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> The agricultural system, for which pollinators play a key role, creates millions of jobs worldwide. This sentence feels weird and misplaced. Compared with th

by adwn 11y ago

> The agricultural system, for which pollinators play a key role, creates millions of jobs worldwide. This sentence feels weird and misplaced. Compared with the agricultural system's main task – keeping us from starving to death – its role as a job provider seems utterly insignificant.

beat 11y ago
Jobs haven't been a motivator for the farm economy for a couple of centuries. In 200 years, we've gone from farms employing over 95% to farms employing less than 3% of the population. In the past 50 years alone, farming improvements have supported a global doubling of the population while simultaneously cutting food costs drastically for nearly everyone. If ever there was a triumph of modern technology, it's been the past 200 years of farming.
bhuthesh_r 11y ago
From http://data.worldbank.org/topic/agriculture-and-rural-development http://data.worldbank.org/topic/agriculture-and-rural-develo... : For the 70 percent of the world's poor who live in rural areas, agriculture is the main source of income and employment.
- proksoup 11y ago
  It would make more sense to me to say: "The purpose of the economy is to grow food sustainably." Then it would it say: "The purpose of sustainable agriculture is to support the economy" The economy is a tool we use to manipulate our own behavior. The idea that it's a goal in and of itself is pretty confusing to me.
briantakita 11y ago
> Compared with the agricultural system's main task – keeping us from starving to death the agricultural system's main task is to make money & control others through the market. if it's main goal was to feed the world, we would have succeeded long ago. just look at all of the food thrown away (more than enough to feed those who don't have food) & subsidies to grow ethanol, instead of food. the best agricultural model is one that encourages autonomy. that means the community is self-reliant to grow it's own food, instead of depending on another entity to supply food.
- electricblue 11y ago
  The problem isn't supply. We have more than enough supply as you said. The problem is transportation. There just isn't a technology that's cheap and light enough to make shipping food to the food poor countries around the world profitable. If there was somebody would be doing it. Instead they rely on charity and subsistence farming
  - pyre 11y ago
    Most of the "we must destroy this food" stuff happens to control the pricing of food. If it's getting too cheap, they need to restrict supply so they start destroying otherwise good food.
    - Clanan 11y ago
      Can you provide a citation? That's a strong claim, and I would like to read more about it.
      - EGreg 11y ago
        Me too. And if that's true, why do we have to worry about the end of food because of bees?
      - Joof 11y ago
        Its common knowledge IMO, but you can certainly Google it. Agriculture is a near-perfect free market, so organizations and governments often destroy crops to raise prices.
        pault 11y ago
        How does government interference in a market make it near-perfectly free? The U.S. agriculture market is infamous as a source of government waste and pork barrel spending: http://www.economist.com/news/united-states/21643191-crop-prices-fall-farmers-grow-subsidies-instead-milking-taxpayers http://www.economist.com/news/united-states/21643191-crop-pr...
hga 11y ago
In this context, it's more a jobs thing, the basic foods which supply the calories which keep us from starving to death don't require pollinators, or at least bees. As I recall, going down the list, onions were the only one I'd really miss: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_crop_plants_pollinated_by_bees https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_crop_plants_pollinated... Note also that in the US honeybees are an invasive/cultivated species brought over from Europe, their travails are akin to those of, say, the turkeys and chickens that have been suffering from/culled due to avian flu last year.
- 01Michael10 11y ago
  What? You don't think this is an issue because your McDonald's diet doesn't require fruits and vegetables? You need more than calories but also a thing called nutrients. That's your standard for a quality life? Well, I am not staving to death...
  - hga 11y ago
    Without looking for veggies that don't need pollinators, in a pinch, sprout your grain, although that won't take care of your Vitamin C requirement. Better, as some POWs held by the Japanese in WWII did, use a bacteria or mold to convert the starch to sugar, then culture yeast in that. By the end of the war, they were healthier than their guards.
nommm-nommm 11y ago
Quite a lot of agricultural isn't to keep people from starving to death - think hemp, cotton, tea/coffee, sugar cane, natural rubber, chocolate, and coca in places it is legal. None of those things prevent people from starving at all. A lot of agricultural foodstuff is terribly inefficient at meeting the goal of "keeping people from starving." We grow them though (and produce in the case of meat) because humans really enjoy them. If the main goal was to prevent starvation we wouldn't produce resource-intensive food products or we would produce them in moderation. Agriculture's purpose is economic. Eating (and eating tasty food) does have a large demand though.
- briandear 11y ago
  The US produces enough grain to feed the world -- as does Russia. Starvation is a function of government policy. See Somalia and the warlord-grain thefts in the early 1990s.
- proksoup 11y ago
  > Agriculture's purpose is economic. Eating (and eating tasty food) does have a large demand though. I'm maybe just repeating what the parent comment said, but that seems backwards to me. If we treat agriculture's purpose as economy for economy's sake, which we have been doing, it seems counter-productive to our goals of staying alive sustainably.
  - swe 11y ago
    This really should be no surprise. Mainstream economics practices that the environment is a subset of the economy and not the other way around. "Sure, I can live without fresh water and clean air, but a market? I need a market." /s
    - brightball 11y ago
      If you lack fresh water and clean air, there would be a market for fresh water and clean air. :-)
jefurii 11y ago
The problem is that stupid businessman just can't seem to get it through their thick skulls that the environment might just be important. The only language they understand is money. Gonna be the death of us all. Idiots.
- swe 11y ago
  According to historian Dr. Joseph Tainter's book 'The Collapse of Complex Societies', if you exclude isolated groups such as tribes, there have been 23 distinct civilizations throughout the course of human history and 22 have failed. Hypercomplexity and specialization tend to be common characteristics, as well as, misuse of resources.
- givan 11y ago
  People ask for meat, businessmans provide agriculture for the animals and the animals, why is only the businessman responsible? most of the agricultural land is not used for direct human consumption, humans need to stop being ignorant and start to change their habits.

