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I really wish it worked that way; but agriculture still has a number of scarce resources (namely land and water) that will require the adoption of productivity-

I really wish it worked that way; but agriculture still has a number of scarce resources (namely land and water) that will require the adoption of productivity-increasing tools to boost the productivity of a given plot of land or to increase efficiency of water use.

gumby 9y ago
> I really wish it worked that way; but agriculture still has a number of scarce resources (namely land and water) that will require the adoption of productivity-increasing tools to boost the productivity of a given plot of land or to increase efficiency of water use. What you say is not incompatible with my assertion. Labor is a productivity-increasing tool. If you weed and prune your yield goes up. If you water (but not too much) yield goes up. If you remove pests, yield goes up. Etc. Those are all labor-intensive, so if it's cheaper to use a machine or chemical to do it, you do. And in fact robots are likely to be able to individually water plants more efficiently than either a human or a standard irrigation system. Which people will do if it is cheaper than current irrigation (flood, or drip primarily today, depending on crop and conditions). Sure, I believe fertilizers will still be needed and some other chemicals as well. But many of these pesticides and herbicides have "unfortunate" side effects (e.g. destruction of the rhizome) which also reduce productivity so avoiding them has a double benefit. And note that there is some evidence that artificial fertilization and overwatering may be reducing the nutritional value of grasses (think of it as "the same number of nutrients divided by a larger amount of plant matter". The mechanism, if real, is more complex, but that's an analogy). ‡ I don't mean productivity in the macroeconomic definition of "economic output per labor hour" but in the sense you used it: "economic output per unit area"

gumby 9y ago

> I really wish it worked that way; but agriculture still has a number of scarce resources (namely land and water) that will require the adoption of productivity-increasing tools to boost the productivity of a given plot of land or to increase efficiency of water use. What you say is not incompatible with my assertion. Labor is a productivity-increasing tool. If you weed and prune your yield goes up. If you water (but not too much) yield goes up. If you remove pests, yield goes up. Etc. Those are all labor-intensive, so if it's cheaper to use a machine or chemical to do it, you do. And in fact robots are likely to be able to individually water plants more efficiently than either a human or a standard irrigation system. Which people will do if it is cheaper than current irrigation (flood, or drip primarily today, depending on crop and conditions). Sure, I believe fertilizers will still be needed and some other chemicals as well. But many of these pesticides and herbicides have "unfortunate" side effects (e.g. destruction of the rhizome) which also reduce productivity so avoiding them has a double benefit. And note that there is some evidence that artificial fertilization and overwatering may be reducing the nutritional value of grasses (think of it as "the same number of nutrients divided by a larger amount of plant matter". The mechanism, if real, is more complex, but that's an analogy). ‡ I don't mean productivity in the macroeconomic definition of "economic output per labor hour" but in the sense you used it: "economic output per unit area"