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Thanks for your comment! I don't agree and think if there would be a way to calculate the true costs on the environment of large scale agriculture, it would no

Thanks for your comment! I don't agree and think if there would be a way to calculate the true costs on the environment of large scale agriculture, it would not look good. There is a lot of things we miss when thinking about that: soil depletion, which recent research shows is a huge factor for climate change. And there is so much more. One general thing I want to add: Any large scale industry can theoretically be the most efficient and optimal for the environment but these days none of them is. Why is that? I think because there is no incentive to do that and there is no price on environmental costs. Happy to hear your thoughts!

Lazare 6y ago
> soil depletion, which recent research shows is a huge factor for climate change Soil depletion is neither created by industrial agriculture, nor solved by small scale agriculture. If you grow a bunch of wheat, it leaches nitrogen out of the ground. Your options are: 1. Let it sit fallow while it naturally regenerates, meaning you need 2-3 times more land as you rotate through the fields, meaning you need to cut down a lot of forests and put them to the plow. 2. Add nitrogen based fertilisers. The only viable way to generate them produces a lot of carbon, and the runoff has its own ecological toll. It's been a huge factor in human development for ever; you either need to use a stupid amount of land, or you add your own nitrogen. Neither option is great; neither option really changes based on the scale you're doing it at. > Any large scale industry can theoretically be the most efficient and optimal for the environment but these days none of them is. I mean....aren't they? The issue is scale. Australia produced something in excess of 500 million tonnes of coal last year, mostly exported to Japan and South Korea. What is the most "optimal for the environment" way to extract 500 million tonnes of coal and ship it around the globe so it can be burnt for power? I would suggest that there is no way to do that, but that's not an indictment of the industrial scale of the process. If you managed to mine that much coal via small batch artisanal hand mining, it'd be just as bad for the environment. Probably worse; you'd need a much larger labour force, meaning even more food and water trucked out to the mines. If you take a giant factory that's doing something bad for the environment, and split it up into 1000 small factories that are still doing something bad for the environment, you're not obviously winning. > there is no price on environmental costs. Quite true, but that works at every scale. The giant agribusiness has no reason not to over-apply fertiliser to their fields other than the cost of the fertiliser (they don't pay for the damage to marine life when it washes into the river). But the small hobbyist gardener has no reason not too either. The same incentives apply at every level. If anything, there's less incentive to be efficient at a small level, because it seems so small ("how much damage can ONE lawn do?" "how much carbon does ONE trip to the store in a car add?"), or because it's being done at a hobbyist level. A 40% tax on fertiliser (or whatever) would have enormous shockwaves on industrial agriculture; steps would be taken rapidly to reduce useage. A hobbyist growing tomatoes for his own use might not even notice, and thus, would not reduce usage.
- FooHentai 6y ago
  >Add nitrogen based fertilisers. The only viable way to generate them produces a lot of carbon, and the runoff has its own ecological toll. Since we're comparing industrial ag with human-scale stuff it's only fair to point out that simple human-scale means of achieving this is to literally pee in a container, let it sit for a few months, dilute it 10-20x with water, and apply to garden beds. This fertilizer has an NPK of 11-1-2. If you compost, peeing directly onto it will have a similar effect. Also 'letting it sit fallow' is not really stating the option fairly. Nitrogen-fixing cover crops are an option and these can be cohabit with or grow in rotation with a main crop. I think it's a mistake here to assert that small-scale gardening should mimic industral ag practice. Of course that would produce a fragmented solution that is less efficient and offers little to no benefit. >A 40% tax on fertiliser (or whatever) would have enormous shockwaves on industrial agriculture; steps would be taken rapidly to reduce useage. A hobbyist growing tomatoes for his own use might not even notice, and thus, would not reduce usage. I don't buy that argument. Not only is a small-scale farmer less likely to be heavily reliant on buying in fertilizer, a 40% increase in cost will be equally impactful as to a large scale operator, because their means are proportionally smaller. >But the small hobbyist gardener has no reason not too either. The same incentives apply at every level. Not true. Bob the farmer has a much closer societal link to joe the fisherman. If bob's practices impact on Joe's means of sustenance, not only are they on an equal footing to discuss the matter but they can do by leaning over the fence. Big Ag talking to fisheries, by comparison, looks quite different and more abstracted, less neighbourly if you will. Likewise if the polluter is a large industry and the impacted parties are individuals, all the same problems of abstraction and drastically lowered leverage to boot. There are many examples where this is not true, of course e.g. Damages done at a great distance between source and impact.
  - Lazare 6y ago
    First, humans don't generate enough waste to fertilise the crops they need to survive; that's why the Haber-Bosch process was so incredibly revolutionary. Sure, nitrogen fixing crops are a thing; crop rotation, there's a lot of ways we've figured out to get more crops grown in less land, and they all have limitations and tradeoffs, and they're all a lot less efficient than just dropping some cheap fertiliser on it. Second, no, small-scale agriculture should not blindly mimic industrial agriculture, but you also don't get any advantages just by being small. Pests want to eat your crops no matter who you are. And yes, of course a backyard veggie garden needs fertiliser. And third, dfferent consumers have different elasticities of demand. Hobbyists doing something for fun often have high elasticities of demand. I mean, obviously; if you were maximally sensitive to price, you'd be buying whatever is on sale at Costco already. :) A friend of mine makes her own cold process soap; they're lovely and high quality, and she has a lot of fun doing it. Even ignoring her time, the cost per bar for her to make them is a couple orders of magnitude higher than store bought. You think she'd stop - or even notice - if one ingredient went up a few cents? Finally: > Bob the farmer has a much closer societal link to joe the fisherman. I can't even begin to imagine how that might be true. We're talking about "hey, what if everyone grew their own potatoes instead of buying them; would that help the planet". But I mean....I don't know any fishermen. I don't even eat fish. And even if I did plant some potatoes in my back yard, I'm not going to suddenly meet a fisherman. And even if I did, I don't see why we'd assume they're an environmental chemist. Seems like he'd probably be pretty busy fishing, maintaining his boat, and (now) growing potatoes, so why would he even know that the fertiliser we're both putting on our potatoes is (eventually, in aggregate) harming the fish? You seem to be envisioning a pleasant world, but none of it really meshes with my understanding of how our world works. But eh, I suppose my arguments sound equally unconvincing to you, so...

