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I guess it was alluded to in the article but my main concern is the amount of fertilizers, herbicides, and pesticides we use. As we clear more land for Ag we ar

I guess it was alluded to in the article but my main concern is the amount of fertilizers, herbicides, and pesticides we use. As we clear more land for Ag we are of course limiting habitat for animals but also zapping them constantly with these chemicals. Fertilizers get into water and decimate the life in there. Herbicides coupled with pesticides decimate insect ecosystems. The development of land gives larger animals nowhere to go. I get why we farm like we do - abundant food for everyone. So much so that we waste so much. I just wish there was some way to develop effective farming that didn’t do all this. But it feels like a catch-22.

52-6F-62 6y ago
It's not a new problem, either. Growing up in a rural, agricultural zone we learned thoroughly about run-off and the potential for harm, and the harm that had happened in the past. DDT was nearly a curseword. It's etched into my mind that way. (And then the Ramones didn't help that) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DDT#Use_in_the_1940s_and_1950s https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DDT#Use_in_the_1940s_and_1950s
- nemo44x 6y ago
  Yeah it’s crazy to think that a chemical can be developed that can effectively destroy organic life and we just decide to spray it everywhere. I’ve read things about people that live near certain farms have higher rates of birth defects and diseases like cancer. I can only imagine being exposed to chemicals over and over for years is not only devastating to the local ecosystem but to the people nearby.
tw04 6y ago
But we also don't even take the most basic actions to prevent that fertilizer from making it into our waterways. Farmers insist on putting in thousands of miles of drain tile and running it straight into creeks and streams. They plow their fields right up to the very edge of marshes and streams instead of leaving grass strips to act as a barrier to runoff. It's shocking how little people seem to realize or care about the fact we can't even handle minute changes to help mother nature. The ironic part being, at least around here, every year some group spends millions and millions of dollars on "Farmer's Care" commercials and billboards. Also, not trying to be a grammar nazi - I just appreciate when people point things out to me so take it in that spirit. Alluded to - eluded means you're evading/escaping something.
- nemo44x 6y ago
  Ahhh thanks, didn’t know that elude and allude has different spellings. TIL.
- bluGill 6y ago
  Farming has changed since 1930. I know your history textbooks stopped covering it then (for good reason, after 1930 farming hasn't been significant), but that doesn't mean farming has stood still. Plowing as practiced in your history books is out of style and only rarely done. Farmers are well aware that soil washed away is gone forever, and are working to conserve it. Farmers are aware that fertilizer is a significant cost and what washes off is wasted money. No-til, strip til or other minimal till farming is the normal for many farmers. Cover crops are fast becoming popular. The old plows often are sold for scrape when in perfectly good shape (plows wear out fast in use)
Someone 6y ago
The rich “we” typically don’t clear land for agriculture anymore (https://data.worldbank.org/indicator/AG.LND.AGRI.ZS?end=2016&start=1981 https://data.worldbank.org/indicator/AG.LND.AGRI.ZS?end=2016...) Also, forestation is going up in many rich countries (https://data.worldbank.org/indicator/AG.LND.FRST.ZS?end=2016&start=1990&view=chart https://data.worldbank.org/indicator/AG.LND.FRST.ZS?end=2016...) That doesn’t imply we aren’t killing the world, though. Agriculture in rich countries often needs fertilizer to get the higher yields it gets, newer forests aren’t as diverse and often never will be as the ones that were torn down, etc.
- samvher 6y ago
  We import tons of meat and feed though which does basically the same thing in poorer countries.
- zip1234 6y ago
  Forestation may be going up but what about fragmentation of wild land? It seems like because of cars, people can and do build houses all over, scattered about. This causes habitats to be broken up by busy roads, which kills animals, messes up migration patterns, and more. A lot of those people will kill or drive away all the animals surrounding their house. They spray for insects, trap all the animals, block their food sources, etc. Sure, they have trees since they are not using the land for agriculture, but I'm not certain that it is ultimately better for animals.
davexunit 6y ago
