4 ms·

I think the Rodale people are well intentioned but off in their approach. Need to focus less on the technological aspect or more on the economic and scaling asp

I think the Rodale people are well intentioned but off in their approach. Need to focus less on the technological aspect or more on the economic and scaling aspect. The reason people don't do this isn't because they aren't aware of such practices, they don't do it because you have to thread a needle as far as precise management is concerned to simply turn a profit. Not that much room for margin in today's agriculture landscape

spiderfarmer 6y ago
This is where environmentalists always say that the consumer should pay more in the supermarkets, ignoring the fact that the supermarkets make the highest margins in the entire chain between seed and consumer. And they have no incentive to pay farmers more, because farmers don't have a lot of places where they can sell their products. Solve this problem and you can really change the system.
- kickout 6y ago
  No. F that. Consumers aren't paying externalities for transportation costs (think airlines and cars). Why should agriculture be the bad guy? Start with transportation and then come after ag. Don't single out ag please
- adrianN 6y ago
  Simple: Make better practices required by law, so that all farmers have to do it. Add some tariffs so that foreign farmers can't compete by ignoring these practices.
  - kickout 6y ago
    Great--let's outlaw ICE cars first, and regulate airlines too. We can't let those industries skirt by. Food Production is a greater societal need than travel most people would agree.
    - adrianN 6y ago
      Why not both? Humanity can in fact more than one problem at the same time.
      - inimino 6y ago
        The fact that the verb is "" makes this comment perfect. ;-)
    - crowbahr 6y ago
      Right. Food production is a greater societal need and a lot of corn goes into making ethanol for cars to burn instead of food. We don't have to outlaw ICE cars to make it more expensive to drive them, we just have to make corn ethanol more expensive for gas companies to cut their fuel with, and food corn cheaper for humans. Also: We need to grow less corn overall. We make way, way more of it than we need and not enough of other better veg.
      - kickout 6y ago
        Corn is a poor ethanol crop. Period. It should not ever be used for its ethanol purpose. There are better crops suited for that purpose but the infrastructure in the US is set up for.....corn. Humans don't eat corn (or they eat a trivial percentage). 75% of the corn grown goes to feed animals (usually cattle) or cars (via ethanol). Yea we need to grow less corn. But we can't outlaw it. You just removed the livelihood for the Midwest. The current economic incentive structure is to grow corn (there literally is no downside). A solution that changes that has to include benefits for farmers, landowners, consumers, and society. It's not going to be easy (or cheap). https://thinkingagriculture.io/incentivizing-regenerative-agriculture/ https://thinkingagriculture.io/incentivizing-regenerative-ag...
        adrianN 6y ago
        Biofuels are a gigantic waste. At some point I did the math for Germany. If we took the land used for energy crops and instead covered it with solar panels, that would produce enough energy to basically cover Germany's energy needs (or a least a large part of them, depending on eg storage efficiencies).
cmrdporcupine 6y ago
In my region most cash crop agriculture is being done on land that isn't even owned by the farmer. Most of my neighbours are leasing at least portions of their land out to a farmer, who then in turn subcontracts most work and just manages things. In that model there is almost no incentive structure for soil maintenance, environmental stewardship, diversification, etc. Most landowners here aren't even leasing it for the revenue, which is pretty peanuts for cash cropping on smaller plots, but for the indirect benefit of being able to claim farm tax rate instead of regular residential tax rates. For many years my vineyard, garden, etc. suffered from herbicide drift from next door -- but there was not a single contact I could go to to talk about this, everyone just points the finger, or you can't find the party involved. Responsibility too distributed, etc.
- kickout 6y ago
  There is truth in this statement. Land owners want the highest ROI for their investment (land). Farmers, who have a huge safety net from subsidies, have no problem propping up rent prices to grow corn/soy (and mine the soil). There needs to be economic incentives for farmers AND landowners to adapt these practices. It WILL cost money. See a link to my blog I posted in a different post. I talk about this in semi-depth.
- bluGill 6y ago
  This is why sharecropping is a common rent arrangement - you get a portion of whatever profit comes from your land. It is legally complex to set these up in a fair way, but when you do everyone has incentive to ensure the long term health of the farm. It then becomes easy to tell the landlord he should invest in X - because the yields will go up over the long term. Likewise landlords have incentive to follow the latest research and push the tenant to adopt what makes sense. (sometimes this means you agree to watch an experiment done elsewhere- if it isn't a good idea for your area someone else takes the loss)
sudoaza 6y ago
Found [this] 2 year study in which one year apparently the cover crop was not enough to stop the weeds totally, there may be some fine tuning needed in the beginning, like which cover crop to sow. [this] http://umanitoba.ca/faculties/afs/agronomists_conf/media/Caroline_Halde_poster.pdf http://umanitoba.ca/faculties/afs/agronomists_conf/media/Car...
- kickout 6y ago
  Cover crops are a good tool, but there will never be a silver bullet solution for weeds (even autonomous weeding robots). Mother nature is crafty. That said, the 'chemical' era we are currently in is over, even if no one wants to admit it https://thinkingagriculture.io/innovation-efficiency-chemicals-in-agriculture/ https://thinkingagriculture.io/innovation-efficiency-chemica...
  - sudoaza 6y ago
    Could be possible that some weed adapts to grow through the bush or something, what i like specially about this is using legumes as both cover and fertilizer, which is something permaculture uses a lot too. Also it's reminiscent of how corn was traditionally grown, with beans as nitrogen fixing and squash as ground cover. But on the long run, my bet is on diversity instead of monocrops.
    - bluGill 6y ago
      Those old "3-sisters" ways of growing corn were done - but it greatly reduces the yields of all 3 crops because they compete with and harm each other.
      - hinkley 6y ago
        The goal is to increase the combined yield without a proportional increase in labor. Mark Shepard likes to brag about how he gets less half a harvest of six+ different species in the same field. He's still getting 2-3x as much food out of the space. Most importantly, I believe (and he agrees), when you monocrop you go for broke. If something goes wrong, you have very little to sell at the end of the year. If it's a bumper crop year, prices will be depressed if it's a good year for everybody. In either scenario, the dealer (bank) always wins. With six crops, the standard deviation between good years and bad years is reduced, which makes farming less of a trip to Vegas. That he gets more out of the same land brings up his average expected income. It's more work, yes, but he points out that many farmers have to take a side job to make ends meet, and he theoretically doesn't (he speaks and consults), so he can invest that time into increasing his farm's productivity.

