4 ms·

what happens if we encounter this generation's version of potato blight on corn or wheat Out of curiosity, how would you rate the quality of the soil in today'

what happens if we encounter this generation's version of potato blight on corn or wheat Out of curiosity, how would you rate the quality of the soil in today's agribusiness farmlands? Seems food production now involves clones fed on ammonium nitrate derived from natural gas and mined potash. This suggests the crops of today are being raised on junk food.

HIPisTheAnswer 8y ago
Exactly, we are eating oil and gas. Once the spigot slows down, things get ugly real fast. This is going to make the great depression and ww2 look small in comparison. Buckle your seat belt, and grow unusual edible species. I don't even eat grains, humans aren't equipped to eat that.
- PostOnce 8y ago
  Humans are very much equipped to eat grains, we built agriculture, and thus the whole of civilization, on top of cereal grains like rice, wheat, and corn. Grains are the staples of most cultures. What are you talking about? Some hand-wavy paleo theory that isn't scalable?
  - DoreenMichele 8y ago
    Eh, some folks sincerely believe that grains need to be consumed as sprouts or (some other mitigating form) because the phytic acid or whatever is hard on the digestive tract. I wouldn't go so far as to say they're not edible, but criticism of grains doesn't seem like outright crazy talk either.
    - PostOnce 8y ago
      "Some folks" sincerely believe vaccines cause autism. "Some folks" believe the earth is flat. I don't care what "some folks" beliefs are, I care about the ground truth. It doesn't take a lot of equipment to deduce that billions of people eating grains consistently over the course of millenia means that people are in fact well equipped to eat grains.
      - DoreenMichele 8y ago
        The truth is we are only just now beginning to understand the impact of food on health and we have tons more to learn. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Semmelweis_reflex https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Semmelweis_reflex https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ignaz_Semmelweis https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ignaz_Semmelweis
        PostOnce 8y ago
        I provided some evidence (billions of people have been eating many kinds of grains since the dawn of agriculture). The Semmelweis effect is regarding rejecting new evidence -- and yet you provide no evidence, while dismissing mine. Perhaps you should question your beliefs.
      - jodrellblank 8y ago
        https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4809873/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4809873/ "Bread and Other Edible Agents of Mental Disease how cereal grains—the world’s most abundant food source—can affect human behavior and mental health. We present the implications for the psychological sciences of the findings that, in all of us, bread (1) makes the gut more permeable and can thus encourage the migration of food particles to sites where they are not expected, prompting the immune system to attack both these particles and brain-relevant substances that resemble them, and (2) releases opioid-like compounds, capable of causing mental derangement if they make it to the brain. A grain-free diet, although difficult to maintain (especially for those that need it the most), could improve the mental health of many and be a complete cure for others."
  - mycelium 8y ago
    One counter-argument to agriculture is Jared Diamond's classic article: "The Worst Mistake in the History of the Human Race" http://discovermagazine.com/1987/may/02-the-worst-mistake-in-the-history-of-the-human-race http://discovermagazine.com/1987/may/02-the-worst-mistake-in...
    - PostOnce 8y ago
      His counterpoint appears to apply only to individuals and small bands; without density we never achieve industry, which brings us, well, the modern world and all its medicine, internet, refrigeration ... satellite-based forewarning of enormous storms and time to prepare against those and other existential threats to large areas. People live to be 100 and happy and productive on largely grain-based diets, not thanks to the grain, but thanks to the modern world it allows. Pre-grain, we didn't live so long. On balance I think grains are a no-brainer. Maybe there is some extraordinarily minor benefit to the individual not to eat grains, but, obviously, in light of the past 10,000 years of history, grains are fine for you and will keep you both alive and happy.
GlenTheMachine 8y ago
On the one hand, I can't really comment specifically on the soil quality. I don't have first hand scientific knowledge. On the other hand, it's certainly true that these producers are not implementing anything like a closed-loop nutrient plan. They're absolutely trucking in fertilizer from somewhere else to keep yields high. And they're producing monocultures, enforced with chemical pesticides and herbicides, to keep expenses low. Neither of those things strikes me as good in any possible way other than cost efficiency.
- vladTheInhaler 8y ago
  Wendell Berry said it best: "Once plants and animals were raised together on the same farm — which therefore neither produced unmanageable surpluses of manure, to be wasted and to pollute the water supply, nor depended on such quantities of commercial fertilizer. The genius of America farm experts is very well demonstrated here: they can take a solution and divide it neatly into two problems."
  - escherplex 8y ago
    Not to mention the law of unexpected consequences: with all the nitrogen fertilizer used on local farms and lawns in SW FL with subsequent run-off into streams and bayous due to the heavy rain every day during the summer, the 'red tide' plague shows no signs of abating.

