4 ms·

The current definition of what "organic farming" is has been obviously corrupted by the current farming industry. In the end it's just a label. But the questio

The current definition of what "organic farming" is has been obviously corrupted by the current farming industry. In the end it's just a label. But the question remains: how can we do sustainable farming, without polluting the soil and the water and without poisoning humans? If we can't find a way to make that work, then we are all heading towards an apocalypse, because what we are doing currently isn't sustainable. And no, GMOs are not an answer because efficiency is not our current problem. Pesticides are only needed because of mono-cultures, a problem that is only relevant in the context of current industrial farming practices. Even more aggravating is that we live in the information age, we can now build the proper tools to do industrial-scale farming without making use of mono-cultures or pesticides. We can have robots to do all the hard work, we can use AI for rotating crops in order to keep the soil healthy, etc. And GMOs would not help much, because you're not addressing the problem of raising mono-cultures and for example it will not lead to much healthier soils and would do nothing to help the bees. Sadly, even though mother nature is proving how extremely dumb and primitive we are, we are still not learning ;-)

latch 10y ago
Reducing the consumption of meat seems like a step in the right direction. It's a huge drain on water, land, energy and calories. At the very least, people should be paying for the real cost. Taking it further, instead of subsidizing these industries, I wouldn't mind seeing a beef-tax.
- bad_user 10y ago
  Lets not forget that CAFOs producing cheap beef, pork and chicken are only possible because of cheap corn, which is unhealthy for humans, since cattle aren't evolved to survive on a corn diet, being like a human being fed only candy, hence they also need to be fed with antibiotics, to prevent liver infections. Corn that is subsidized by the government with your taxes. And where corn grows, nothing else does ;-)
- riprowan 10y ago
  I think you overgeneralize industrial meat production to all forms of ranching. There are huge areas of the USA that are not amenable to farming but which can be ranched. Raising cattle on these lands does not necessarily consume any water, food, or arable land that would be productively used otherwise. This form of ranching serves many purposes, one of which is to simulate the effect of millions of grazing animals roaming free over the prairies as they did for millennia until about 150 years ago. Another is to eliminate the need for antibiotics, which are not required when grazing animals are not confined and fed a corn diet, and when sick animals are much more easily culled. There is such a thing as sustainable ranching, just as there is such a thing as sustainable farming. The trick is to incentivize the right kind of ranching. Unfortunately, your suggestion would probably produce more unsustainable ranching, as it would lower margins across the board such that only the industrialists could turn a profit.
  - latch 10y ago
    I think you've missed my main point: reduced consumption is an increase in sustainability [1]. And it's not clear to me that grass-fed beef is sustainable [2] (especially not at the current scale of consumption [3]) Farmers are critical, underpaid, and deal with a lot of risk. There must be some insurance. But consumers should pay the real price for their goods at the counter. 1 - https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2016/nov/07/tax-meat-and-dairy-to-cut-emissions-and-save-lives-study-urges https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2016/nov/07/tax-meat... 2 - http://www.nytimes.com/2012/04/13/opinion/the-myth-of-sustainable-meat.html http://www.nytimes.com/2012/04/13/opinion/the-myth-of-sustai... 3 - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_meat_consumption https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_meat_cons...
    - riprowan 10y ago
      I agree with you on most of your points including that grass-fed beef is not sustainable at the current rate of consumption, but that does not mean that it isn't sustainable at a lower rate of consumption / higher price.
    - bad_user 10y ago
specialist 10y ago
"In the end it's just a label." Worse. It's a racket. Text book regulatory capture. If pressed, our local farmers say something like "traditional farming". But they can still claim no pesticides, no growth factor, yadda yadda, without paying off some goons.

latch 10y ago

Reducing the consumption of meat seems like a step in the right direction. It's a huge drain on water, land, energy and calories. At the very least, people should be paying for the real cost. Taking it further, instead of subsidizing these industries, I wouldn't mind seeing a beef-tax.

bad_user 10y ago
Lets not forget that CAFOs producing cheap beef, pork and chicken are only possible because of cheap corn, which is unhealthy for humans, since cattle aren't evolved to survive on a corn diet, being like a human being fed only candy, hence they also need to be fed with antibiotics, to prevent liver infections. Corn that is subsidized by the government with your taxes. And where corn grows, nothing else does ;-)
riprowan 10y ago
I think you overgeneralize industrial meat production to all forms of ranching. There are huge areas of the USA that are not amenable to farming but which can be ranched. Raising cattle on these lands does not necessarily consume any water, food, or arable land that would be productively used otherwise. This form of ranching serves many purposes, one of which is to simulate the effect of millions of grazing animals roaming free over the prairies as they did for millennia until about 150 years ago. Another is to eliminate the need for antibiotics, which are not required when grazing animals are not confined and fed a corn diet, and when sick animals are much more easily culled. There is such a thing as sustainable ranching, just as there is such a thing as sustainable farming. The trick is to incentivize the right kind of ranching. Unfortunately, your suggestion would probably produce more unsustainable ranching, as it would lower margins across the board such that only the industrialists could turn a profit.
- latch 10y ago
  I think you've missed my main point: reduced consumption is an increase in sustainability [1]. And it's not clear to me that grass-fed beef is sustainable [2] (especially not at the current scale of consumption [3]) Farmers are critical, underpaid, and deal with a lot of risk. There must be some insurance. But consumers should pay the real price for their goods at the counter. 1 - https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2016/nov/07/tax-meat-and-dairy-to-cut-emissions-and-save-lives-study-urges https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2016/nov/07/tax-meat... 2 - http://www.nytimes.com/2012/04/13/opinion/the-myth-of-sustainable-meat.html http://www.nytimes.com/2012/04/13/opinion/the-myth-of-sustai... 3 - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_meat_consumption https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_meat_cons...
  - riprowan 10y ago
    I agree with you on most of your points including that grass-fed beef is not sustainable at the current rate of consumption, but that does not mean that it isn't sustainable at a lower rate of consumption / higher price.
  - bad_user 10y ago

specialist 10y ago

"In the end it's just a label." Worse. It's a racket. Text book regulatory capture. If pressed, our local farmers say something like "traditional farming". But they can still claim no pesticides, no growth factor, yadda yadda, without paying off some goons.