4 ms·

I improved considerably my life by stopping to purchase things and living with very few possessions, eating organic wild food as much as possible

cosmotic 6y ago
That's an unsustainable way of life. Humans cannot feed all humans with only organic food.
- voisin 6y ago
  Source?
  - ivalm 6y ago
    I am not OP but this is a nice meta-study https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fsufs.2019.00082/full https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fsufs.2019.0008... Looking at yields only (which is a small part of the study; sustainability depends on many other factors) it looks like log response ratio for organic vs conventional is -0.4 (but depends on crop type, etc, see figs 5,6). This response ratio means organic yields were typically ~2/3rds of conventional across US, EU for most produce types. I think a real path forward is reduction of pesticide/herbicide usage through highly targeted techniques, as well as greater embrace of biodiversity in the field (even at some cost to yield). However it is also not reasonable to switch to all organic right now, since we would then produce only 2/3rds the food we have now. I think where move from conventional is most critical is for animal products. “Conventional” in the US comes with lots of cruelty. Even if we net eat less meat supporting meat sources that treat animals better is important, and will not likely cause net decrease in calories produced.
    - sushicalculus 6y ago
      Considering much food is thrown out and wasted, perhaps lower yields would make us find better ways to reduce waste.
      - ivalm 6y ago
        The problem is that we currently have starvation due to poor distribution of food. Rich people can afford higher prices and will continue to waste (in fact, lots of rich people already eat organic), while the poor will feel the squeeze.
        sushicalculus 6y ago
        I read years ago that the starvation wasn’t necessarily distribution, but rather corruption that prevented the distribution. Is that incorrect?
        bumby 6y ago
        Ignoring that it's not always a good idea to distill a complicated system to a single factor like distribution or scarcity, I believe the calorie numbers frequently stated often do not discount for the fact that roughly a third of crop yield is fed to livestock, nor are typically the variety used for human consumption.
    - sdoering 6y ago
      I recommend the studies from the Royale Institute. They looked at yields on a longer term and discovered, that after a transition phase of around 5 years the numbers were comparable, but with organic agriculture realizing better yields in times of draught. Additionally they looked at caloric yields per acre. I just grabbed an explanatory blog post from said institute: https://rodaleinstitute.org/blog/can-organic-feed-the-world/ https://rodaleinstitute.org/blog/can-organic-feed-the-world/
      - ivalm 6y ago
        Rodale compares their own experimental farm, not organic yields on real commercial organic farms (many of which are run for more than 5 years). Their conventional yield is also on their farm, not real conventional farms. Edit: Looking a bit further rodale has rest years that they don’t count for their organic fields. 25% of the years they literally don’t grow anything on a given plot, but they only compare the growth years.
        sdoering 6y ago
        It is a scientific institute. So it isn't an organic farm either. So I am not sure if this argument applies in any direction. It I am totally aware of studies like Verena Seufert et al. showing reduced yields between 5 to 39% depending on the context and used methodologies. Edit: Regarding rest years. At least were I live both, organic or non organic farmers do that. Not sure how it is in other parts of the world.
- sdoering 6y ago
  Funny that you say that, because everything I have read on that in the last 10+ years indicates that that is not the case. Being an empiricist I would love to see your sources to evaluate my current knowledge against new evidence. Edit: Hopefully the sarcasm isn't too harsh. But knowing studies on reduced yields, on the mostly short timeframes and also the question of caloric/nutritional value per acre seems more promising.
  - deleted 6y ago
    [deleted]
dvfjsdhgfv 6y ago
I'm not sure I could go that far but I agree I become much happier after I stopped buying tons of things (I have a closet full of microcontrollers, some of them I haven't even unpacked...). Now I think well about each purchase, sometimes postponing it for months to make sure it's something I really need. Works great.
- dlhavema 6y ago
  I had that closet too, I ended up giving them away and stopping buying those things for a good long while. I liked buying them and looking at them, but never ended up building very much
deleted 6y ago
[deleted]
hrmon 6y ago
"Everything you own end up owning you!"

