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"With a good (or properly resuscitated) soil, it appears organic agriculture have higher yields per unit of surface than chemical agriculture. However, it requi

by roel_v 10y ago

"With a good (or properly resuscitated) soil, it appears organic agriculture have higher yields per unit of surface than chemical agriculture. However, it requires more labour. It would seem the yield per man-month may actually be lower." Even leaving aside what 'organic agriculture' means, there is no evidence that yield are higher than conventional farming. Yield could be enough to sustain enough people with the same area we use now for farming, yes; but super-yield claims are unsubstantiated. But apart from that, what's swept under the rug here is that labour is a major component of food cost; so saying 'sure we need 50 people to harvest what would otherwise be done by one guy but the per-surface unit yield is enough!' is disingenuous. It's not realistic to expect people to go back to harvesting their own food; nor is it realistic to count on huge price rises to pay for 'organic' ag (labour and packaging make up about 60% of the cost of the food on your plate). And there are no scalable techniques for growing food in mixed ecosystems, except maybe at the very basic silvopasture level. But those aren't the ones that are going to wean us off traditional agriculture.

loup-vaillant 10y ago
> super-yield claims are unsubstantiated. I have one example of 2 japanese farmers growing rice next to each other. One is going organic (few chemicals, if at all), the other is going full conventional (machines, spray, and all). I don't claim to understand the reason, but the organic farmer's rice plants (and number of grains) was bigger by half. So, visibly higher yield on the rice alone. But that's not all: on the same land, the organic farmer also grow fishes and ducks. The fishes feed the duck and the soil, so he can sell the ducks as well as the rice. I was astonished by this, but if one can shoulder the heavier workload, the super-yield by surface unit does seem to hold, at least in some cases. There are other examples where the yield per specie is lower, but because you grow multiple species on the same piece of land, the overall yield does approach this unbelievable super-yield. Again though, less automation, more labour. > And there are no scalable techniques for growing food in mixed ecosystems, I know of one. It's called "more farmers". A way to get them is to recruit the victims of technological unemployment —drivers come to mind. It's not miraculous, or even insightful, but it is possible. > 'sure we need 50 people to harvest what would otherwise be done by one guy I wouldn't know, but I expect the multiplier to be between 1.5 and 3. I'd be surprised if it were more than 5.

by roel_v 10y ago

loup-vaillant 10y ago

> super-yield claims are unsubstantiated. I have one example of 2 japanese farmers growing rice next to each other. One is going organic (few chemicals, if at all), the other is going full conventional (machines, spray, and all). I don't claim to understand the reason, but the organic farmer's rice plants (and number of grains) was bigger by half. So, visibly higher yield on the rice alone. But that's not all: on the same land, the organic farmer also grow fishes and ducks. The fishes feed the duck and the soil, so he can sell the ducks as well as the rice. I was astonished by this, but if one can shoulder the heavier workload, the super-yield by surface unit does seem to hold, at least in some cases. There are other examples where the yield per specie is lower, but because you grow multiple species on the same piece of land, the overall yield does approach this unbelievable super-yield. Again though, less automation, more labour. > And there are no scalable techniques for growing food in mixed ecosystems, I know of one. It's called "more farmers". A way to get them is to recruit the victims of technological unemployment —drivers come to mind. It's not miraculous, or even insightful, but it is possible. > 'sure we need 50 people to harvest what would otherwise be done by one guy I wouldn't know, but I expect the multiplier to be between 1.5 and 3. I'd be surprised if it were more than 5.