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This article reads more like an ad for their farm, which granted as far as farms that produce meat from livestock goes, seems really nice. But their approach is
by Djvacto 8y ago
This article reads more like an ad for their farm, which granted as far as farms that produce meat from livestock goes, seems really nice.
But their approach is not gonna work at scale, because you cannot have enough farms that operate this way to supply meat to a whole population. They also only compare their approach to what is basically the strip mining approach to crop growth. They don't look at things like crop rotation, or plenty of other farming techniques that prevent your land from becoming an arid desert. The title is clickbait, and the actual content of the article is way off. If this had been an article about how they tried to treat their animals better than our current factory farming conditions, this article would have been a great look at a way to raise livestock that doesn't make me think I'm looking at some sort of dystopian Bond-Villain's greatest evil contraption. But instead they tried to make it about veganism vs. eating meat, and failed to provide any actually compelling reasoning.
- eaenki 8y agoI'm calling quit on HN after seeing such an article on the first page.
- Djvacto 8y agoI personally like having spots of news that aren't strictly technical mixed in, but I understand that some people prefer to see that elsewhere. For me, I like seeing what I consider one of the better communities I frequent on the internet discussing all sorts of things (if I could get you guys to write comments on everything I ever read, the internet would be my favorite place).
- saurik 8y agoI also "like having spots of news that aren't strictly technical mixed in", but you described the article as an inaccurate short-sighted advertisement...
- Djvacto 8y agoFair point. While I disagree with the article, I enjoyed reading the discussion around it, so I'm not quite sure whether I'm happy or sad it hit front page? Mixed feelings, I suppose.
- bryanlarsen 8y agoThere is no ecologically sound way of getting vegetable calories out of the Montana native grasslands. The best way of feeding people using that land would be raising Bison; cattle are an acceptable second choice. But your basic point still stands. The Montana native grasslands can only support a few cattle per square mile, so it definitely does not work at scale.
- mcv 8y agoThere re many different kinds of soil. I can totally understand that some soils are better used for this kind of sustainable grazing. Other soils are great for growing crops. This should not be a veganism vs organic meat discussion, but an organic meat vs intensive meat production discussion. And a separate sustainable crops vs soil-depleting crop production discussion. You can't feed everybody on just meat; you're going to need crops of various sorts. Feeding crops to animals for meat is incredibly wasteful, but having animals graze on land that's otherwise unusable, is a great idea. I hope this is the future of meat production. But it's not a replacement for sustainable crops.
- bryanlarsen 8y ago"I can totally understand that some soils are better used for this kind of sustainable grazing. Other soils are great for growing crops." One could readily argue that most soils are better used for sustainable grazing. Tillage is very intrusive, destructive and unnatural. Most food crops require tillage. I used Montana as an example of a soil that would be quickly destroyed with a little bit of tillage. Luckily most soil isn't as fragile as Montana's, but virtually all soil is damaged by tillage. It's all moot though -- our current level of meat consumption is way above the level that can be met through sustainable grazing.
- mcv 8y agoWhat's better for the soil also depends on what you consider "good". Is it food production? Is it unspoilt nature? Soil used to grow food is different from soil left to nature, but expecting all soil to remain as natural as possible is unreasonable; we've got 7 billion people to feed, and building houses or streets in not good for soil either. What matters is how you can produce food efficiently and sustainably. There is soil that can produce more food in a sustainable manner through crops than through grazing. There is also soil where the opposite is true.
- cmroanirgo 8y agoI agree that the article would have been more stimulating if it had gone into detail about the methods employed, and the yields, etc. This is a topic that I've just started looking into on my parent's small 20 acre farm, which run a few head of cattle and due to drought, has caused the soil to be highly compacted. Thankfully, the farm itself used to be an orchard (oranges and kiwifruit mainly), so the cattle have alternative feed sources beside just grazing land. (Believe it or not, cows love fruit, including the leaves!) Recently I attended a seminar run by local government in conjunction with a group [0] about cover crops (which admittedly is more about vegetable farming, but parts can be used for grazing too). Their focus was mainly about getting the root structures right, which the above article hints. The link below shows a rather wide range of farms and environments that are being tested on. It also has information about 'biopesticides' [1], ie. plants that will help mitigate/eradicate unwanted pests, without need for pesticides. [0] http://www.soilwealth.com.au/demo-sites/ http://www.soilwealth.com.au/demo-sites/ [1] http://www.soilwealth.com.au/resources/fact-sheets/pest-and-disease-management/ http://www.soilwealth.com.au/resources/fact-sheets/pest-and-...