Lazare 6y ago

> soil depletion, which recent research shows is a huge factor for climate change Soil depletion is neither created by industrial agriculture, nor solved by small scale agriculture. If you grow a bunch of wheat, it leaches nitrogen out of the ground. Your options are: 1. Let it sit fallow while it naturally regenerates, meaning you need 2-3 times more land as you rotate through the fields, meaning you need to cut down a lot of forests and put them to the plow. 2. Add nitrogen based fertilisers. The only viable way to generate them produces a lot of carbon, and the runoff has its own ecological toll. It's been a huge factor in human development for ever; you either need to use a stupid amount of land, or you add your own nitrogen. Neither option is great; neither option really changes based on the scale you're doing it at. > Any large scale industry can theoretically be the most efficient and optimal for the environment but these days none of them is. I mean....aren't they? The issue is scale. Australia produced something in excess of 500 million tonnes of coal last year, mostly exported to Japan and South Korea. What is the most "optimal for the environment" way to extract 500 million tonnes of coal and ship it around the globe so it can be burnt for power? I would suggest that there is no way to do that, but that's not an indictment of the industrial scale of the process. If you managed to mine that much coal via small batch artisanal hand mining, it'd be just as bad for the environment. Probably worse; you'd need a much larger labour force, meaning even more food and water trucked out to the mines. If you take a giant factory that's doing something bad for the environment, and split it up into 1000 small factories that are still doing something bad for the environment, you're not obviously winning. > there is no price on environmental costs. Quite true, but that works at every scale. The giant agribusiness has no reason not to over-apply fertiliser to their fields other than the cost of the fertiliser (they don't pay for the damage to marine life when it washes into the river). But the small hobbyist gardener has no reason not too either. The same incentives apply at every level. If anything, there's less incentive to be efficient at a small level, because it seems so small ("how much damage can ONE lawn do?" "how much carbon does ONE trip to the store in a car add?"), or because it's being done at a hobbyist level. A 40% tax on fertiliser (or whatever) would have enormous shockwaves on industrial agriculture; steps would be taken rapidly to reduce useage. A hobbyist growing tomatoes for his own use might not even notice, and thus, would not reduce usage.

