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Large scale meat farming practices.
by emptybits 6y ago
Large scale meat farming practices.
- Gibbon1 6y agoI think meat production, inorganic fertilizers, and pesticides likely. Also read an essay where the author claims the biggest mistake of the last 10,000 years was basing our food crops on grasses.
- ComputerGuru 6y agoWhat was the suggested alternative to grasses? Guns, Germs, and Steel goes into this a great deal and the conclusion there is that in many ways precursors to today’s wheat is the miracle that gave birth to modern civilization. Potential alternatives would need to provide similar nutrition (esp protein), be easily amenable to “naturally” providing selective breeding for choice traits, be easy to sow and harvest for hunter gatherers to become farmers, and be resilient enough to provide a model for civilizations around the globe.
- Gibbon1 6y agoI can try and dig for the original source, though google search has turned to shit in the last few years. What I remember is the advantage of grasses is as annuals you can selectively breed productive strains quickly. And that's true of other annual crops. Downside is they require a lot of nutrients and water because the whole plant needs to regrow from seed every year and they have shallow roots. That leads to energy and environmentally damaging agriculture. Potential solution is perennial shrubs and trees. Perennials have deeper roots and require less water and fertilizer. And don't require the land to be plowed every year. The latter is a real problem. People talk about global warming, less well known is the world is very quickly losing topsoil.
- kwistzhaderach 6y agoIs there a link to the article?