue that farmers are ignoring is water.

> The bigger issue that farmers are ignoring is water.

Ironically a statement without nuance. Western US farmers are ignoring water. This is not an issue in the East.

Re: The fertilizer shortage will persist in 2023

#139

Post by eru » Fri, Feb 03, 2023, 5:36 PM UTC

debacle wrote: post #107

iceTA wrote: post #75

Two things. 1. I hate how everything has to have a financialised solution: To achieve this, the report suggests “mobilizing international financial support” and implementing tools such as “fertilizer contract swaps” to keep farmer costs manageable. 2. I read articles like this and wonder, will the world ditch meat, or will will the richer countries continue to eat ridiculous amounts of the stuff, using up all the lan…

Regenerative agriculture relies on poultry and livestock to restore the topsoil layer. Meat isn't going away. In fact, we may wind up eating more, not less, of it, over time.

> Regenerative agriculture relies on poultry and livestock to restore the topsoil layer.

Why not use human excrement instead?

Re: The fertilizer shortage will persist in 2023

#140

Post by eru » Fri, Feb 03, 2023, 5:37 PM UTC

banDeveloper wrote: post #31

The real problem is majority of crops being grown for animal agriculture, which is an extremely wasteful way of producing food. We'd only need a fraction of the farmlands if we were actually eating the crops we grow. Sadly, we can't count on consumers making rational choices and politicians are not going to tank their popularity by pushing for these changes. It's the same as climate change.

I'm not sure what you mean by not making rational choices?

People have a preference for meat. Rationality doesn't say what your preferences should be, it just helps you satisfy them.