The U.S. corn belt has lost a third of its topsoil • Hacker News Board

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

#191

Post by javajosh » Fri, Apr 16, 2021, 2:12 AM UTC

titzer wrote: post #178

_carbyau_ wrote: post #171

Earlier quoted context omitted.

While I think our views are similar, I clearly have a differing take on "Mother earth is fine." To me, it implies that planet earth is as implacable as the rest of the universe. It doesn't have feelings. It doesn't care. And it will still be here for millennia yet. This changes the conversation from: "We're hurting mother earth." to "We're thinking animals and yet we're making a poor future for ourselves." https://ww…

I'm much more fatalistic for humans than either of you. We've been downright nasty to all other forms of life on this planet for millenia, and now we've stepped up from just being nasty to being positively ecocidal, ratcheting up the biodiversity loss with each new techno-monstrosity we create. We are 100% headed for the trash heap, IMHO. You're right that we are "thinking animals", but we've got a global animus now…

I'm not sure it's about money, per se. Consider all the societies that had money and didn't get as "successful" as the current one, not anywhere close.

The culprit is the scientific method, and in particular it's ability to give people repeatable, inhuman action-at-a-distance that amplified moral hazard 10000-fold.

The longer the distance between extraction and consumption the more fucked your civilization is.

As horrible as that sounds, there is a beautiful symmetry: science gives hope to spread life beyond Earth, and yet it is also provides a real path to the destruction of Earth, our only home.

Clearly Nature thinks the gamble is worth it.

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

#192

Post by bluGill » Fri, Apr 16, 2021, 2:12 AM UTC

titzer wrote: post #84

failrate wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is a romanticized view of the small family farm. Our farmibg practices in the US were imported from Europe and were not adapted to our climates. Settlers spread like locusts across land that was so fertile that even if they didn't know what to do, the soil would rescue them. Until it was finally so used up that it couldn't support crops.

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…

The practices of 150 years ago destroyed the soil. Farmers had to stop those in the 1930s. Since then plows have gone out of style and reduced soil loss greatly. Farmers who get 4x the yields are actually building soil, they have to because the soil they were left with by the 1980s wouldn't support those yields without doing things to build up the soil. It is years to build up though, if you can add 1mm of soil in a decade that is good. However you can also make what is left better without adding more.

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

#193

Post by bluGill » Fri, Apr 16, 2021, 2:16 AM UTC

smegger001 wrote: post #107

CountSessine wrote: post #56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If another state scheduled their's ahead of Iowa's, Iowa's state officials would be legally required to reschedule Iowa's ahead of this other state's. It would be super fun if another state passed a similar law.

is it bad of me that I want this to happen to end the madness. I can just imagine Iowa trying to sue another state for doing this.

They wouldn't have to. At the national conventions all delegates from states that go before iowa will be unable to vote by the existing rules and that limits what States would even be willing to try.

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

#194

Post by bluGill » Fri, Apr 16, 2021, 2:18 AM UTC

slt2021 wrote: post #18

nuisance-bear wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Maybe we shouldn't burn ethanol in cars. Maybe we shouldn't load up every food product with corn syrup.

if you think about it, it is ridiculous that we burn food as fuel in our cars and add unhealthy amount of sugar syrup into everything

Food is fuel, always has been. An internal combustion engine is efficent compared to biological processes of motion.

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

#195

Post by dragonwriter » Fri, Apr 16, 2021, 2:22 AM UTC

mycologos wrote: post #48

AceJohnny2 wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Corn in the US is heavily subsidized. It's why corn syrup is so prevalent in US foods, because the subsidies mean it's cheaper than any other sources of sugar. In the US, Iowa is the largest producer of corn [1] (producing nearly 40% more than the next, Illinois,) and thus the greatest beneficiary of those corn subsidies. Could we reduce those corn subsidies? No, it's politically nonviable, in part because Iowa has e…

> Iowa has enshrined in its laws that it must have the first primaries in the US I'm confused, how can a single state unilaterally require that its primary is the earliest in the nation? What's to prevent another state from passing a law that its primary must be one day before Iowa's?

> I'm confused, how can a single state unilaterally require that its primary is the earliest in the nation?

It can’t, it requires cooperation of the other states.

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

#196

Post by bluGill » Fri, Apr 16, 2021, 2:22 AM UTC

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?

There has been financial incentive to preserve topsoil for years. You cannot buy subsidised crop insurance if you don't adopt soil conserving practices. You can't get record yields out of your land if you haven't spent the previous seven years carefully building up your soil .

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

#197

Post by pwr33 » Fri, Apr 16, 2021, 2:23 AM UTC

activehuman wrote: post #185

To me this is just another example of how humanity often doesn't think and act for the long term until its too late- along with the problems of our poor planning for climate change, pandemics, plastic pollution, and consistently choosing to invest in shiny new things versus investing in maintaining current infrastructure.

It's more than that. Look no further than this forum to find people who revel in thwarting any progress on issues that are vital to our very existence.

These people are traitors to humanity and need to be stopped at whatever cost.

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

#198

Post by bluGill » Fri, Apr 16, 2021, 2:27 AM UTC

throwaway210401 wrote: post #135

Tangentially related, I want a dataset of all cultivated lands and what crops they are growing? Is there a dataset for it? I mean, I give GPS coordinates and I get back crops growing there.

General data is in government reports. The farmer who owns that GPS coordinate has it, but considers it sensitive data and won't tell you. There are big databases, but they respect the farmers not wanting to share and won't talk. The admins of those database are registered with the SEC as having inside information and so they cannot trade in relavent markets.

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

#199

Post by bluGill » Fri, Apr 16, 2021, 2:30 AM UTC

pm90 wrote: post #130

DoctorNick wrote: post #128

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So you'd prefer that farmers get screwed by the onerous IP clauses surrounding them?

No, just remove the onerous clauses rather than GMO crops.

The most interesting patents have already expired.

Most of the clauses you think of as onerous are non issues to real farmers. Hybrid seeds don't breed true, so no farmer is saving their seed in the first place.

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

#200

Post by bluGill » Fri, Apr 16, 2021, 2:34 AM UTC

TaylorAlexander wrote: post #21

If anyone is curious I am working on an open source farming robot meant to be used for regenerative agriculture techniques. My hope is that we can build robotic tools that work the land more like human hands do instead of the big tools and poisons we use today. If you like that kind of thing please take a look: https://community.twistedfields.com/t/introducing-acorn-a-pr...

That thing is worse for the soil than a big tractor. It has to make more tire tracks to cover the field, and soil compaction is sub liner with weight so overall it is doing more damage. Sure where the tractor tires are it is worse, but the tractor tires skip a lot of space those harm.