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The U.S. corn belt has lost a third of its topsoil

smithsonianmag.com

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Re: The U.S. corn belt has lost a third of its topsoil

#151

Post by titzer »

datavirtue wrote: post #149
titzer wrote: post #84

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think you're being ungenerous to settlers from Europe; my ancestors were some of them. Soil conditions varied a lot! In Indiana, where my ancestors settled, there was largely forest, and great soil for farming, but the plains weren't that way. But regardless, yes, humans have very radically changed not only the soil ecology, but the entire ecology of North America over our entire time. But it's really picked up in…

We are not past sustainability.

Maybe in the broadest possible sense that it may yet be possible to live sustainably, but we are currently in overshoot, and it's not even close.

https://www.overshootday.org

Re: The U.S. corn belt has lost a third of its topsoil

#152

Post by cwwc »

Veserv wrote: post #94
Mediterraneo10 wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How much of the water that Israel’s farms consume, depends on desalination? So, if it really long-term sustainable?

Desalination is sufficiently cheap to not be a material problem for US consumers (or other developed countries). State-of-the-art desalination plants in Israel are fulfilling contracts at ~$0.40/m^3 [1] and the per-capita water usage in the US is ~1200 m^3/yr [2]. Even if we assumed that the current price of water is $0, this would only amount to a $480/yr increase in expenditure per American which would constitute a…

So... the average person in Israel actually spends less on water (even though it is more expensive) because they use less?

That is remarkable.

Re: The U.S. corn belt has lost a third of its topsoil

#154

Post by colineartheta »

99_00 wrote: post #68

Right now there is no financial incentive to preserve topsoil. In the future there will be. So why artificially create incentive to pay the higher cost now when we can punt to the future where technology will be so much better and the cost will probably be lower?

What makes your you think that in the future there will be financial incentive?

Re: The U.S. corn belt has lost a third of its topsoil

#155

Post by ed25519FUUU »

drawkbox wrote: post #105
DoreenMichele wrote: post #22

I have done a little quick and dirty looking around, trying to get an idea of how much damage was done in the Dust Bowl and what the long term consequence were (as a point of comparison/trying to find a thing that might help mentally model where this is going). Here are a couple of links: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dust_Bowl#Long-term_economic_i... https://www.softschools.com/facts/us_history/dust_bowl_facts... I…

Agriculture also reduces the root depth as crops are harvested fast and regular iterations. This was a large cause of the Dust Bowl issue. There was a great post on this on reddit that has photo for reference. [1][2][3] Cover crops help this now to prevent Dust Bowl like conditions and bad soil where possible [4]. Side note: Most carbon capture also happens in the root of wild grasses and plants. It isn't just agricu…

HOAs are a scourge. I’d love to see more states scale back the power of HOAs.

Re: The U.S. corn belt has lost a third of its topsoil

#156

Post by [deleted] »

titzer wrote: post #58
gumby wrote: post #2

Modern farming is not the bucolic system drawn on the food packages in the supermarket. It's an extractive industry little different from mining or oil drilling. In fact industrial food is largely eating oil, both in energy intensity itself and the use of oil as feedstock for fertilizers and food additives.

I come from a long line of farmers. My father was the last of our family to try to hold onto the farming tradition. He grew up on a farm, along with all my aunts and uncles. His generation was the first go to college. He chose business. He made a ton of money, and hated it. After leaving the business world in the mid 1980s to return to farming, it was not the same, and he soon returned to what was effectively day tra…

[deleted]

Re: The U.S. corn belt has lost a third of its topsoil

#157

Post by ed25519FUUU »

thorwasdfasdf wrote: post #153

Us gardeners topdress our soil with organic matter to prevent topsoil loss and erosion. Personally, I often use unfinished compost because my compost is usually not done yet.

Many farms use a hydrogen-fixing cover crop, but they probably don’t let it live long enough to get the full benefit.

Re: The U.S. corn belt has lost a third of its topsoil

#158

Post by javajosh »

_carbyau_ wrote: post #150
titzer wrote: post #137

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Extractive ones will always burn out in the long run as they will run out of resources to extract. They either learn to live in the waste they've produced, i.e. they become recyclers , or they simply die off. It's a question of how much collateral damage they do over their lifetime. No matter how bad they screw up, in the very long run, Earth has a tendency to figure out how to recycle the raw materials. After all, E…

Yeah, mother earth is fine. Whether humanity will suffer a catastrophe of our own making is another question.

"Mother earth is fine." I think this ignores the human status as a thinking animal, and the glaringly obvious responsibility we collectively share for keeping our biosphere in good condition. That is, that we keep the remarkable diversity of life intact, and do not pointlessly throw the most unique and precious part of our universe in a chipper to make more particle board furniture.

It is interesting that by incrementally converting the life-support system of our planet into dollar store trash, we could have similar impact on the biosphere as an ELE meteor impact! The tragedy is that, at least theoretically, this particular cause is avoidable. Or was. (Maybe science really is to blame? Wouldn't that be sad.)

Re: The U.S. corn belt has lost a third of its topsoil

#159

Post by ed25519FUUU »

titzer wrote: post #58
gumby wrote: post #2

Modern farming is not the bucolic system drawn on the food packages in the supermarket. It's an extractive industry little different from mining or oil drilling. In fact industrial food is largely eating oil, both in energy intensity itself and the use of oil as feedstock for fertilizers and food additives.

I come from a long line of farmers. My father was the last of our family to try to hold onto the farming tradition. He grew up on a farm, along with all my aunts and uncles. His generation was the first go to college. He chose business. He made a ton of money, and hated it. After leaving the business world in the mid 1980s to return to farming, it was not the same, and he soon returned to what was effectively day tra…

An observation I’ve made is that the strongest and most tangible criticism of modern farming practices comes from small/family farmers and homesteaders.

The two groups have almost no philosophy and practices in common. Different worlds.

Re: The U.S. corn belt has lost a third of its topsoil

#160

Post by CapitalistCartr »

milkytron wrote: post #15
CapitalistCartr wrote: post #10

These topsoil crisis stories have been running since the 1930s, and are still nonsense. Modern farming doesn't depend on soil nutrients. The soil is tested, then minerals and petrochemical fertilizers are added. The soil is basically a growing medium.

Wasn't the dust bowl caused by topsoil degradation? That seemed like a very substantial crises for wide swaths of the country's population.

That is a different issue, a serious one. The claimed problem here is that farming relies on topsoil, which is not correct. Our factory farming doesn't rely on topsoil nutrients to feed the crops. Our current farming methods leave a lot to be desired.
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