It's like everyone who's ever watched a YouTube video about planting a 3 sisters garden has an opinion for the people actually staking their livelihood on this now.
It is more about that fact that people talking about sustainable food production do not share many goals with commodity farmers exchanging corn and soybeans for as much cash as possible.
At least farmers have the humility to not go on the internet and smear you based on their opinion of your use of a document database over a relational database.
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.…
Farmers mix superabsorbent polymers in the soil to improve water retention. https://www.alibaba.com/product-detail/Factory-Price-Wholesa...
This sounds like it's begging for an article in 20 years about "Why we never should have used superabsorbent polymers in agriculture".
Won't these things get broken apart after years of working the ground? Won't they potentially contaminate other areas by traveling downstream or being blown by the wind?
Pretending indigenous communities “solved” this is a farce. If we switched to their methods 90% of the population would need to die because they don’t scale.
What percentage of indigenous people were involved in farming? 100%? It's less than 3% today.
So your solution is to give up your job and return to subsistence farming? Let us know how that works out.
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.
Water in western states is often a "use it or lose it" system, driving overuse even if the farmer knows better.
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
Pretending indigenous communities “solved” this is a farce. If we switched to their methods 90% of the population would need to die because they don’t scale.
Not a good look to strawman things like this when you have sibling comments elsewhere in this thread saying the discussion needs more nuance.
I actually did napkin math awhile back comparing a particular 16th century indigenous agricultural yields with 20th century American agriculture [0]. The indigenous system came out favorably until the second half of the 20th century despite the limitations of hand tools and natural fertilizer. There's still a gap between that and current yields, but I think it's fair to point out that most advocates of these systems are actually arguing for a synthesis with modern technologies that allow them to scale rather than a complete rejection of modernity.
Pretending indigenous communities “solved” this is a farce. If we switched to their methods 90% of the population would need to die because they don’t scale.
What percentage of indigenous people were involved in farming? 100%? It's less than 3% today.
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.
you don't have to consume the animals that contribute the the cycling of a healthy ecosystem...
frame it as you like, but eating meat is literally only necessary because people want to.
Yup, most gardening books start off talking about humus, “dark, organic material that forms in soil when plant and animal matter decays.” Industrial farms are very far away from the foundations of healthy soil, and they need copious amounts of fertilizer and water to compensate. The food produced is less nutritious and less sustainable as a result. Consider investing in a local CSA if you have the opportunity. It’s a…
CSAs where I live are a luxury good for a few people to feel better about themselves. You pay in much more than you get back (compared to a grocery store), and what you get is geared towards variety to make it more appealing. As such, you get enough of any particular veg for one or two meals, at a cost that is wildly expensive for most people. I tried one summer, and it was cute but replaced approximately 0% of our g…
I guess it depends on your goals. It will never be as affordable as the grocery store as the economies of scale aren't there. The idea is to provide reliable revenue to a local farm in exchange for high quality produce produced in a sustainable way. It doesn't make me feel particularly "better about myself" to connect with the family that provides us this service, but I do like their mission, and I want them to be successful, so in my case it's worth it. Also, I would imagine pricing varies wildly from one region to the next, so we may be comparing apples to oranges (or swiss chard for that matter).