by adwn 11y ago

beat 11y ago

Jobs haven't been a motivator for the farm economy for a couple of centuries. In 200 years, we've gone from farms employing over 95% to farms employing less than 3% of the population. In the past 50 years alone, farming improvements have supported a global doubling of the population while simultaneously cutting food costs drastically for nearly everyone. If ever there was a triumph of modern technology, it's been the past 200 years of farming.

bhuthesh_r 11y ago

From http://data.worldbank.org/topic/agriculture-and-rural-development http://data.worldbank.org/topic/agriculture-and-rural-develo... : For the 70 percent of the world's poor who live in rural areas, agriculture is the main source of income and employment.

proksoup 11y ago
It would make more sense to me to say: "The purpose of the economy is to grow food sustainably." Then it would it say: "The purpose of sustainable agriculture is to support the economy" The economy is a tool we use to manipulate our own behavior. The idea that it's a goal in and of itself is pretty confusing to me.

briantakita 11y ago

> Compared with the agricultural system's main task – keeping us from starving to death the agricultural system's main task is to make money & control others through the market. if it's main goal was to feed the world, we would have succeeded long ago. just look at all of the food thrown away (more than enough to feed those who don't have food) & subsidies to grow ethanol, instead of food. the best agricultural model is one that encourages autonomy. that means the community is self-reliant to grow it's own food, instead of depending on another entity to supply food.

electricblue 11y ago
The problem isn't supply. We have more than enough supply as you said. The problem is transportation. There just isn't a technology that's cheap and light enough to make shipping food to the food poor countries around the world profitable. If there was somebody would be doing it. Instead they rely on charity and subsistence farming
- pyre 11y ago
  Most of the "we must destroy this food" stuff happens to control the pricing of food. If it's getting too cheap, they need to restrict supply so they start destroying otherwise good food.
  - Clanan 11y ago
    Can you provide a citation? That's a strong claim, and I would like to read more about it.
    - EGreg 11y ago
      Me too. And if that's true, why do we have to worry about the end of food because of bees?
    - Joof 11y ago
      Its common knowledge IMO, but you can certainly Google it. Agriculture is a near-perfect free market, so organizations and governments often destroy crops to raise prices.
      - pault 11y ago
        How does government interference in a market make it near-perfectly free? The U.S. agriculture market is infamous as a source of government waste and pork barrel spending: http://www.economist.com/news/united-states/21643191-crop-prices-fall-farmers-grow-subsidies-instead-milking-taxpayers http://www.economist.com/news/united-states/21643191-crop-pr...

hga 11y ago

In this context, it's more a jobs thing, the basic foods which supply the calories which keep us from starving to death don't require pollinators, or at least bees. As I recall, going down the list, onions were the only one I'd really miss: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_crop_plants_pollinated_by_bees https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_crop_plants_pollinated... Note also that in the US honeybees are an invasive/cultivated species brought over from Europe, their travails are akin to those of, say, the turkeys and chickens that have been suffering from/culled due to avian flu last year.

01Michael10 11y ago
What? You don't think this is an issue because your McDonald's diet doesn't require fruits and vegetables? You need more than calories but also a thing called nutrients. That's your standard for a quality life? Well, I am not staving to death...
- hga 11y ago
  Without looking for veggies that don't need pollinators, in a pinch, sprout your grain, although that won't take care of your Vitamin C requirement. Better, as some POWs held by the Japanese in WWII did, use a bacteria or mold to convert the starch to sugar, then culture yeast in that. By the end of the war, they were healthier than their guards.

nommm-nommm 11y ago

Quite a lot of agricultural isn't to keep people from starving to death - think hemp, cotton, tea/coffee, sugar cane, natural rubber, chocolate, and coca in places it is legal. None of those things prevent people from starving at all. A lot of agricultural foodstuff is terribly inefficient at meeting the goal of "keeping people from starving." We grow them though (and produce in the case of meat) because humans really enjoy them. If the main goal was to prevent starvation we wouldn't produce resource-intensive food products or we would produce them in moderation. Agriculture's purpose is economic. Eating (and eating tasty food) does have a large demand though.

briandear 11y ago
The US produces enough grain to feed the world -- as does Russia. Starvation is a function of government policy. See Somalia and the warlord-grain thefts in the early 1990s.
proksoup 11y ago
> Agriculture's purpose is economic. Eating (and eating tasty food) does have a large demand though. I'm maybe just repeating what the parent comment said, but that seems backwards to me. If we treat agriculture's purpose as economy for economy's sake, which we have been doing, it seems counter-productive to our goals of staying alive sustainably.
- swe 11y ago
  This really should be no surprise. Mainstream economics practices that the environment is a subset of the economy and not the other way around. "Sure, I can live without fresh water and clean air, but a market? I need a market." /s
  - brightball 11y ago
    If you lack fresh water and clean air, there would be a market for fresh water and clean air. :-)

jefurii 11y ago

The problem is that stupid businessman just can't seem to get it through their thick skulls that the environment might just be important. The only language they understand is money. Gonna be the death of us all. Idiots.

swe 11y ago
According to historian Dr. Joseph Tainter's book 'The Collapse of Complex Societies', if you exclude isolated groups such as tribes, there have been 23 distinct civilizations throughout the course of human history and 22 have failed. Hypercomplexity and specialization tend to be common characteristics, as well as, misuse of resources.
givan 11y ago
People ask for meat, businessmans provide agriculture for the animals and the animals, why is only the businessman responsible? most of the agricultural land is not used for direct human consumption, humans need to stop being ignorant and start to change their habits.