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The Cruel Fantasies of Well-Fed People

monbiot.com

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Re: The Cruel Fantasies of Well-Fed People

#41

Post by infecto »

photochemsyn wrote: post #15

The main thesis of the article is that famine due to crop failure (as opposed to famine due to war) has largely been eliminated by two modern technologies: industrial agricultural methods (synthetic fertilizer, pesticides, herbicides, equipment) and global trade (air and ship transport managed by markets). This generally appears true - some time ago I tried to discover if total land area under agricultural production…

Upvote for the fellow techno-optimist. I am pretty excited with some of the startups I have seen in the electric farm equipment space.

https://www.monarchtractor.com/

I don't own a farm so I don't have industry insight but it's exciting because I think this is a problem at least appears solvable. I realize large combines are probably an issue but if you can automate the process perhaps smaller machines workout because they can run without human intervention. I am especially excited from what I have seen from the herbicide side. Take pictures the crop is driven over, hit with lasers or targeted herbicide instead of spraying the whole crop. The future is exciting.

Re: The Cruel Fantasies of Well-Fed People

#42

Post by anigbrowl »

AlbertCory wrote: post #20

The headline is misleading, but the sudden trendiness of a previously-unknown food is pretty devastating to everyone but the few who manage to cash in on the trend. Witness: Korean food. I love it as much as anyone and have a container of gochujang in the fridge, but I read once about some poor Korean who, when told that Westerners were suddenly very interested in their culture, just said, "Why?"

Where is the devastating part in this anecdote? Not disputing your thesis, there just seems to be a bit missing.

Re: The Cruel Fantasies of Well-Fed People

#43

Post by jcampbell1 »

fnordpiglet wrote: post #31
teknopaul wrote: post #17

Starts out so wrong. I live in Spain, traditionally good food still a staple. Most of the world I have visited is like that too. OK USA has screwed it's food chain, but that does not apply outside. People generally value traditions, and specifically food traditions, highly. It's a long way from financially difficult to keep these alive. People just have to decide they want to and spend time, not money. People round h…

N.b., the author is British not American. Argindustry isn’t a uniquely American thing, it’s global and pervasive, specially for protein and animal feedstock. A lot of vegetable in a global context is grown locally and purchased at local markets (outside the US and urban settings globally, which are end to end industrialized), but most people don’t raise artisanal pigs for slaughter. Most people buy their meat from a…

I didn’t take away the same message. To me it was a decent attempt to explain that offensive liberal bourgeois foodies have been sold a bill of truthy sounding bullshit because that is how free markets work. If you want to help someone tell them the truth, if you want to help yourself then tell them what they want to believe. There is a whole market of selling expensive things and claiming it will save the planet or the poor or stop colonialism or some other lie which is designed to enrich the seller.

In terms of peak bullshit, I personally think the absurd stupidity of vertical farming is what caused most people to realize the ideas coming out of one camp are mostly bullshit.

Re: The Cruel Fantasies of Well-Fed People

#44

Post by pixl97 »

photochemsyn wrote: post #15

The main thesis of the article is that famine due to crop failure (as opposed to famine due to war) has largely been eliminated by two modern technologies: industrial agricultural methods (synthetic fertilizer, pesticides, herbicides, equipment) and global trade (air and ship transport managed by markets). This generally appears true - some time ago I tried to discover if total land area under agricultural production…

>anyone claiming a return to pre-industrial subsistence agriculture

Yea, there is no possible way it could be sustainable, the amount of labor required would likely plunge the entire world into war. If I was told to drop my cushy computer job to go out into the fields with a hoe so I could survive by some glorious leader, rising up against the leader sounds like the much more productive of the options.

Re: The Cruel Fantasies of Well-Fed People

#45

Post by pixl97 »

MichaelRo wrote: post #21
HideousKojima wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>There was no lack of protein but it wasn't the obscene frenzy I see in American movies (probably fake?): all beef chops meat and basically no bread or carbs or vegetables at all. It's not an every meal kind of thing, but it's a real thing. Especially if you go to a restaurant that specializes in barbecue. Here's a typical meal from Dickey's, the first chain barbeque restaurant I could think of: https://whatnowphilly…

Holly cow! Well the only time I get near that is once a year when I have my habitual one week vacation at an all-inclusive resort in Crete (Greece). I actually tried eating all-meat but I guess my taste is too permanently distorted now. I can't help but eat the soup then raid the appetizing cooked vegetables area. Not counting the absolutely delicious bread, I could eat just that. In addition to the obscene amount of…

The amount of meat people eat in the US per person (seafood not included) is only topped by Hong Kong. Also note that the distribution of people eating meat is uneven too. Especially as people hit the amount of income they can afford to buy meats for every meal.

