‘Farms are failing’ as fertilizer prices drive up cost of food • Hacker News Board

Re: ‘Farms are failing’ as fertilizer prices drive up cost of food

#171

Post by hn_throwaway_99 » Sat, Jan 22, 2022, 6:20 PM UTC

ZeroGravitas wrote: post #92

hn_throwaway_99 wrote: post #58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That vastly underestimates the size of the modern problem. I posted previously of the adage "Modern agriculture is about turning energy in fossil fuels into food we can eat." While not entirely accurate (yes, most of the energy in plants comes from the sun, but it is fossil fuels that power most of the nitrogen fixation needed to unlock that photosynthesis), it does emphasize how so much of modern agriculture is depe…

They only use fossil fuels to make the hydrogen. Which can be made more efficiently with electricity. So it's not really a problem. We only do it now because the costs are hidden. The transition is almost entirely political in nature, since not using fossil fuels for this is the better option, and it's already started.

> They only use fossil fuels to make the hydrogen. Which can be made more efficiently with electricity.

Are we really in disagreement then? Where pray tell do you think electricity comes from? In the US, 60% comes from fossil fuels, about 20% from nuclear. Solar, wind, biomass and geothermal combined is My point is that most folks understand that moving our electric infrastructure to renewables is an enormous, long term, extremely expensive undertaking. Whether the hydrogen used in nitrogen fixation comes from natural gas directly, or from electrolysis, it's at its core an energy problem, and transitioning our energy use needed for nitrogen fixation on a global scale is a lot more expensive/complicated than planting some alfalfa.

Re: ‘Farms are failing’ as fertilizer prices drive up cost of food

#172

Post by COGlory » Sat, Jan 22, 2022, 6:21 PM UTC

wallacoloo wrote: post #56

ploden wrote: post #30

Maybe we should end the government mandate to burn corn in car engines. Biden seems more pro-ethanol than Trump, I have no idea why.

i always assumed ethanol production was encouraged by the govt precisely to spur excess production of corn so as to make our food production more robust. i.e. during a bad year of food production, halt ethanol production and redirect that excess of corn back into the food supply; crisis averted. is that not the case?

It's because Iowa has a law saying their presidential primary must be first.

Re: ‘Farms are failing’ as fertilizer prices drive up cost of food

#173

Post by cf141q5325 » Sat, Jan 22, 2022, 6:22 PM UTC

smallerfish wrote: post #101

flenserboy wrote: post #91

Pastures are the future. There's a reason the US Midwest had such great soil — it's not simply a confluence of rivers & luck. The buffalo did their thing, and the grasses they fed on were fed in turn by them. Replacing corn and soy with ruminants will replenish the soil, provide excellent protein for people, and get rid of the cheap, food-like things made from corn, soy, and their chemically-coaxed out byproducts. It…

"Livestock takes up nearly 80% of global agricultural land, yet produces less than 20% of the world’s supply of calories." https://ourworldindata.org/agricultural-land-by-global-diets "So if this system is so ideal, why is it that my cow hasn’t tasted a blade of grass since October? Speed, in a word. Cows raised on grass simply take longer to reach slaughter weight than cows raised on a richer diet, and the modern me…

Thats a simplification for a feel good narrative. Your source lists all land that grows anything but forest as agriculture land. Yet on large parts of those areas you cant do anything but pastures. Also, much of the cow feed isnt calories humans can process. Think byproducts of soy production. The youtube channel "What I've Learned" has a great video on it. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sGG-A80Tl5g

What they dont mention is the large part livestock (especially cows an chicken) will have to play in producing soil from the dirt left behind after industrial agriculture. Regenerative agriculture is the term here, with rotating cows and chickens on degraded dirt patches to build top soil.

All of this of course doesnt take away from the madness that is industrial meat production. But nothing has ever been solved by oversimplified narratives and action-ism.

Re: ‘Farms are failing’ as fertilizer prices drive up cost of food

#174

Post by lanfeust6 » Sat, Jan 22, 2022, 6:23 PM UTC

t-3 wrote: post #145

AnIdiotOnTheNet wrote: post #132

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The only point I see that wasn't addressed was that we can use land unsuitable for agriculture for grazing, but in that case all the supposed top-soil benefits are going to the wrong place anyway.

"The wrong place" can become "the right place" in a relatively short period of time if we change the way we think about agriculture, is the point. For what it's worth, I think the main problem here is agricultural subsidies - they completely distort the market. Calories are cheap due to this, true, but the result is completely unsustainable agricultural practices, poorer health, a more fragile economy, and less varie…

> For what it's worth, I think the main problem here is agricultural subsidies - they completely distort the market.

Yep. In the discourse surrounding this there's a call to reduce or eliminate meat consumption, but simultaneously we have market incentives for meat consumption through legislation. This is untenable.

Re: ‘Farms are failing’ as fertilizer prices drive up cost of food

#175

Post by AtlasBarfed » Sat, Jan 22, 2022, 6:23 PM UTC

analog31 wrote: post #94

pstuart wrote: post #66

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Too lazy to look up numbers, but in the US corn is a significant crop and much of it is more of an industrial feedstock rather than food for people. I'm guessing that "more natural" processes could still feed us all but the game is rigged so that it's not economical for to do that (directly, as it's effectively subsidized for the "economical" side).