It's a complete lie that industrial agriculture is the only effective way of feeding everyone. It seems to be that it produces the most yield of a crop, but therein lies the problem: The only metric that we look at is crop yield. Sure it yields a lot, but it's completely destroying the land in the process. If we continue to use industrial agriculture practices (which are completely dependent on oil) humanity will collectively starve when all the topsoil is dead and the water sufficiently poisoned. We've created our own vicious feedback loop by planting massive areas with a single crop that has been bred for size and shelf life more so than disease/pest resistance and nutrition. The monoculture is ripe for attack by pests due to lack of biodiversity. Our response to this problem has been to double down by spraying the crop with herbicides and pesticides. The chemicals kill beneficial fungi, bacteria, and insects which leave the crop entirely defenseless against the pests unless it is sprayed again and again. The bacteria and fungi that make soil "soil" and not "dirt" also die, and the only way to grow the next crop in dead soil is to till it (which kills even more soil life) and dump synthetic fertilizers all over it. The fertilizer runoff pollutes water sources. Much like how large centralized computer systems make everyone vulnerable to massive failures (think Cloudflare or AWS outages), large monoculture farming makes our food system very fragile and the resulting food isn't even particularly nutritious. We need to use regenerative farming practices, but that means defeating the oil industry, among others.
- nemo44x 6y ago
  I agree, it reminds of Nassim Taleb's idea of anti-fragility in that because our monoculture and reliance in chemicals to sustain it, it would only take a certain devastating thing to endanger the national food supply. Do you have examples of or references to regenerative farming practices? I ask because I'm curious about them to see if they scale like modern Ag which for all of its problems (many you pointed out), has been effective in many ways. I feel like in the end it will always come down to money.
  - davexunit 6y ago
    Sure, starting really generally: "regenerative agriculture" and "permaculture" are good keywords. I think looking for any solution to scale the way industrial agriculture does is approaching the problem from the wrong direction. The scaling of industrial agriculture is the problem. I don't think any one alternative is "the" solution, but rather that many alternative methods need to be applied where appropriate and at smaller scales. Smaller farms but lots more of them. Food needs to be grown in places that we currently don't think of as farmland: mass lawn conversion, urban farming, etc. Okay, onto some references of techniques that I can think of off the top of my head: Silvopasture is a way of combining tree crops with livestock grazing that sequesters carbon from the atomosphere. https://www.fs.usda.gov/nac/practices/silvopasture.php https://www.fs.usda.gov/nac/practices/silvopasture.php Riparian buffers separate rivers from farmland. They filter runoff from the fields, guard against floods because healthy soil and vegetation act like a sponge, and, if many land owners participate, they create uninterrupted habitat for wildlife. This sacrifices some field area, but it means that a "100 year flood" that now happen more frequently due to climate change won't destroy a family's source of income by washing away all the soil away. https://www.extension.iastate.edu/smallfarms/what-riparian-buffer https://www.extension.iastate.edu/smallfarms/what-riparian-b... "No till" or "no dig" cultivation. Tilling breaks networks of fungi and bacteria, causing a short-term burst of available nutrients for plants, but done year after year reduces soil health (in other words: diminishing returns.) Sowing or transplanting with minimal soil disturbance and top-dressing with compost builds soil life over time and is less labor intensive. https://charlesdowding.co.uk/faqs/ https://charlesdowding.co.uk/faqs/ Swales reduce pressure on irrigation systems on sloped land by storing water in the soil. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Swale_(landform) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Swale_(landform) Cover cropping means that the field isn't left bare. There's always something growing on it to keep the soil from eroding or blowing away in the wind. Cover crops act as a living mulch, and then as a regular mulch when they are slashed down when it comes time to plant the cash crop. Legumes are often used as cover crops because they are a natural fertilizer due to a symbiotic relationship they form with a special kind of bacteria that takes nitrogen from the air and deposits it in the soil. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cover_crop https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cover_crop A book on the subject of carbon farming: https://www.chelseagreen.com/product/the-carbon-farming-solution/ https://www.chelseagreen.com/product/the-carbon-farming-solu... A book (more philosophical than technical) about a Japanese rice farmer who successfully rejected western agriculture and pioneered natural farming practices: https://www.nyrb.com/products/the-one-straw-revolution?variant=1094932353 https://www.nyrb.com/products/the-one-straw-revolution?varia...

