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Environmental destruction is the story here, but with one misunderstanding. > Rural America is eroding. If you talk to farmers such as Short and Roger, they la

by spodek 7y ago

Environmental destruction is the story here, but with one misunderstanding. > Rural America is eroding. If you talk to farmers such as Short and Roger, they lament it. But almost nobody thinks it can be prevented. More efficient farming... The new farming isn't more efficient physically, chemically, or biologically. It consumes without replacing resources like topsoil, biodiversity, water, etc. It looks more efficient financially only by neglecting the future costs to restore those resources. I wouldn't call willful, determined overuse "erosion," though. I would call it destruction. We've created financial incentives to eat our seed corn as a culture and the article presents one place it's playing out. Destroy the environment and people will leave it.

bryanlarsen 7y ago
> The new farming isn't more efficient physically, chemically, or biologically. It consumes without replacing resources like topsoil, biodiversity, water, etc. It looks more efficient financially only by neglecting the future costs to restore those resources. B.S. Farmers aren't stupid, they still remember the lessons of the 1930s. They all plan to farm until they're physically unable to, and hope that the family farm will stay in the family for generations to come. Their biggest asset is that land, and they'll be relying on it for decades to come. That's why they're adopting methods like zero-till and cover crops to prevent soil erosion, why they carefully manage their straw cover et cetera. They also don't listen to city folk who think obviously silly things like "organic is better for the environment". The alternative to glyphosate is tillage, and farmers have first hand experience with how destructive tillage is to the soil, how it erodes the soil and the subsequent erosion destroys the waterways.
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- Pigo 7y ago
  Every farmer I've met, seen interviewed, etc, seem like they are at the top of their game. I usually end up surprised at how they have their hands in every aspect of every operation in their business. They seem very knowledgeable, while still dealing with the notion they are some hick with hayseed hanging out of their mouth. We have farmers learning programming in order to hack their John Deere tractors, working with lawyers to sue John Deere for the right to do so, and having the ability to rebuild the tractor itself.
- danaris 7y ago
  > They all plan to farm until they're physically unable to, and hope that the family farm will stay in the family for generations to come. And small family farms are an ever-decreasing share of where our food actually comes from. Over 70% of the farm acreage was held by the top 10% of the largest farms in the US in 2011[1]. Most of our agriculture today is not good old Farmer John and his wife and eight kids going out to hoe the beans at dawn. It's massive operations with hundreds or thousands of acres, huge agricultural machines, and, yes, loads of chemicals treating the soil to make it produce even when we've stripped it bare of nutrients by forcing it to grow the same crops year after year. (It's also many thousands of migrant farm workers doing the actual physical labour, but that's a separate issue...) There are good permaculture movements springing up that seek to return to more sustainable methods, but they're almost exclusively individuals or small-community groups. As for glyphosate...OK, sure, it can help to reduce the mechanical damage to the ground caused by repeatedly tilling the soil. But count me in the Extremely Skeptical camp as to it being "totally harmless" to humans, particularly given how influential Monsanto's money is in shaping the research into the subject. (And that doesn't even touch on the effects on the environment from spraying it all over the place, year after year, and letting it run off into waterways...) [1] https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/wonk/wp/2014/09/16/the-decline-of-the-small-american-family-farm-in-one-chart/ https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/wonk/wp/2014/09/16/the-d...
  - bryanlarsen 7y ago
    > And small family farms are an ever-decreasing share of where our food actually comes from. Over 70% of the farm acreage was held by the top 10% of the largest farms in the US in 2011[1]. Those large farms are also small family farms. I know a guy who owns 15,000 acres but it's a 3 man operation: him, his wife and a single hired man. That's the norm in Saskatchewan. > as to it being "totally harmless" to humans, Of course it's not "totally harmless". It's just better than the alternatives.
    - danaris 7y ago
      > Of course it's not "totally harmless". It's just better than the alternatives. Not using herbicides is totally harmless to humans. It just reduces profits. Personally, I'm for options that prioritize humans over money.
hn_throwaway_99 7y ago
Agree with the other responder to this comment, this is BS. But oddly there are lots of passages in the actual article that directly refute this thesis, e.g.: > Also, farms are reducing erosion. “We’ve gone from 100-bushel corn [per acre] to 250-bushel corn because we’re saving our soil,” Short said.
mettamage 7y ago
An acquaintance of mine has startups about some these issues: https://landlifecompany.com/ https://landlifecompany.com/ (reforrestation with the aid of technology) https://www.sensoterra.com/ https://www.sensoterra.com/ (smart soil moisture measurements)
Spooky23 7y ago
The destruction of farms has nothing to do with soil erosion. It's all about government policy that has destroyed producer prices. One example is the changes in terms how anti-trust policy has evolved over time. Today, cartels of produce buyers collude to keep prices low. There's also the lobbying and market pressures to transform away to manufactured food processes (fake meat, milk, etc). The environmental devastation is yet to come, and it will come from the commodity crops that are depleting water tables.
Spooky23 7y ago
The destruction of farms has nothing to do with soil erosion. It's all about government policy that has destroyed producer prices. It's certainly an issue in this town, but it's a small part of the whole. One example is the changes in terms how anti-trust policy has evolved over time. Today, cartels of produce buyers collude to keep prices low. There's also the lobbying and market pressures to transform away to manufactured food processes (fake meat, milk, etc).
Mvandenbergh 7y ago
I see that other commenters have already addressed this but the issue here is a confusion of timelines. The farming you are referring to is a caricature of first generation Green Revolution farming. Farming techniques being adopted today are designed to preserve soil, and to minimise water use. Biodiversity is not as much of a focus, that is true.
- bryanlarsen 7y ago
  > Biodiversity is not as much of a focus, that is true. Not yet, but it's coming, for a couple of reasons: - biodiversity helps soil health and disease resistance - bi-cropping potentially means the ability to harvest two different crops from the same field without significantly impacting the yield of the primary. Twice the gross per acre is a pretty big incentive for adoption.