My readings were more ominous, that without the Haber process, more natural processes cannot extract enough nitrogen to feed us. That situation is partially alleviated if we stop eating meat, but not completely. This is just one example of a larger realization, which is that humanity can no longer sustain itself without a complex and sophisticated technological society.

Good thing we are making that as fragile as possible by distributing resource extraction and processing 5,000 miles from where it ends up, with virtually no warehousing to absorb disruptions.

Re: ‘Farms are failing’ as fertilizer prices drive up cost of food

#176

Post by AtlasBarfed » Sat, Jan 22, 2022, 6:28 PM UTC

SEJeff wrote: post #21

There is also a slightly different way to grow food using a less intense fertilizer called "square foot gardening". https://squarefootgardening.org/ There is a best selling book about it and it works surprisingly well. The secret fertilizer for this, affectionately known as "Mel's Mix" recipe is available for anyone to make their own. It's not even terribly hard if you're willing to do a bit of composting outside on…

Efficiency arguments aside, the best thing about home gardening is the buffer it provides for supply uncertainty, since we don't warehouse anything anymore or plan for disruption.

Re: ‘Farms are failing’ as fertilizer prices drive up cost of food

#177

Post by ZeroGravitas » Sat, Jan 22, 2022, 6:32 PM UTC

hn_throwaway_99 wrote: post #171

ZeroGravitas wrote: post #92

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They only use fossil fuels to make the hydrogen. Which can be made more efficiently with electricity. So it's not really a problem. We only do it now because the costs are hidden. The transition is almost entirely political in nature, since not using fossil fuels for this is the better option, and it's already started.

> They only use fossil fuels to make the hydrogen. Which can be made more efficiently with electricity. Are we really in disagreement then? Where pray tell do you think electricity comes from? In the US, 60% comes from fossil fuels, about 20% from nuclear. Solar, wind, biomass and geothermal combined is My point is that most folks understand that moving our electric infrastructure to renewables is an enormous, long t…

Well, similar to the "EVs just burn coal" thing, it seems likely that burning the gas to make electricity and then using that electricity to make hydrogen would be more efficient, so doing it that way would reduce demand, save money, and just generally be better than what we do now.

And then you've a) freed up lots of a storable fuel that you can use to supplement renewables if you really need it (and can be kept and used as a chemical feedstock otherwise), b) created a whole new market for responsively using all the cheap new renewables that we need to build.

So, yeah, I think we still disagree. Fossil fuels are not particularly necessary, useful or cheap, not for transport and not for fertilizer. They have some uses, but they generally get given way more credit than they deserve for political reasons. Generally the faster we replace them, the better off we will all be in many ways. It's "expensive" to do this in the same way that moving to socialized health is "expensive", it'll costs billions, but it'll also save billions, because the alternative costs even more.

Re: ‘Farms are failing’ as fertilizer prices drive up cost of food

#178

Post by AtlasBarfed » Sat, Jan 22, 2022, 6:33 PM UTC

Turing_Machine wrote: post #129

_0w8t wrote: post #125

Earlier quoted context omitted.

When historians looked into details, it turned out a serf worked less than 40 hours per week on average in the Middle Ages in France, less than modern workers. And he needed to feed both own family and his master.

Umm... hours worked isn't the only metric for quality of life. I'm pretty sure that 40 hours spent in agricultural stoop labor is not the same thing as 40 hours sitting in a comfy chair in front of a computer. Also, you're just shining off the fact that they were serfs . I wouldn't want to be a serf even if I had to work only 10 hours per week. Would you? Not free to leave the land on which you were born, living in a…

Come on, a "modern serf" would have access to (Civil liberties discussion aside):

- power tools

- solar/wind/battery for power independence

- internet for entertainment

- running water in the house

- cheap goods (clothes, etc are WAY MORE cheap and efficient to make now)

So I'd say the day-to-day job is theoretically even easier.

Re: ‘Farms are failing’ as fertilizer prices drive up cost of food

#179

Post by LatteLazy » Sat, Jan 22, 2022, 6:35 PM UTC

The problem with farms is they are small businesses. But instead of having entrepreneurs or managers, or some other competent people, they have farmers in charge. And farmers absolutely refuse to do things like accounts or business plans or learning about farming.

Re: ‘Farms are failing’ as fertilizer prices drive up cost of food

#180

Post by teeray » Sat, Jan 22, 2022, 6:47 PM UTC

adrianN wrote: post #73

ploden wrote: post #30

Maybe we should end the government mandate to burn corn in car engines. Biden seems more pro-ethanol than Trump, I have no idea why.

Hopefully EVs will put a natural end to that madness. We could satisfy much of our primary energy demand simply by replacing energy crops with PV.

EVs are wonderful in certain places: cities, suburbs, etc. Where I sit it’s -10F, and everyone with an EV either can’t start it at all or has to ride in it with no heat—-which can be life-threatening. EVs will reduce our demand, but never eliminate it due to such edge cases.