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

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

#201

Post by dilap »

ethbr0 wrote: post #186
cinntaile wrote: post #144

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You (the U.S. government back then) killed them off just to stick it to the indigenous people, since buffalos played a central role in their lives. That is so messed up. From over 60 million to 541 in less than a century according to Wikipedia. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/American_bison

It's difficult to organize, fund, & perpetrate evil at scale, to the exclusion of a financial motive, so it rarely happens. I'm sure the anti-indigenous Army leaders at the time were pleased with the side effect, but the reality is that firearms + slow moving bison + horses + railroad shipping = profit. And so people kept doing it until bison were almost eradicated.

Definitely multifactorial, but the US army really did have a policy of killing buffalo w/ the aim of depriving the indians they were fighting of their primary food source.

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

#203

Post by ramblenode »

lenkite wrote: post #149
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).

Corn is a very good carbon sink. https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S016719871... https://denvergazette.com/news/environment/one-global-warmin...

... if it were used as a carbon sink.

But that cellulose "waste" part of the corn is a feedstock for other industries. Keeping those inputs constant means growing more of some other crop and increasing net nitrogen usage. Producing nitrogen fertilizer takes energy, currently from fossil fuels.

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

#204

Post by ramblenode »

Scoundreller wrote: post #64
Turing_Machine wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Edit: "wheat" -> "corn" "Square foot gardening" with hand labor isn't going to replace the 772 million metric tons of wheat and 1 billion metric tons of corn produced annually. Sorry, it just isn't. Given that it's January, why not try the experiment of producing all the food you personally consume this year using the techniques in this book? Growing a few tomatoes and a bit of lettuce is pretty easy, and is a fun an…

Growing by hand for calories is a negative return activity. Industrial is just more energy efficient and who cares about artisanal sugar or cooking oil. Hand-Grow some herbs and tomatoes on the other hand and now you’re making dough.

> Growing by hand for calories is a negative return activity.

Could you explain what this means? Does this imply animal husbandry was necessary for agriculture?

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

#205

Post by cjbgkagh »

dqv wrote: post #198
cjbgkagh wrote: post #194

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I’ve always been distrustful of food science, ever since the food pyramid (grain suppliers) was introduced to me as a child, and the quadrant of tastes (funded by umami suppliers in the condiment wars). More recently the CSIRO prostrated themselves you the lamb lobby. I picked the healthy at any size example as it’s the most obviously wrong and early death has to be the clearest indication of poor health. I’m not a f…

What changes in blood work did you notice after not eating meat? And how long did you go without it?

I went through elimination diets that included periods of no meat. About 2 weeks into it I’ll start seeing lower reaction speeds, the games are very sensitive to changes so it shows up there first, much later I’d see lower T3 and Free Test. I immediately feel much more vital after I break the no meat periods with a big stake.

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

#206

Post by 2ndorder »

makomk wrote: post #122
smallerfish wrote: post #101

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"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…

Humans cannot survive on calories alone, though, and certainly aren't going to be healthy living on them. Protein has always been one of the most expensive parts of a healthy diet.

'Humans cannot survive on calories alone' - that made me smile...

To add diseases, Ustilago maydis [1]: likes warm, moderatly dry, seeds spore-forming from and over wind transport, ya'll know fast driving cars on motorhighways or even the mechanic tail-spinning of modern 200m wind turbines, now i am not someone who may collect (realy) every physical fact (or the political ones) in a modell (hobbyist), but it sounds -financially-rewarding-(crossed out) -interesting-looking- interesting for me...

[1] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ustilago_maydis

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

#208

Post by OJFord »

nemo44x wrote: post #142
rowanajmarshall wrote: post #109

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> So if this system is so ideal, why is it that my cow hasn’t tasted a blade of grass since October? Keep in mind this is absolutely not true in even the rest of the Western world. American-style cattle factory farms are almost unheard of in the UK, and practically all beef here would count as grass-fed, because that's just how we raise cattle. There is some supplementation over winter when grass doesn't grow (and ev…

I can’t remember the last time I’ve had a great steak in the UK. The beef is just very low quality compared to what is sourced in the USA. Far too lean in the UK. I and I generally find them a bit tougher too possibly due to more roaming by the cattle. Now, UK pork on the other hand is tremendous.

Are you comparing at similar price points? I wonder if there's just more (too much) interest at the cheap (plumped up with water, for one thing) end here.

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

#209

Post by rowanajmarshall »

nemo44x wrote: post #142
rowanajmarshall wrote: post #109

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> So if this system is so ideal, why is it that my cow hasn’t tasted a blade of grass since October? Keep in mind this is absolutely not true in even the rest of the Western world. American-style cattle factory farms are almost unheard of in the UK, and practically all beef here would count as grass-fed, because that's just how we raise cattle. There is some supplementation over winter when grass doesn't grow (and ev…

I can’t remember the last time I’ve had a great steak in the UK. The beef is just very low quality compared to what is sourced in the USA. Far too lean in the UK. I and I generally find them a bit tougher too possibly due to more roaming by the cattle. Now, UK pork on the other hand is tremendous.

Likely due to the conditions I described, I think meat here tends to be more "gamey", a bit leaner and all that. Like, steak is popular here but we don't have steak culture like I've seen described in the Midwest, or Texas. A lot of our beef ends up in pies, or sauces, or stuff like that.

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

#210

Post by Turing_Machine »

_0w8t wrote: post #134
Turing_Machine wrote: post #126

Earlier quoted context omitted.

6 pounds ? I'm skeptical that anyone can sit down and eat 6 pounds of potatoes. You should probably check your arithmetic here. And no, you're not going to produce enough potatoes in a "local garden" to feed our cities, much less all of the people in the rest of the world who are fed by our croplands.

For one serving sure it is not trivial to eat that, but spread it over 3 meals and it is very OK My grandmother told me that during WWII in Belarus many people in villages for 3 years eat pretty much only potatoes plus few berries/mushrooms and little fish. It was pointless to keep any animals as those would be taken either by Germans, local police folks or partisans. And all potatoes were grown with pure manual labo…

A rural village in Belarus in WWII (with available fields) is an entirely different thing from a city of 25 million in 2021 China.

And nearly a kg of potatoes at a meal? While that might be possible, I'm not sure I could manage it.

Also, I've noticed that the stories of the hardships that one's grandparents faced do not become less impressive as the years go by. :-)

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