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Farmland practices are driving bird population decline across Europe

pnas.org

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Re: Farmland practices are driving bird population decline across Europe

#81

Post by Gustomaximus »

Scarblac wrote: post #25
tfourb wrote: post #3

There are also quite convincing studies that show even worse declines for insect populations, again mostly due to industrialized farming techniques and the widespread use of chemical fertilizers and pesticides. The standard approach in the EU to work against this really worrying trend is to a) bring more and more land under some form of protection and remove it from agricultural production and b) increase the share o…

And eating less meat, so we can do with less agricultural production.

Something like 85% of livestock feeds are byproduct of something that would be grown anyway. E.g like when they make coconut milk/ fibre for humans, they take the coconut leftovers and grind it down for cattle. That byproduct exists regardless of livestock eating it.

Re: Farmland practices are driving bird population decline across Europe

#82

Post by WastingMyTime89 »

ClumsyPilot wrote: post #76
ummonk wrote: post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Because the Great Leap Forward was such a smashing success, we need to do it again?

This is why the West has such ossified systems. If you propose any systemic change, people dont actually evaluate the suggestion on it's merits. They just go China/communism!

The proposition is to expropriate landowners (sorry the “corporate oligarchy”), force people to move to farming and rationalise production methods with a top-down approach. The comparaison to the Great Leap Forward is not far fetched. I think it’s legitimate to point to disastrous precedent when people suggest things.

Re: Farmland practices are driving bird population decline across Europe

#83

Post by ZeroGravitas »

WastingMyTime89 wrote: post #80
jillesvangurp wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There are some counter intuitive economical things going on as well. A lot of bad farming practices are heavily subsidized. For example a lot of Spanish land is not exploited. But to claim the subsidies, farmers still work the land, which leads to a lot of top soil erosion for no good reason whatsoever. In the same way a lot of dairy production is misaligned with actual demand. And you get weird surpluses of things l…

> Instead of boosting their economies by importing stuff from those countries we kill their exports with subsidized local produce and then spend a lot on development aid. I think a key takeaway from the pandemic is that you don’t want to be reliant of import from strategic ressources and food is priority number one. European subsidies are mostly going to France which is a huge wheat producer. Farming is an area where…

EU Farming subsidies and ecological ambition are a near perfect fit.

Just politics gets in the way as usual. But as the climate deniers power wanes it's a powerful tool ready to be used for good.

Re: Farmland practices are driving bird population decline across Europe

#84

Post by hef19898 »

runsWphotons wrote: post #78
hef19898 wrote: post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Global food production is a, and I oversimplify a lot here, more of a distribution problem than it is a capacity problem. Certain countries cutting back on theor surplus has zero impact on the starving regions of the world, because as things stand now those surpluses aren't exported there anyway. Quite the opposite, exporting said surplus, besides accute deliveries to mitigate famine, can kill local farming. There is…

But wouldnt it lower the price of chicken in those places, providing more people w access to good calories although hurting the local farmers? Couldnt this be solved by a country putting up tariffs or banning importing such chicken? If they didn't do that what was their reason?

Why didn't they put tariffs in place? Well, how many governments, and people in power, did you ever hear of that worried about the poor and common folks? There are a lot of people profitting from these things, including the social conciousness of us in the developed world. And those interests, combined with a ton of money and close to no oversight, result in a system that just doesn't care about what happens to the average people.

Re: Farmland practices are driving bird population decline across Europe

#85

Post by anonzzzies »

tfourb wrote: post #2

From the abstract: "We find that agricultural intensification, in particular pesticides and fertiliser use, is the main pressure for most bird population declines, especially for invertebrate feeders. Responses to changes in forest cover, urbanisation and temperature are more species-specific. Specifically, forest cover is associated with a positive effect and growing urbanisation with a negative effect on population…

Here forests and trees in general are all cut so the farmers can do farming. Considering the amount of land that is changing into a deserts (which negatively affects the farmers too), it's a bit strange they keep cutting forest cover instead of subsidising maintaining and replanting.

Re: Farmland practices are driving bird population decline across Europe

#86

Post by Mumps »

pvaldes wrote: post #73
Scarblac wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And eating less meat, so we can do with less agricultural production.

The big plot hole in this master plan that many people apparently can't see or accept. If we remove the production of meat, this will severely harm the production of vegetables. They are connected. You can't have real agriculture without manure. Fossil guano is a finite, scarce and very expensive resource, and human manure is not so desirable as replacement by several reasons so, how do they expect to feed their gree…

Dovecots [0] have been used for (likely) millenia. And, because of migration, the birds can ultimately bring nutrients in from disparate locations - as opposed to purely localally grazing livestock.

Per leathers: one, we don't have to completely eliminate cattle. Two, synthetics exist. Three, alternatives are being made/investigated [1].

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dovecote [1] https://www.felsie.co.uk/ (and others, if you google around)

Re: Farmland practices are driving bird population decline across Europe

#87

Post by mschild »

nologic01 wrote: post #15

Birds had smart enough DNA to outlast the dinosaur era and conquer the sky but I wonder if they have smart enough DNA to survive the mammalian pest that has been unleashed on the planet.

Theyll probably survive, but in what numbers and which types of birds is an entirely different story. Nevermind the massive impact that has on the environment in general.

Re: Farmland practices are driving bird population decline across Europe

#89

Post by boredhedgehog »

Why should I care about animals that have no use for me?

Stories about wolves, bears, and now birds and insects, seem to presume that I feel some automatic emotional connection to them, or that there's some self-evident moral argument why they need to kept alive. I won't deny that they have some intrinsic value, but if there are competing interests and hidden costs, that value really needs to be put into perspective.

Re: Farmland practices are driving bird population decline across Europe

#90

Post by cjrp »

tfourb wrote: post #3

There are also quite convincing studies that show even worse declines for insect populations, again mostly due to industrialized farming techniques and the widespread use of chemical fertilizers and pesticides. The standard approach in the EU to work against this really worrying trend is to a) bring more and more land under some form of protection and remove it from agricultural production and b) increase the share o…

> increase the share of eco-farming, i.e. conventional farming without the chemistry. The problem: both approaches drastically reduce agricultural productivity.

A prime example, the seed-dressing used to treat rapeseed and prevent cabbage-stem flea beetle from destroying the crop has been outlawed in the EU. Most farmers now won't grow rapeseed, because the risk of making a huge financial loss is too high. Result? We import rapeseed from countries which haven't outlawed the insecticide.

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