Farmland practices are driving bird population decline across Europe • Hacker News Board

Re: Farmland practices are driving bird population decline across Europe

#161

Post by bitL » Tue, May 16, 2023, 12:22 PM UTC

desas wrote: post #109

bitL wrote: post #99

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Some people can only eat meat due to autoimmune issues exacerbated by vegetables. Are we going to sacrifice them?

Is this an argument made in good faith? The commentator said reduce meat consumption and that most people ate too much. They didn't say "ban it for everyone, let the autoimmune suffer"

I purposefully chose an extreme example to put it onto the radar of everyone pushing veganism everywhere. Also if you really study sustainability, you see that reducing meat production doesn't lead to better sustainability anyway.

If you reduce meat production, you'll hike up prices, likely pricing out those with autoimmune diseases that barely survive already. So technically you are true like in "you can still eat meat in theory", but in practice those folks won't be able. Now where is the good faith in that argument?

Re: Farmland practices are driving bird population decline across Europe

#162

Post by bryanlarsen » Tue, May 16, 2023, 12:23 PM UTC

MichaelZuo wrote: post #156

bryanlarsen wrote: post #147

Probably the most exciting future technology is precision fermentation. We use massive amounts of land to grow monocultures because that's the cheapest way to produce food. We're in a conundrum: more expensive food would cause mass suffering. OTOH, our current food production methods are destructive, and cause mass suffering. A cheaper method to produce food that uses a lot less land and resources would be a game cha…

If it's cheaper for more nutritious food, and every other aspect remains the same or better, then you won't need to convince anyone, it'll sell itself.

I doubt there is anything which is more conservative and traditional than food. So even if its cheaper, more nutritious, better for the environment and tastes better, a lot of people will shun it and eat the same foods they've always eaten.

Re: Farmland practices are driving bird population decline across Europe

#163

Post by wahnfrieden » Tue, May 16, 2023, 12:29 PM UTC

boudin wrote: post #102

edumucelli wrote: post #96

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That is simply not true! Use of mechanical farming and fertilizers/pesticides can be beaten in productivity by permacultural practices. One example in France that has been followed by researches (and has produced several papers [1]) is the Ferme du Bec. It is able to produce multiple times more and more qualitative (organic), for the same area than the national average mechanized production in France. The pesticide i…

The real underlying issue here is that good farming practices require hands. If we don't value back farming related work and allow people to invest a lot of there time and energy into sustainable practices we cannot have the amount of people required to do what is done at la ferme du bec at a much bigger scale.

In the US currently industrial and smaller scale farms use heavy amounts of effectively slave labor / indentured servants with fake/stolen papers, bussed to unknown remote locations, company housing and company towns with local sheriff in kahoots with the owners, routine ICE raids to force compliance and break up organizing. We’re quite far from kindness to labor. Many modern liberal countries like SKorea, Italy have similar. Our most democratic nation states run on slave labor.

Re: Farmland practices are driving bird population decline across Europe

#164

Post by Guthur » Tue, May 16, 2023, 12:29 PM UTC

flagrant_taco wrote: post #115

cjrp wrote: post #77

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It’s really not. Without subsidies, farms could not exist; we simply don’t pay enough for produce to keep them running. You could argue that subsidies are to keep the public onside. If you were the party who removed subsidies (and increased food prices by 50%), it would be political suicide.

I've never quite followed the math on this argument for subsidies. Government subsidies are still payed by us, the money is funneled through taxes and government budgets but it's not like a subsidy appears out of thin air. This is also does in the face of free markets. If we keep process artificially low we won't see any explanation in production. That keeps prices high and sticks us in a loop where we need subsidies…

Free market is the reason you need the subsidies, otherwise import tariffs.

European production costs around labour, regulations etc would be drastically undercut by foreign low cost markets and you would lose food sovereignty due to foreign imports.

Of course subsidies do introduce distortion but they are often simpler globally than tic for tat tariffs.

Re: Farmland practices are driving bird population decline across Europe

#165

Post by ClumsyPilot » Tue, May 16, 2023, 12:30 PM UTC

biorach wrote: post #137

ClumsyPilot wrote: post #92

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is plainly not accurate - manure from most aninals, especially pig farms, is a hazardous easte to dispose of. Only a small percentage of manure is reused as fertiliser because transporting it is expensive, and messy. Often it needs to be processed before it can be used safely. You can gooogle 'industrial farm US' and see pictures of ani als standing knee deep in their own poop. Also it is illegal to take photos…

> manure from most aninals, especially pig farms, is a hazardous easte to dispose of. Only a small percentage of manure is reused as fertiliser because transporting it is expensive, and messy You'd need to cite some sources for that. And explain where the millions of tons of animal manure go. Here in Northern Europe 100% of manure from housed animals is used, either spread as manure or, increasingly, used for biometh…

> Here in Northern Europe 100% of manure from housed animals is used,

That's the wrong statistics to look it - 100% of waste coffee is used. They already have it, good management will figure out a way to use it.

But you cannot make an argument that we have to keep drinking coffee because fertiliser industry will collapse without waste coffee.