FooHentai 6y ago
>Add nitrogen based fertilisers. The only viable way to generate them produces a lot of carbon, and the runoff has its own ecological toll. Since we're comparing industrial ag with human-scale stuff it's only fair to point out that simple human-scale means of achieving this is to literally pee in a container, let it sit for a few months, dilute it 10-20x with water, and apply to garden beds. This fertilizer has an NPK of 11-1-2. If you compost, peeing directly onto it will have a similar effect. Also 'letting it sit fallow' is not really stating the option fairly. Nitrogen-fixing cover crops are an option and these can be cohabit with or grow in rotation with a main crop. I think it's a mistake here to assert that small-scale gardening should mimic industral ag practice. Of course that would produce a fragmented solution that is less efficient and offers little to no benefit. >A 40% tax on fertiliser (or whatever) would have enormous shockwaves on industrial agriculture; steps would be taken rapidly to reduce useage. A hobbyist growing tomatoes for his own use might not even notice, and thus, would not reduce usage. I don't buy that argument. Not only is a small-scale farmer less likely to be heavily reliant on buying in fertilizer, a 40% increase in cost will be equally impactful as to a large scale operator, because their means are proportionally smaller. >But the small hobbyist gardener has no reason not too either. The same incentives apply at every level. Not true. Bob the farmer has a much closer societal link to joe the fisherman. If bob's practices impact on Joe's means of sustenance, not only are they on an equal footing to discuss the matter but they can do by leaning over the fence. Big Ag talking to fisheries, by comparison, looks quite different and more abstracted, less neighbourly if you will. Likewise if the polluter is a large industry and the impacted parties are individuals, all the same problems of abstraction and drastically lowered leverage to boot. There are many examples where this is not true, of course e.g. Damages done at a great distance between source and impact.
- Lazare 6y ago
  First, humans don't generate enough waste to fertilise the crops they need to survive; that's why the Haber-Bosch process was so incredibly revolutionary. Sure, nitrogen fixing crops are a thing; crop rotation, there's a lot of ways we've figured out to get more crops grown in less land, and they all have limitations and tradeoffs, and they're all a lot less efficient than just dropping some cheap fertiliser on it. Second, no, small-scale agriculture should not blindly mimic industrial agriculture, but you also don't get any advantages just by being small. Pests want to eat your crops no matter who you are. And yes, of course a backyard veggie garden needs fertiliser. And third, dfferent consumers have different elasticities of demand. Hobbyists doing something for fun often have high elasticities of demand. I mean, obviously; if you were maximally sensitive to price, you'd be buying whatever is on sale at Costco already. :) A friend of mine makes her own cold process soap; they're lovely and high quality, and she has a lot of fun doing it. Even ignoring her time, the cost per bar for her to make them is a couple orders of magnitude higher than store bought. You think she'd stop - or even notice - if one ingredient went up a few cents? Finally: > Bob the farmer has a much closer societal link to joe the fisherman. I can't even begin to imagine how that might be true. We're talking about "hey, what if everyone grew their own potatoes instead of buying them; would that help the planet". But I mean....I don't know any fishermen. I don't even eat fish. And even if I did plant some potatoes in my back yard, I'm not going to suddenly meet a fisherman. And even if I did, I don't see why we'd assume they're an environmental chemist. Seems like he'd probably be pretty busy fishing, maintaining his boat, and (now) growing potatoes, so why would he even know that the fertiliser we're both putting on our potatoes is (eventually, in aggregate) harming the fish? You seem to be envisioning a pleasant world, but none of it really meshes with my understanding of how our world works. But eh, I suppose my arguments sound equally unconvincing to you, so...