by spodek 7y ago

bryanlarsen 7y ago

> The new farming isn't more efficient physically, chemically, or biologically. It consumes without replacing resources like topsoil, biodiversity, water, etc. It looks more efficient financially only by neglecting the future costs to restore those resources. B.S. Farmers aren't stupid, they still remember the lessons of the 1930s. They all plan to farm until they're physically unable to, and hope that the family farm will stay in the family for generations to come. Their biggest asset is that land, and they'll be relying on it for decades to come. That's why they're adopting methods like zero-till and cover crops to prevent soil erosion, why they carefully manage their straw cover et cetera. They also don't listen to city folk who think obviously silly things like "organic is better for the environment". The alternative to glyphosate is tillage, and farmers have first hand experience with how destructive tillage is to the soil, how it erodes the soil and the subsequent erosion destroys the waterways.

deleted 7y ago
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deleted 7y ago
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Pigo 7y ago
Every farmer I've met, seen interviewed, etc, seem like they are at the top of their game. I usually end up surprised at how they have their hands in every aspect of every operation in their business. They seem very knowledgeable, while still dealing with the notion they are some hick with hayseed hanging out of their mouth. We have farmers learning programming in order to hack their John Deere tractors, working with lawyers to sue John Deere for the right to do so, and having the ability to rebuild the tractor itself.
danaris 7y ago
> They all plan to farm until they're physically unable to, and hope that the family farm will stay in the family for generations to come. And small family farms are an ever-decreasing share of where our food actually comes from. Over 70% of the farm acreage was held by the top 10% of the largest farms in the US in 2011[1]. Most of our agriculture today is not good old Farmer John and his wife and eight kids going out to hoe the beans at dawn. It's massive operations with hundreds or thousands of acres, huge agricultural machines, and, yes, loads of chemicals treating the soil to make it produce even when we've stripped it bare of nutrients by forcing it to grow the same crops year after year. (It's also many thousands of migrant farm workers doing the actual physical labour, but that's a separate issue...) There are good permaculture movements springing up that seek to return to more sustainable methods, but they're almost exclusively individuals or small-community groups. As for glyphosate...OK, sure, it can help to reduce the mechanical damage to the ground caused by repeatedly tilling the soil. But count me in the Extremely Skeptical camp as to it being "totally harmless" to humans, particularly given how influential Monsanto's money is in shaping the research into the subject. (And that doesn't even touch on the effects on the environment from spraying it all over the place, year after year, and letting it run off into waterways...) [1] https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/wonk/wp/2014/09/16/the-decline-of-the-small-american-family-farm-in-one-chart/ https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/wonk/wp/2014/09/16/the-d...
- bryanlarsen 7y ago
  > And small family farms are an ever-decreasing share of where our food actually comes from. Over 70% of the farm acreage was held by the top 10% of the largest farms in the US in 2011[1]. Those large farms are also small family farms. I know a guy who owns 15,000 acres but it's a 3 man operation: him, his wife and a single hired man. That's the norm in Saskatchewan. > as to it being "totally harmless" to humans, Of course it's not "totally harmless". It's just better than the alternatives.
  - danaris 7y ago
    > Of course it's not "totally harmless". It's just better than the alternatives. Not using herbicides is totally harmless to humans. It just reduces profits. Personally, I'm for options that prioritize humans over money.

hn_throwaway_99 7y ago

Agree with the other responder to this comment, this is BS. But oddly there are lots of passages in the actual article that directly refute this thesis, e.g.: > Also, farms are reducing erosion. “We’ve gone from 100-bushel corn [per acre] to 250-bushel corn because we’re saving our soil,” Short said.

mettamage 7y ago

An acquaintance of mine has startups about some these issues: https://landlifecompany.com/ https://landlifecompany.com/ (reforrestation with the aid of technology) https://www.sensoterra.com/ https://www.sensoterra.com/ (smart soil moisture measurements)

Spooky23 7y ago

The destruction of farms has nothing to do with soil erosion. It's all about government policy that has destroyed producer prices. One example is the changes in terms how anti-trust policy has evolved over time. Today, cartels of produce buyers collude to keep prices low. There's also the lobbying and market pressures to transform away to manufactured food processes (fake meat, milk, etc). The environmental devastation is yet to come, and it will come from the commodity crops that are depleting water tables.

Spooky23 7y ago

The destruction of farms has nothing to do with soil erosion. It's all about government policy that has destroyed producer prices. It's certainly an issue in this town, but it's a small part of the whole. One example is the changes in terms how anti-trust policy has evolved over time. Today, cartels of produce buyers collude to keep prices low. There's also the lobbying and market pressures to transform away to manufactured food processes (fake meat, milk, etc).

Mvandenbergh 7y ago

I see that other commenters have already addressed this but the issue here is a confusion of timelines. The farming you are referring to is a caricature of first generation Green Revolution farming. Farming techniques being adopted today are designed to preserve soil, and to minimise water use. Biodiversity is not as much of a focus, that is true.

bryanlarsen 7y ago
> Biodiversity is not as much of a focus, that is true. Not yet, but it's coming, for a couple of reasons: - biodiversity helps soil health and disease resistance - bi-cropping potentially means the ability to harvest two different crops from the same field without significantly impacting the yield of the primary. Twice the gross per acre is a pretty big incentive for adoption.