Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Farmland practices are driving bird population decline across Europe

pnas.org

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

221–230 of 267 posts

Re: Farmland practices are driving bird population decline across Europe

#221

Post by dmreedy »

timwaagh wrote: post #219

Farming does a heck of a lot worse damage than 'a decline in bird populations'. What causes such decline in wild animal populations and causes damage to humans is that farming takes up all the available room driving both animals and humans away. I would rather see the farmer being free to sell their lands to housing developers or build on it instead of the current level of masochism with considerations like autarky a…

"Man – despite his artistic pretensions, his sophistication and his many accomplishments – owes his existence to a 6-inch layer of topsoil and the fact that it rains."

I'd hesitate to be flippant about the complexities and difficulties in the generation of food, and the market forces that it drives. And I'd certainly hesitate to claim that anyone has "better things to do".

Re: Farmland practices are driving bird population decline across Europe

#222

Post by pkphilip »

tfourb wrote: post #170
badpun wrote: post #63

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 su…

Across the world agriculture is subsidised.. even in poorer countries, because the cost of doing agriculture is very high. Farmers are moving to other jobs, selling their farmlands etc.. this will put huge pressure on food supplies and so the govts figured that there has to be some incentive to keep people in agriculture.

Nations which don't have substantial access to food grown within their borders will place themselves at severe disadvantage when it comes to any sort of global negotiations.

Take the example of Qatar - when it was under sanction by many of the Arab countries, they could not import food.. and they were forced to get into agriculture and now agriculture thrives in Qatar even though the climate is not conducive.

https://thefarmermagazine.com.au/qatars-farmers-have-gone-fr...

Re: Farmland practices are driving bird population decline across Europe

#223

Post by pkphilip »

CrampusDestrus wrote: post #65
badpun wrote: post #63

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Agriculture is subsidized to get the farmers' vote

Not just that. If you don't have farming going on - and it often requires subsidies to keep it going - even Netherlands have subsidised agriculture, your food security will just disappear.

I am not sure why people don't seem to understand this. If a nation ever finds itself dependent on a neighbour for water, food, electricity, oil etc, they are going to be in big trouble when it comes to any sort of negotiations.

The truth is that agricultural land is under tremendous pressure. It is far more lucrative to just build apartments or commercial real estate on farming land than it is to sustain agriculture. Subsidies are used to incentivize farmers to continue farming instead of disposing of their land.

Re: Farmland practices are driving bird population decline across Europe

#224

Post by Solvate8441 »

boredhedgehog wrote: post #89

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.

The consequences of killing birds and insects could be worse than the cost of keeping them around. That's what it boils down to. Knowing that, you just have to figure out if you think this is true for the things you value. You can try to figure this out yourself, or, if you think someone else could make a better judgement, see what they think. If the answer is "yes, perhaps the consequences of killing birds and insects could be worse than the cost of keeping them around for the things I value", then you should care.

Re: Farmland practices are driving bird population decline across Europe

#225

Post by kiliantics »

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…

Most soil fertiliser today comes from fossil fuel. This was the whole Haber Bosch breakthrough. If we give up artificial fertiliser and need to use animal manure, that would not justify the unsustainable scale of livestock we have today. There are also alternative sustainable nutrient sources like compost and seaweed. I don't know how much manure can be replaced with alternatives but I don't think your point lets us conclude that we absolutely need a meat industry like the one that exists currently.

Re: Farmland practices are driving bird population decline across Europe

#226

Post by ClumsyPilot »

WastingMyTime89 wrote: post #175
zmgsabst wrote: post #159

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Mega farms already receive subsidies — why is that fine, but subsidizing a less damaging method not? Also, that’s what tariffs are for: food security is national security. Finally, the Dutch farmers currently having their farms seized seemed to be doing fine — except for political interference in the name of environmentalism. Why is that intervention fine, but supporting small farmers rather than mega corporations no…

> Mega farms already receive subsidies — why is that fine, but subsidizing a less damaging method not? It's fine and might be a solution to the problem but purposefully orienting subsidies towards something and putting tariffs in place are as far removed from "the natural outcome" as you can get. > Finally, the Dutch farmers currently having their farms seized seemed to be doing fine — except for political interferen…

> removed from "the natural outcome" as you can get.

What does this even mean?

Many varieties of crops are intellectual property, and small farms can't affprd them. The entire concept of intellectual property is unnatural and did not exisy untill recently.

Is it 'natural' to be allowed pollute as much as your want, and have waste running into rivers, or is it natural to be allowed absolutely zero pollution beyong the boundaries of your farm?

Re: Farmland practices are driving bird population decline across Europe

#227

Post by rhn_mk1 »

bitL wrote: post #176
earlyriser wrote: post #116

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"eating less meat" != "sacrifice them"

How about this modus ponens chain: "eating less meat" -> "lowering meat production" -> "hiking up meat prices" -> "autoimmune sufferers unable to buy meat" -> "autoimmune sacrificed"

Deal with meat as with any kind of life saving medication in that case. There's already infrastructure for that.

Re: Farmland practices are driving bird population decline across Europe

#228

Post by nathan_compton »

msrenee wrote: post #49
kuschku wrote: post #22

This is why all those "don't have outdoor cats, they kill all the birds" stories annoy me. At best they're misguided, at worse they're intentionally misleading to hide the fact that pesticides and farming practices are actually at fault. (In Europe, on other continents the story may be different) Similar to the CO2 footprint, it's another way to individualize social issues and distract from large corporate sources of…

Ok, don't have outdoor cats because they live short lives with high risk of dying painfully. They definitely do stalk feeders and add to the stressors already in place for bird species. More than one thing can contribute to the reduction of bird populations.

This seems nuts to me. Keeping a cat in an apartment its entire life is psychological torture and almost all the indoor only cats I've ever met are neurotic.

If you don't want to let your cat move freely, I suggest just not having one.

Re: Farmland practices are driving bird population decline across Europe

#229

Post by mempko »

jillesvangurp wrote: post #14
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…

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…

I'm sorry but it seems that it's global warming that is causing insect declines as the primary driver, not farming practices (though farming practices do play a role of course).

Protected lands of the Puerto Rican rain forest saw huge declines in insect and consequently birds and there is no farming there.

The explanation is simple. Heat waves are killing the bugs. They simply can't cope with 1 or 2 weeks of intense heat. You also see this with lizards and frogs.

Since they are low on the food chain this translates to bird declines, and other animal declines.

PS. I choose not to use "Climate Change" because it's too neutral and is the preferred term of the fossil fuel industry for a reason. I like "Global Warming" or "Climate Crisis" or "Climate Emergency" or "Climate Chaos". The problem is too serious to use neutral language.

Re: Farmland practices are driving bird population decline across Europe

#230

Post by SuoDuanDao »

WastingMyTime89 wrote: post #200
SuoDuanDao wrote: post #191

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think the comment about dutch farms was that they were getting along fine with high labour costs and small footprints.

Dutch farms are massive. We are talking about livestock farming at a size where robotisation makes sense.

didn't know that. Are they massive by European standards (significantly above 75 acres)? I'm sure they're small by American standards given the size of the landmass...
Post reply on HN