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> over half of them would work in farming Why would throwing more people at the problem solve or mitigate lack of fertilizer?
by Aperocky 7y ago
> over half of them would work in farming
Why would throwing more people at the problem solve or mitigate lack of fertilizer?
- derefr 7y agoMore land would necessarily be farmland (i.e. there'd be less land "free" to dedicate to other things); so there'd probably need to be more farmers to work the additional land. Even in the modern world where a farm is mostly robots, one person can only manage so much land and so many robots (essentially the amount of land they can easily traverse in a few hours to check up on.)
- 80386 7y agoAnd large-scale automated farming is less productive per acre than small-scale labor-intensive farming.
- AngryData 7y agoYeah I think he is wrong there. More people would work in farming than now but only like 1% of the population are farmers right now. 2% farmers covering atleast if not more than double the land area is not crazy. Not to mention relying on natural processes and top soil health and would be extremely sustainable long term and be a huge carbon sink.
- ajuc 7y agohttps://blog.resourcewatch.org/2019/05/30/map-of-the-month-how-many-people-work-in-agriculture/ https://blog.resourcewatch.org/2019/05/30/map-of-the-month-h... > The chart below shows data from the World Bank on employment in agriculture over time. Globally, about 1 billion people* work in the agricultural sector, about 28% of the population employed in 2018. This is down from 44% in 1991. Currently 1/7th of the global population works in agriculture, and 28% of the employed population. If that doubles it would be over 50%. World isn't just USA.
- rizzom5000 7y agoI think the point is that fertilizer makes it possible for big agriculture to operate at a certain scale. If we didn't have fertilizer, farmers would be tending to smaller plots and using locally available fertilizers, such as locally available compost and mulch.