81–90 of 248 posts
But the point is that it's (supposed to be) renewable and cyclic, instead of releasing sequestered co2 accumulated over millions of years. Who paid for this research?
Corn in the US is mostly used for harmful purposes. It's used for producing fodder for intensive cattle farming (which of course produces lots of CO2). It's used for biofuel production, which as the article observes releases more CO2 than that it saves. And it's used for producing corn syrup which is an ingredient that nobody needs in their diet. The rest, which would be usage for e.g. corn bread or other staples of…
It's kinda hard to kill those subsidies when farmers have been used to them for 50 years, and it's a big political sticking point. The USDA exists to create more export crops. For the US, this might challenge that. That's also why the FDA can never rule that sugar or HFCS is harmful, it's a major American product, and that would be admitting that it's faulty.
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> Nothing wrong with e.g. organically farmed corn. There is nothing wrong with “factory”, “industrially”, or “sustainably” farmed corn either. Farming at scale is the only thing that allows all 8 billion people to eat.
The romantic view people have of peasant farms is ruining all discourse about agriculture. I blame the books people read to toddlers. Peasant farms were labor intensive, disease ridden, high risk, low reward businesses that shortened lives and ruined families. But somehow for a lot of people this episode in the history of farming is seen as the optimal blueprint for sustainable farming. They ignore the fact that all…
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> Nothing wrong with e.g. organically farmed corn. There is nothing wrong with “factory”, “industrially”, or “sustainably” farmed corn either. Farming at scale is the only thing that allows all 8 billion people to eat.
I am unimpressed by the idea that we can solve this with more technology. Some of those billions of people feed themselves. Theit biggest problem isn't minmaxing an 8t/ha yield to 11t/h. Their problem is getting from 1t/h to 6t/h which is entirely possible with just manure, some crop rotation and good quality seeds that can actually be resown. The idea that e.g. hybrid rice is going to solve world hunger is absurd.
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The romantic view people have of peasant farms is ruining all discourse about agriculture. I blame the books people read to toddlers. Peasant farms were labor intensive, disease ridden, high risk, low reward businesses that shortened lives and ruined families. But somehow for a lot of people this episode in the history of farming is seen as the optimal blueprint for sustainable farming. They ignore the fact that all…
Well a lot of conventional farms that are hyperoptimized barely make enough money to get by. It is quite weird how we can't maintain something as basic as food security with a market based economy.
Because people at the top need other people making them money rather than revolting.
I hate to be that guy, but the only reliable way to reduce greenhouse gas emissions is to drastically reduce emissions. Switching to biofuel doesn't fix climate change because biofuel is still terrible. Switching to electric cars doesn't fix climate change because electric power is still terrible (not to mention all the damage from lithium mining, manufacturing and battery replacements). The only solution is to make…
This doesn't make sense. More and more electric is being generated renewably. It's not some far fetched pie in the sky thing either - I fully charge my car using solar cells on the top of my roof. My daily driving is carbon neutral. Lithium mining isn't great for the environment, but it's certainly much less of a problem than co2 emmisions.
And the co2 eeded to produce your car's batteries I do not know, but probably several years for that too.
So I doubt your daily driving is carbon neutral just yet.
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3$/gallon sounds so cheap to me. I'm paying almost 2.5$/liter. I'm pretty sure that will reduce emissions massively more than any change in fuel composition wherever the fuel comes from.
That’s European-style taxes for you. Sadly. You get a lot of benefits from European-style government, like socialized medicine. But then you also have to pay those taxes.
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Iowa has the first primary every year in the US[1]. Iowa produces more corn than any state[2] while being 32nd in population. Corn is very important to people in Iowa and as long as the first two facts remain the same, corn will continue to be highly subsidized and supported in other ways by the US government. [1] https://www.uspresidentialelectionnews.com/2024-primary-sche... [2] https://www.cropprophet.com/us-corn-…
Iowa doesn't have a primary at all, but a caucus. New Hampshire has the first primary. It's a state law.
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What separates poor farmers from say poor food truck owners? The issue with farm subsidies is they don’t actually change profitability long term, they simply result in over production. It’s vastly more efficient to build up a long term storage of surplus say 2 years of corn per American stored at -40C which should last ~100 years. Then let huge swaths of American farmers go bankrupt as you scale back production. This…
"There are also secondary effects as subsidizing farm insurance etc, keeps incompetent farmers in business." Any data to back that up? If you're incompetent and your crops repeatedly, then you're not going to be reimbursed enough to make it. "It’s vastly more efficient to build up a long term storage of surplus say 2 years of corn per American stored at -40C which should last ~100 years." Any data to back this up? Th…
It’s not that people are completely incompetent it’s that some people are better at getting subsidies vs growing food. Essentially subsidies add a parallel skill set which becomes valuable but reduces the impact of being an inefficient farmer. I don’t have hard data, but have been told about people who are better at one side or the other.
> Any data to back this up.
The freezing thing was actually from a study I read. Ultra large freezers are very energy efficient via classic square vs cube scaling. The freezer loses energy on the surface and needs insulation along the surface while it and stores inside the volume. Energy costs of shipping vs colder climate etc.
The idea was a FIFO system along a circular storage system, but I don’t recall all the details.