52-6F-62 6y ago

It's not a new problem, either. Growing up in a rural, agricultural zone we learned thoroughly about run-off and the potential for harm, and the harm that had happened in the past. DDT was nearly a curseword. It's etched into my mind that way. (And then the Ramones didn't help that) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DDT#Use_in_the_1940s_and_1950s https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DDT#Use_in_the_1940s_and_1950s

nemo44x 6y ago
Yeah it’s crazy to think that a chemical can be developed that can effectively destroy organic life and we just decide to spray it everywhere. I’ve read things about people that live near certain farms have higher rates of birth defects and diseases like cancer. I can only imagine being exposed to chemicals over and over for years is not only devastating to the local ecosystem but to the people nearby.

tw04 6y ago

But we also don't even take the most basic actions to prevent that fertilizer from making it into our waterways. Farmers insist on putting in thousands of miles of drain tile and running it straight into creeks and streams. They plow their fields right up to the very edge of marshes and streams instead of leaving grass strips to act as a barrier to runoff. It's shocking how little people seem to realize or care about the fact we can't even handle minute changes to help mother nature. The ironic part being, at least around here, every year some group spends millions and millions of dollars on "Farmer's Care" commercials and billboards. Also, not trying to be a grammar nazi - I just appreciate when people point things out to me so take it in that spirit. Alluded to - eluded means you're evading/escaping something.

nemo44x 6y ago
Ahhh thanks, didn’t know that elude and allude has different spellings. TIL.
bluGill 6y ago
Farming has changed since 1930. I know your history textbooks stopped covering it then (for good reason, after 1930 farming hasn't been significant), but that doesn't mean farming has stood still. Plowing as practiced in your history books is out of style and only rarely done. Farmers are well aware that soil washed away is gone forever, and are working to conserve it. Farmers are aware that fertilizer is a significant cost and what washes off is wasted money. No-til, strip til or other minimal till farming is the normal for many farmers. Cover crops are fast becoming popular. The old plows often are sold for scrape when in perfectly good shape (plows wear out fast in use)

Someone 6y ago

The rich “we” typically don’t clear land for agriculture anymore (https://data.worldbank.org/indicator/AG.LND.AGRI.ZS?end=2016&start=1981 https://data.worldbank.org/indicator/AG.LND.AGRI.ZS?end=2016...) Also, forestation is going up in many rich countries (https://data.worldbank.org/indicator/AG.LND.FRST.ZS?end=2016&start=1990&view=chart https://data.worldbank.org/indicator/AG.LND.FRST.ZS?end=2016...) That doesn’t imply we aren’t killing the world, though. Agriculture in rich countries often needs fertilizer to get the higher yields it gets, newer forests aren’t as diverse and often never will be as the ones that were torn down, etc.

samvher 6y ago
We import tons of meat and feed though which does basically the same thing in poorer countries.
zip1234 6y ago
Forestation may be going up but what about fragmentation of wild land? It seems like because of cars, people can and do build houses all over, scattered about. This causes habitats to be broken up by busy roads, which kills animals, messes up migration patterns, and more. A lot of those people will kill or drive away all the animals surrounding their house. They spray for insects, trap all the animals, block their food sources, etc. Sure, they have trees since they are not using the land for agriculture, but I'm not certain that it is ultimately better for animals.