HIPisTheAnswer 8y ago

Exactly, we are eating oil and gas. Once the spigot slows down, things get ugly real fast. This is going to make the great depression and ww2 look small in comparison. Buckle your seat belt, and grow unusual edible species. I don't even eat grains, humans aren't equipped to eat that.

PostOnce 8y ago
Humans are very much equipped to eat grains, we built agriculture, and thus the whole of civilization, on top of cereal grains like rice, wheat, and corn. Grains are the staples of most cultures. What are you talking about? Some hand-wavy paleo theory that isn't scalable?
- DoreenMichele 8y ago
  Eh, some folks sincerely believe that grains need to be consumed as sprouts or (some other mitigating form) because the phytic acid or whatever is hard on the digestive tract. I wouldn't go so far as to say they're not edible, but criticism of grains doesn't seem like outright crazy talk either.
  - PostOnce 8y ago
    "Some folks" sincerely believe vaccines cause autism. "Some folks" believe the earth is flat. I don't care what "some folks" beliefs are, I care about the ground truth. It doesn't take a lot of equipment to deduce that billions of people eating grains consistently over the course of millenia means that people are in fact well equipped to eat grains.
    - DoreenMichele 8y ago
      The truth is we are only just now beginning to understand the impact of food on health and we have tons more to learn. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Semmelweis_reflex https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Semmelweis_reflex https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ignaz_Semmelweis https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ignaz_Semmelweis
      - PostOnce 8y ago
        I provided some evidence (billions of people have been eating many kinds of grains since the dawn of agriculture). The Semmelweis effect is regarding rejecting new evidence -- and yet you provide no evidence, while dismissing mine. Perhaps you should question your beliefs.
    - jodrellblank 8y ago
      https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4809873/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4809873/ "Bread and Other Edible Agents of Mental Disease how cereal grains—the world’s most abundant food source—can affect human behavior and mental health. We present the implications for the psychological sciences of the findings that, in all of us, bread (1) makes the gut more permeable and can thus encourage the migration of food particles to sites where they are not expected, prompting the immune system to attack both these particles and brain-relevant substances that resemble them, and (2) releases opioid-like compounds, capable of causing mental derangement if they make it to the brain. A grain-free diet, although difficult to maintain (especially for those that need it the most), could improve the mental health of many and be a complete cure for others."
- mycelium 8y ago
  One counter-argument to agriculture is Jared Diamond's classic article: "The Worst Mistake in the History of the Human Race" http://discovermagazine.com/1987/may/02-the-worst-mistake-in-the-history-of-the-human-race http://discovermagazine.com/1987/may/02-the-worst-mistake-in...
  - PostOnce 8y ago
    His counterpoint appears to apply only to individuals and small bands; without density we never achieve industry, which brings us, well, the modern world and all its medicine, internet, refrigeration ... satellite-based forewarning of enormous storms and time to prepare against those and other existential threats to large areas. People live to be 100 and happy and productive on largely grain-based diets, not thanks to the grain, but thanks to the modern world it allows. Pre-grain, we didn't live so long. On balance I think grains are a no-brainer. Maybe there is some extraordinarily minor benefit to the individual not to eat grains, but, obviously, in light of the past 10,000 years of history, grains are fine for you and will keep you both alive and happy.

GlenTheMachine 8y ago

On the one hand, I can't really comment specifically on the soil quality. I don't have first hand scientific knowledge. On the other hand, it's certainly true that these producers are not implementing anything like a closed-loop nutrient plan. They're absolutely trucking in fertilizer from somewhere else to keep yields high. And they're producing monocultures, enforced with chemical pesticides and herbicides, to keep expenses low. Neither of those things strikes me as good in any possible way other than cost efficiency.

vladTheInhaler 8y ago
Wendell Berry said it best: "Once plants and animals were raised together on the same farm — which therefore neither produced unmanageable surpluses of manure, to be wasted and to pollute the water supply, nor depended on such quantities of commercial fertilizer. The genius of America farm experts is very well demonstrated here: they can take a solution and divide it neatly into two problems."
- escherplex 8y ago
  Not to mention the law of unexpected consequences: with all the nitrogen fertilizer used on local farms and lawns in SW FL with subsequent run-off into streams and bayous due to the heavy rain every day during the summer, the 'red tide' plague shows no signs of abating.