There are thousands of studies about impacts of intensive animal faming on landscape, economy, health and society in general, they are all negative. This was settled like 40 years ago.

Re: Farmland practices are driving bird population decline across Europe

#166

Post by biorach » Tue, May 16, 2023, 12:35 PM UTC

ClumsyPilot wrote: post #165

biorach wrote: post #137

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> manure from most aninals, especially pig farms, is a hazardous easte to dispose of. Only a small percentage of manure is reused as fertiliser because transporting it is expensive, and messy You'd need to cite some sources for that. And explain where the millions of tons of animal manure go. Here in Northern Europe 100% of manure from housed animals is used, either spread as manure or, increasingly, used for biometh…

> Here in Northern Europe 100% of manure from housed animals is used, That's the wrong statistics to look it - 100% of waste coffee is used. They already have it, good management will figure out a way to use it. But you cannot make an argument that we have to keep drinking coffee because fertiliser industry will collapse without waste coffee. There are thousands of studies about impacts of intensive animal faming on…

I have no idea why you are taking about coffee.

You said

> Only a small percentage of manure is reused as fertiliser because transporting it is expensive, and messy

That's straight up false, for Northern Europe anyway.

Re: Farmland practices are driving bird population decline across Europe

#167

Post by [deleted] » Tue, May 16, 2023, 12:36 PM UTC

hug wrote: post #45

shellac wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> There are also quite convincing studies that show even worse declines for insect populations Has the evidence improved recently? About 3 years ago there were a few papers, including a meta analysis (-ish), which were suggestive but also noted the lack of longitudinal studies, and their lack of geographical diversity (Germany and UK as I recall). The consensus was that everyone was certain there was a serious issue,…

While not particularly useful as a scientific method, and obviously not attempting to counter your broader point asking for more detailed analysis, there’s incredibly compelling evidence: Go for a 100 mile drive at night, and count the bugs on your windshield. Ask your parents about it. Ask every 70 year old you know. Bugs are in decline. There’s absolutely no lack of evidence. We know it’s real. We just haven’t cata…

[deleted]

Re: Farmland practices are driving bird population decline across Europe

#168

Post by lelandfe » Tue, May 16, 2023, 12:36 PM UTC

pif wrote: post #53

hug wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

While not particularly useful as a scientific method, and obviously not attempting to counter your broader point asking for more detailed analysis, there’s incredibly compelling evidence: Go for a 100 mile drive at night, and count the bugs on your windshield. Ask your parents about it. Ask every 70 year old you know. Bugs are in decline. There’s absolutely no lack of evidence. We know it’s real. We just haven’t cata…

Could this effect be caused, or enhanced, by the aerodynamics of the modern cars?

> The research included vintage cars up to 70 years old to see if their less aerodynamic shape meant they killed more bugs, but it found that modern cars actually hit slightly more insects

https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2020/feb/12/car-spla...

Re: Farmland practices are driving bird population decline across Europe

#169

Post by WastingMyTime89 » Tue, May 16, 2023, 12:43 PM UTC

orwin wrote: post #131

WastingMyTime89 wrote: post #82

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Rural landowners who didn't had a marketable crop/produce (wine) already got expropriated, and their land already incorporate 'rationalized' ag. I know of 6 person in my mother's village who killed themselves between the 80s and late 90s, because of 'revolver' credits (aptly renamed), and tbf the rest of their family (4 different families) got it worse imho, until the state swoopt in and forgave the debt. I think onl…

No idea where you are from but I'm French and my family has owned a farming equipment dealership for close to 50 years. I haven't seen this mass incorporation you speak of.

Farms have indeed grew larger through consolidation (no one got expropriated - farming is now capital-intensive and economy of scale kicks in with larger farms - small owners either bought their neighbours and became big, sold or went bankrupt) but nearly all of them are still privately owned by people whose family history is in farming.

I find the nostalgia for small scale farming somewhat amusing personnaly. In my experience, it mostly comes from urban people doing white collar jobs. The reality of managing a small farm is not fun.

Livestock farming is the only activity which remains somewhat widespread on a small scale here and it's miserable. It's a buyer market. Farmers are being squeezed out as much as possible by their distributors.

Re: Farmland practices are driving bird population decline across Europe

#170

Post by tfourb » Tue, May 16, 2023, 12:45 PM UTC

badpun wrote: post #63

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…

We subsidize agriculture to maintain food self-sufficiency. Otherwise, things could get very nasty around here during the next global famine. During a famine, you can't just outbid poor countries and buy out their food, as their governments will ban food exports and there will be not food to buy, regardless of price.

If the only way that agriculture can sustain itself in i.e. Germany is by subsidies covering 50% of farmers' incomes and all of their profits, then the way we do agriculture/food is fundamentally wrong.

Also, how self-sufficient are you really if your entire agricultural system is predicated on access to chemical fertilizers, which in turn is produced from natural gas of which you have to import close to 100%? The subsidy system is thoroughly dysfunctional and doesn't solve a real problem anymore, except by supporting existing economic structures.