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There is a huge overlap between organic farming and sustainable farming. Its starts from soil depletion. Then, oil-derived fertilizers. Next, aggressive pestici

There is a huge overlap between organic farming and sustainable farming. Its starts from soil depletion. Then, oil-derived fertilizers. Next, aggressive pesticides that harm useful insects and bees. The list goes on.

pfdietz 7y ago
Oil-derived fertilizers? What are they? Do you mean NATURAL GAS derived fertilizer? Would that be ok if the hydrogen to synthesize the ammonia were instead sourced from renewable energy? It would be the same ammonia!
- eeZahZUx 7y ago
  Yes, I meant gas. And using renewables for farming is only a partial solution. Farming can be extremely energy intensive or less so depending on the methods used. Animal farming is more than order of magnitude worse. A lot of industrial farming developed that way due to access to cheap energy - but this is not sustainable.
  - pfdietz 7y ago
    | Farming can be extremely energy intensive or less so depending on the methods used. In the US, we use less energy growing and harvesting food than we do cooking food. Total ag energy use is a tiny fraction of the total energy use in the economy. Energy-intensive agriculture is perfectly sustainable. There's more than enough renewable energy available. The one resource I would worry about is phosphorus, but this will be a problem for "organic" farming too. The solution there is to minimize erosion, recycle phosphorus-bearing wastes, build up sparingly soluble phosphate reserves in soils (and don't let erosion wash those away), and ultimately make up for losses by exploiting very low quality phosphate ores (crustal average is 0.1% P).
    - AngryData 7y ago
      Does this account for the massive amount of energy we 'cheat' out of natural gas derived fertilizer? If we eliminate natural gas, the energy costs of fertilizer production go up near 10 times what it is now.
      - pfdietz 7y ago
        Yes, it includes the energy used in making fertilizer. It also includes all the fuel used on farms. Here's a link for the numbers from 2014. https://www.ers.usda.gov/amber-waves/2017/januaryfebruary/energy-consumption-and-production-in-agriculture/ https://www.ers.usda.gov/amber-waves/2017/januaryfebruary/en... In that year, ag used 1.74% of US energy consumption. 29% of that was for fertilizer. As I said, the absolute amount of energy used in farming is really rather small, even for "energy intensive" agriculture. That's because the ag sector is such a small part of the US economy (< 1% of GDP).
    - eeZah7Ux 7y ago
      > Energy-intensive agriculture is perfectly sustainable citation needed.
      - pfdietz 7y ago
        Why wouldn't it be? I mean, why is being energy intensive inherently not sustainable? Surely particular inplementations could be unsustainable, but that's true of non-energy intensive agriculture as well. To help you along, I'll bring up the part that's most problematic, IMO: the production of nitrous oxide from nitrogen fertilizer. But N fertilizer is pretty much required to get yields sufficient to feed the world, so that's a problem that's going to have to be solved.
- Retric 7y ago
  Let’s be clear, aquifer depletion for example is unsustainable not because of water but because that source is going to run out. Similarly, anything depending on Natural Gas unsuitable as long we are going to run out of natural gas. The issue is using this stuff inherently means a future spike in prices.
  - thereisnospork 7y ago
    > The issue is using this stuff inherently means a future spike in prices. The alternative then being a present spike in prices? I don't see how that's better.
    - Retric 7y ago
      Not always, let’s say you have two options A and B that have similar lifetime costs including both capital costs and maintenance costs. A is unsustainable, but you have already paid the capital costs. Now switching to B means paying those capital costs. However, equipment has a finite lifespan so if you time the transition to the point when you need to replace A anyway it’s essentially free. At the consumer level electric cars are a reasonable approximation of this. For many people, TCO is about the same, but switching early is a poor choice. Similarly, for electric companies wind and solar are unlikely to outcompete existing coal power plants, but it can cheaply replace yet to be constructed coal power plants.
      - thereisnospork 7y ago
        That's an unfair and unrealistic assumption. Industrial farming doesn't use synthetic fertilizer - the 'unsustainable' - because they lack basic accounting knowledge, they do so because they can make more food for less money (or some variation thereof) over reasonable accounting lifetimes. At the risk of invoking the rational market hypothesis, if using 'sustainable' methods were cheaper over the lifetime of the non-sustainable we wouldn't be having this conversation because the sustainable methods would already be in use. edit: nor is there meaningful capital inertia behind synthetic vs. other fertilization. To not use synthetic fertilizer, today, would increase food costs today. To run out of synthetic fertilizer e.g. 150 years from now would increase food costs an equal or lesser amount. Potentially lesser as a result of increased time to develop better sustainable methods. Integrating cost over the next e.g. 250 years, it will always be cheaper (better) to use the non-sustainable resources at the time sustainable methods are most expensive (today). Externalities, like global warming aside, as they aren't relevant to the example of fertilizer I was replying to.
- AngryData 7y ago
  It would be the same ammonia, but it wouldn't be releasing all that carbon in the atmosphere that natural gas brings when pulled to the surface.