cosmotic 6y ago

That's an unsustainable way of life. Humans cannot feed all humans with only organic food.

voisin 6y ago
Source?
- ivalm 6y ago
  I am not OP but this is a nice meta-study https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fsufs.2019.00082/full https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fsufs.2019.0008... Looking at yields only (which is a small part of the study; sustainability depends on many other factors) it looks like log response ratio for organic vs conventional is -0.4 (but depends on crop type, etc, see figs 5,6). This response ratio means organic yields were typically ~2/3rds of conventional across US, EU for most produce types. I think a real path forward is reduction of pesticide/herbicide usage through highly targeted techniques, as well as greater embrace of biodiversity in the field (even at some cost to yield). However it is also not reasonable to switch to all organic right now, since we would then produce only 2/3rds the food we have now. I think where move from conventional is most critical is for animal products. “Conventional” in the US comes with lots of cruelty. Even if we net eat less meat supporting meat sources that treat animals better is important, and will not likely cause net decrease in calories produced.
  - sushicalculus 6y ago
    Considering much food is thrown out and wasted, perhaps lower yields would make us find better ways to reduce waste.
    - ivalm 6y ago
      The problem is that we currently have starvation due to poor distribution of food. Rich people can afford higher prices and will continue to waste (in fact, lots of rich people already eat organic), while the poor will feel the squeeze.
      - sushicalculus 6y ago
        I read years ago that the starvation wasn’t necessarily distribution, but rather corruption that prevented the distribution. Is that incorrect?
      - bumby 6y ago
        Ignoring that it's not always a good idea to distill a complicated system to a single factor like distribution or scarcity, I believe the calorie numbers frequently stated often do not discount for the fact that roughly a third of crop yield is fed to livestock, nor are typically the variety used for human consumption.
  - sdoering 6y ago
    I recommend the studies from the Royale Institute. They looked at yields on a longer term and discovered, that after a transition phase of around 5 years the numbers were comparable, but with organic agriculture realizing better yields in times of draught. Additionally they looked at caloric yields per acre. I just grabbed an explanatory blog post from said institute: https://rodaleinstitute.org/blog/can-organic-feed-the-world/ https://rodaleinstitute.org/blog/can-organic-feed-the-world/
    - ivalm 6y ago
      Rodale compares their own experimental farm, not organic yields on real commercial organic farms (many of which are run for more than 5 years). Their conventional yield is also on their farm, not real conventional farms. Edit: Looking a bit further rodale has rest years that they don’t count for their organic fields. 25% of the years they literally don’t grow anything on a given plot, but they only compare the growth years.
      - sdoering 6y ago
        It is a scientific institute. So it isn't an organic farm either. So I am not sure if this argument applies in any direction. It I am totally aware of studies like Verena Seufert et al. showing reduced yields between 5 to 39% depending on the context and used methodologies. Edit: Regarding rest years. At least were I live both, organic or non organic farmers do that. Not sure how it is in other parts of the world.
sdoering 6y ago
Funny that you say that, because everything I have read on that in the last 10+ years indicates that that is not the case. Being an empiricist I would love to see your sources to evaluate my current knowledge against new evidence. Edit: Hopefully the sarcasm isn't too harsh. But knowing studies on reduced yields, on the mostly short timeframes and also the question of caloric/nutritional value per acre seems more promising.
- deleted 6y ago
  [deleted]

dvfjsdhgfv 6y ago

I'm not sure I could go that far but I agree I become much happier after I stopped buying tons of things (I have a closet full of microcontrollers, some of them I haven't even unpacked...). Now I think well about each purchase, sometimes postponing it for months to make sure it's something I really need. Works great.

dlhavema 6y ago
I had that closet too, I ended up giving them away and stopping buying those things for a good long while. I liked buying them and looking at them, but never ended up building very much

deleted 6y ago

[deleted]

hrmon 6y ago

"Everything you own end up owning you!"