davexunit 6y ago

It's a complete lie that industrial agriculture is the only effective way of feeding everyone. It seems to be that it produces the most yield of a crop, but therein lies the problem: The only metric that we look at is crop yield. Sure it yields a lot, but it's completely destroying the land in the process. If we continue to use industrial agriculture practices (which are completely dependent on oil) humanity will collectively starve when all the topsoil is dead and the water sufficiently poisoned. We've created our own vicious feedback loop by planting massive areas with a single crop that has been bred for size and shelf life more so than disease/pest resistance and nutrition. The monoculture is ripe for attack by pests due to lack of biodiversity. Our response to this problem has been to double down by spraying the crop with herbicides and pesticides. The chemicals kill beneficial fungi, bacteria, and insects which leave the crop entirely defenseless against the pests unless it is sprayed again and again. The bacteria and fungi that make soil "soil" and not "dirt" also die, and the only way to grow the next crop in dead soil is to till it (which kills even more soil life) and dump synthetic fertilizers all over it. The fertilizer runoff pollutes water sources. Much like how large centralized computer systems make everyone vulnerable to massive failures (think Cloudflare or AWS outages), large monoculture farming makes our food system very fragile and the resulting food isn't even particularly nutritious. We need to use regenerative farming practices, but that means defeating the oil industry, among others.

nemo44x 6y ago
I agree, it reminds of Nassim Taleb's idea of anti-fragility in that because our monoculture and reliance in chemicals to sustain it, it would only take a certain devastating thing to endanger the national food supply. Do you have examples of or references to regenerative farming practices? I ask because I'm curious about them to see if they scale like modern Ag which for all of its problems (many you pointed out), has been effective in many ways. I feel like in the end it will always come down to money.
- davexunit 6y ago
  Sure, starting really generally: "regenerative agriculture" and "permaculture" are good keywords. I think looking for any solution to scale the way industrial agriculture does is approaching the problem from the wrong direction. The scaling of industrial agriculture is the problem. I don't think any one alternative is "the" solution, but rather that many alternative methods need to be applied where appropriate and at smaller scales. Smaller farms but lots more of them. Food needs to be grown in places that we currently don't think of as farmland: mass lawn conversion, urban farming, etc. Okay, onto some references of techniques that I can think of off the top of my head: Silvopasture is a way of combining tree crops with livestock grazing that sequesters carbon from the atomosphere. https://www.fs.usda.gov/nac/practices/silvopasture.php https://www.fs.usda.gov/nac/practices/silvopasture.php Riparian buffers separate rivers from farmland. They filter runoff from the fields, guard against floods because healthy soil and vegetation act like a sponge, and, if many land owners participate, they create uninterrupted habitat for wildlife. This sacrifices some field area, but it means that a "100 year flood" that now happen more frequently due to climate change won't destroy a family's source of income by washing away all the soil away. https://www.extension.iastate.edu/smallfarms/what-riparian-buffer https://www.extension.iastate.edu/smallfarms/what-riparian-b... "No till" or "no dig" cultivation. Tilling breaks networks of fungi and bacteria, causing a short-term burst of available nutrients for plants, but done year after year reduces soil health (in other words: diminishing returns.) Sowing or transplanting with minimal soil disturbance and top-dressing with compost builds soil life over time and is less labor intensive. https://charlesdowding.co.uk/faqs/ https://charlesdowding.co.uk/faqs/ Swales reduce pressure on irrigation systems on sloped land by storing water in the soil. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Swale_(landform) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Swale_(landform) Cover cropping means that the field isn't left bare. There's always something growing on it to keep the soil from eroding or blowing away in the wind. Cover crops act as a living mulch, and then as a regular mulch when they are slashed down when it comes time to plant the cash crop. Legumes are often used as cover crops because they are a natural fertilizer due to a symbiotic relationship they form with a special kind of bacteria that takes nitrogen from the air and deposits it in the soil. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cover_crop https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cover_crop A book on the subject of carbon farming: https://www.chelseagreen.com/product/the-carbon-farming-solution/ https://www.chelseagreen.com/product/the-carbon-farming-solu... A book (more philosophical than technical) about a Japanese rice farmer who successfully rejected western agriculture and pioneered natural farming practices: https://www.nyrb.com/products/the-one-straw-revolution?variant=1094932353 https://www.nyrb.com/products/the-one-straw-revolution?varia...