When I was younger I knew some people that almost only ate meat for meals, and pretty much skipped anything that looked like a vegetable. I wonder if colon cancer has got them yet?

Re: The Cruel Fantasies of Well-Fed People

#46

Post by carlosjobim »

MichaelRo wrote: post #8

I resonate with the article for several reasons: - I lived in rural Romania through the 80s when Ceaușescu decided to basically return to war time rationalization of food. - My father was an agricultural engineer on a state farm, a specialty almost forgotten today yet of utmost importance in the 50s-60s when he graduated university and got the job. People today scorn at the idea of state farms but my father comes fro…

> People today scorn at the idea of state farms but my father comes from a family of rather wealthy peasants from before collectivization and always told me that productivity was shit before modern cultivation methods, mechanization, chemical fertilizers, pesticides and herbicides were used.

In his memoirs, Khrushchev very explicitly repeats that these modernization efforts in the collective farms were done to emulate how agriculture was done in the USA and Western Europe. He went himself to Iowa to make friends with American farmer Roswell Garst and the Soviets sent large delegations to visit the state for weeks to learn agriculture from the Americans. This especially includes mechanization, chemical fertilizers and planting techniques.

Khrushchev admitted himself that it took several decades from after the revolution to return agricultural productivity to pre-WWI levels.

Re: The Cruel Fantasies of Well-Fed People

#47

Post by [deleted] »

anigbrowl wrote: post #42
AlbertCory wrote: post #20

The headline is misleading, but the sudden trendiness of a previously-unknown food is pretty devastating to everyone but the few who manage to cash in on the trend. Witness: Korean food. I love it as much as anyone and have a container of gochujang in the fridge, but I read once about some poor Korean who, when told that Westerners were suddenly very interested in their culture, just said, "Why?"

Where is the devastating part in this anecdote? Not disputing your thesis, there just seems to be a bit missing.

[deleted]

Re: The Cruel Fantasies of Well-Fed People

#48

Post by selimthegrim »

MichaelRo wrote: post #21
HideousKojima wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>There was no lack of protein but it wasn't the obscene frenzy I see in American movies (probably fake?): all beef chops meat and basically no bread or carbs or vegetables at all. It's not an every meal kind of thing, but it's a real thing. Especially if you go to a restaurant that specializes in barbecue. Here's a typical meal from Dickey's, the first chain barbeque restaurant I could think of: https://whatnowphilly…

Holly cow! Well the only time I get near that is once a year when I have my habitual one week vacation at an all-inclusive resort in Crete (Greece). I actually tried eating all-meat but I guess my taste is too permanently distorted now. I can't help but eat the soup then raid the appetizing cooked vegetables area. Not counting the absolutely delicious bread, I could eat just that. In addition to the obscene amount of…

Do you have a link to the article?

Re: The Cruel Fantasies of Well-Fed People

#49

Post by Gibbon1 »

photochemsyn wrote: post #15

The main thesis of the article is that famine due to crop failure (as opposed to famine due to war) has largely been eliminated by two modern technologies: industrial agricultural methods (synthetic fertilizer, pesticides, herbicides, equipment) and global trade (air and ship transport managed by markets). This generally appears true - some time ago I tried to discover if total land area under agricultural production…

I don't think of myself as a techo optimist, but mostly because I'm a politico pessimist. And some technologies are very problematic in the hands of bastards.

But I do think the issue of energy is mostly solved technically. And likely doesn't have the same problematic geopolitical issues oil and gas does. It's a big task to roll it out, but the momentum is there.

Also we basically solved the issue with exponential population growth via urbanization, birth control and reducing childhood mortality. That last two turned out to be exceptionally cheap. Snide comment, who knew women didn't want to be pregnant, breast feeding, and changing diapers for 20 years straight.

That leaves a lot of other things,

Legacy geopolitical stuff. Problems with authoritarian leaders. That 1/3 of humanity isn't particularly sane. These aren't tech problems.

Problems with sustainable agriculture and that we are using up resources over a few generations that took geologic time to collect.

I think it's important to not dismiss the issues we face. And equally important not to be despondent and give up. Because that's the worst thing we can do.

Re: The Cruel Fantasies of Well-Fed People

#50

Post by mock-possum »

AlbertCory wrote: post #20

The headline is misleading, but the sudden trendiness of a previously-unknown food is pretty devastating to everyone but the few who manage to cash in on the trend. Witness: Korean food. I love it as much as anyone and have a container of gochujang in the fridge, but I read once about some poor Korean who, when told that Westerners were suddenly very interested in their culture, just said, "Why?"

Why not?

Why can’t people just be curious about other people, and enjoy trying new things?

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