pfdietz 7y ago

Oil-derived fertilizers? What are they? Do you mean NATURAL GAS derived fertilizer? Would that be ok if the hydrogen to synthesize the ammonia were instead sourced from renewable energy? It would be the same ammonia!

eeZahZUx 7y ago
Yes, I meant gas. And using renewables for farming is only a partial solution. Farming can be extremely energy intensive or less so depending on the methods used. Animal farming is more than order of magnitude worse. A lot of industrial farming developed that way due to access to cheap energy - but this is not sustainable.
- pfdietz 7y ago
  | Farming can be extremely energy intensive or less so depending on the methods used. In the US, we use less energy growing and harvesting food than we do cooking food. Total ag energy use is a tiny fraction of the total energy use in the economy. Energy-intensive agriculture is perfectly sustainable. There's more than enough renewable energy available. The one resource I would worry about is phosphorus, but this will be a problem for "organic" farming too. The solution there is to minimize erosion, recycle phosphorus-bearing wastes, build up sparingly soluble phosphate reserves in soils (and don't let erosion wash those away), and ultimately make up for losses by exploiting very low quality phosphate ores (crustal average is 0.1% P).
  - AngryData 7y ago
    Does this account for the massive amount of energy we 'cheat' out of natural gas derived fertilizer? If we eliminate natural gas, the energy costs of fertilizer production go up near 10 times what it is now.
    - pfdietz 7y ago
      Yes, it includes the energy used in making fertilizer. It also includes all the fuel used on farms. Here's a link for the numbers from 2014. https://www.ers.usda.gov/amber-waves/2017/januaryfebruary/energy-consumption-and-production-in-agriculture/ https://www.ers.usda.gov/amber-waves/2017/januaryfebruary/en... In that year, ag used 1.74% of US energy consumption. 29% of that was for fertilizer. As I said, the absolute amount of energy used in farming is really rather small, even for "energy intensive" agriculture. That's because the ag sector is such a small part of the US economy (< 1% of GDP).
  - eeZah7Ux 7y ago
    > Energy-intensive agriculture is perfectly sustainable citation needed.
    - pfdietz 7y ago
      Why wouldn't it be? I mean, why is being energy intensive inherently not sustainable? Surely particular inplementations could be unsustainable, but that's true of non-energy intensive agriculture as well. To help you along, I'll bring up the part that's most problematic, IMO: the production of nitrous oxide from nitrogen fertilizer. But N fertilizer is pretty much required to get yields sufficient to feed the world, so that's a problem that's going to have to be solved.
Retric 7y ago
Let’s be clear, aquifer depletion for example is unsustainable not because of water but because that source is going to run out. Similarly, anything depending on Natural Gas unsuitable as long we are going to run out of natural gas. The issue is using this stuff inherently means a future spike in prices.
- thereisnospork 7y ago
  > The issue is using this stuff inherently means a future spike in prices. The alternative then being a present spike in prices? I don't see how that's better.
  - Retric 7y ago
    Not always, let’s say you have two options A and B that have similar lifetime costs including both capital costs and maintenance costs. A is unsustainable, but you have already paid the capital costs. Now switching to B means paying those capital costs. However, equipment has a finite lifespan so if you time the transition to the point when you need to replace A anyway it’s essentially free. At the consumer level electric cars are a reasonable approximation of this. For many people, TCO is about the same, but switching early is a poor choice. Similarly, for electric companies wind and solar are unlikely to outcompete existing coal power plants, but it can cheaply replace yet to be constructed coal power plants.
    - thereisnospork 7y ago
      That's an unfair and unrealistic assumption. Industrial farming doesn't use synthetic fertilizer - the 'unsustainable' - because they lack basic accounting knowledge, they do so because they can make more food for less money (or some variation thereof) over reasonable accounting lifetimes. At the risk of invoking the rational market hypothesis, if using 'sustainable' methods were cheaper over the lifetime of the non-sustainable we wouldn't be having this conversation because the sustainable methods would already be in use. edit: nor is there meaningful capital inertia behind synthetic vs. other fertilization. To not use synthetic fertilizer, today, would increase food costs today. To run out of synthetic fertilizer e.g. 150 years from now would increase food costs an equal or lesser amount. Potentially lesser as a result of increased time to develop better sustainable methods. Integrating cost over the next e.g. 250 years, it will always be cheaper (better) to use the non-sustainable resources at the time sustainable methods are most expensive (today). Externalities, like global warming aside, as they aren't relevant to the example of fertilizer I was replying to.
AngryData 7y ago
It would be the same ammonia, but it wouldn't be releasing all that carbon in the atmosphere that natural gas brings when pulled to the surface.