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How was farming possible prior to the cancer causing weed killer being created?

by wnevets 7y ago

thebooktocome 7y ago
Buckets of free/cheap labor that no longer exists in much of the world.
iamvik 7y ago
However it was done, we have much higher productivity requirements nowadays.
- superpermutat0r 7y ago
  Much higher productivity demands for luxury products. If we want back to produce a variety of direct human edible vegetables the productivity would not be necessary at all. When you're raising corn, soybean and wheat for cattle then it's obviously a much bigger higher order problem.
cwp 7y ago
80% of the population spent their lives in extreme poverty, toiling in the fields from sunup to sundown.
- ocschwar 7y ago
  You can thank the McCormick Reaper for putting that to an end. No need for Roundup.
- wnevets 7y ago
  I had no idea roundup was that old and revolutionary
- strainer 7y ago
  This common outlook of pre-industrial farming is actually contested, eg. [1] > One of capitalism's most durable myths is that it has reduced human toil. This myth is typically defended by a comparison of the modern forty-hour week with its seventy- or eighty-hour counterpart in the nineteenth century. The implicit -- but rarely articulated -- assumption is that the eighty-hour standard has prevailed for centuries. The comparison conjures up the dreary life of medieval peasants, toiling steadily from dawn to dusk. We are asked to imagine the journeyman artisan in a cold, damp garret, rising even before the sun, laboring by candlelight late into the night. These images are backward projections of modern work patterns. And they are false... [1]https://groups.csail.mit.edu/mac/users/rauch/worktime/hours_workweek.html https://groups.csail.mit.edu/mac/users/rauch/worktime/hours_...
gandalfian 7y ago
You can till/plough mechanically destroying the weeds but eroding the soil or you can use Weedkiller instead. But it is hard to use neither and maintain yields.

How was farming possible prior to the cancer causing weed killer being created?

thebooktocome 7y ago

Buckets of free/cheap labor that no longer exists in much of the world.

iamvik 7y ago

However it was done, we have much higher productivity requirements nowadays.

superpermutat0r 7y ago
Much higher productivity demands for luxury products. If we want back to produce a variety of direct human edible vegetables the productivity would not be necessary at all. When you're raising corn, soybean and wheat for cattle then it's obviously a much bigger higher order problem.

cwp 7y ago

80% of the population spent their lives in extreme poverty, toiling in the fields from sunup to sundown.

ocschwar 7y ago
You can thank the McCormick Reaper for putting that to an end. No need for Roundup.
wnevets 7y ago
I had no idea roundup was that old and revolutionary
strainer 7y ago
This common outlook of pre-industrial farming is actually contested, eg. [1] > One of capitalism's most durable myths is that it has reduced human toil. This myth is typically defended by a comparison of the modern forty-hour week with its seventy- or eighty-hour counterpart in the nineteenth century. The implicit -- but rarely articulated -- assumption is that the eighty-hour standard has prevailed for centuries. The comparison conjures up the dreary life of medieval peasants, toiling steadily from dawn to dusk. We are asked to imagine the journeyman artisan in a cold, damp garret, rising even before the sun, laboring by candlelight late into the night. These images are backward projections of modern work patterns. And they are false... [1]https://groups.csail.mit.edu/mac/users/rauch/worktime/hours_workweek.html https://groups.csail.mit.edu/mac/users/rauch/worktime/hours_...

gandalfian 7y ago

You can till/plough mechanically destroying the weeds but eroding the soil or you can use Weedkiller instead. But it is hard to use neither and maintain yields.