spiderfarmer 6y ago

This is where environmentalists always say that the consumer should pay more in the supermarkets, ignoring the fact that the supermarkets make the highest margins in the entire chain between seed and consumer. And they have no incentive to pay farmers more, because farmers don't have a lot of places where they can sell their products. Solve this problem and you can really change the system.

kickout 6y ago
No. F that. Consumers aren't paying externalities for transportation costs (think airlines and cars). Why should agriculture be the bad guy? Start with transportation and then come after ag. Don't single out ag please
adrianN 6y ago
Simple: Make better practices required by law, so that all farmers have to do it. Add some tariffs so that foreign farmers can't compete by ignoring these practices.
- kickout 6y ago
  Great--let's outlaw ICE cars first, and regulate airlines too. We can't let those industries skirt by. Food Production is a greater societal need than travel most people would agree.
  - adrianN 6y ago
    Why not both? Humanity can in fact more than one problem at the same time.
    - inimino 6y ago
      The fact that the verb is "" makes this comment perfect. ;-)
  - crowbahr 6y ago
    Right. Food production is a greater societal need and a lot of corn goes into making ethanol for cars to burn instead of food. We don't have to outlaw ICE cars to make it more expensive to drive them, we just have to make corn ethanol more expensive for gas companies to cut their fuel with, and food corn cheaper for humans. Also: We need to grow less corn overall. We make way, way more of it than we need and not enough of other better veg.
    - kickout 6y ago
      Corn is a poor ethanol crop. Period. It should not ever be used for its ethanol purpose. There are better crops suited for that purpose but the infrastructure in the US is set up for.....corn. Humans don't eat corn (or they eat a trivial percentage). 75% of the corn grown goes to feed animals (usually cattle) or cars (via ethanol). Yea we need to grow less corn. But we can't outlaw it. You just removed the livelihood for the Midwest. The current economic incentive structure is to grow corn (there literally is no downside). A solution that changes that has to include benefits for farmers, landowners, consumers, and society. It's not going to be easy (or cheap). https://thinkingagriculture.io/incentivizing-regenerative-agriculture/ https://thinkingagriculture.io/incentivizing-regenerative-ag...
      - adrianN 6y ago
        Biofuels are a gigantic waste. At some point I did the math for Germany. If we took the land used for energy crops and instead covered it with solar panels, that would produce enough energy to basically cover Germany's energy needs (or a least a large part of them, depending on eg storage efficiencies).

cmrdporcupine 6y ago

In my region most cash crop agriculture is being done on land that isn't even owned by the farmer. Most of my neighbours are leasing at least portions of their land out to a farmer, who then in turn subcontracts most work and just manages things. In that model there is almost no incentive structure for soil maintenance, environmental stewardship, diversification, etc. Most landowners here aren't even leasing it for the revenue, which is pretty peanuts for cash cropping on smaller plots, but for the indirect benefit of being able to claim farm tax rate instead of regular residential tax rates. For many years my vineyard, garden, etc. suffered from herbicide drift from next door -- but there was not a single contact I could go to to talk about this, everyone just points the finger, or you can't find the party involved. Responsibility too distributed, etc.

kickout 6y ago
There is truth in this statement. Land owners want the highest ROI for their investment (land). Farmers, who have a huge safety net from subsidies, have no problem propping up rent prices to grow corn/soy (and mine the soil). There needs to be economic incentives for farmers AND landowners to adapt these practices. It WILL cost money. See a link to my blog I posted in a different post. I talk about this in semi-depth.
bluGill 6y ago
This is why sharecropping is a common rent arrangement - you get a portion of whatever profit comes from your land. It is legally complex to set these up in a fair way, but when you do everyone has incentive to ensure the long term health of the farm. It then becomes easy to tell the landlord he should invest in X - because the yields will go up over the long term. Likewise landlords have incentive to follow the latest research and push the tenant to adopt what makes sense. (sometimes this means you agree to watch an experiment done elsewhere- if it isn't a good idea for your area someone else takes the loss)

sudoaza 6y ago

Found [this] 2 year study in which one year apparently the cover crop was not enough to stop the weeds totally, there may be some fine tuning needed in the beginning, like which cover crop to sow. [this] http://umanitoba.ca/faculties/afs/agronomists_conf/media/Caroline_Halde_poster.pdf http://umanitoba.ca/faculties/afs/agronomists_conf/media/Car...

kickout 6y ago
Cover crops are a good tool, but there will never be a silver bullet solution for weeds (even autonomous weeding robots). Mother nature is crafty. That said, the 'chemical' era we are currently in is over, even if no one wants to admit it https://thinkingagriculture.io/innovation-efficiency-chemicals-in-agriculture/ https://thinkingagriculture.io/innovation-efficiency-chemica...
- sudoaza 6y ago
  Could be possible that some weed adapts to grow through the bush or something, what i like specially about this is using legumes as both cover and fertilizer, which is something permaculture uses a lot too. Also it's reminiscent of how corn was traditionally grown, with beans as nitrogen fixing and squash as ground cover. But on the long run, my bet is on diversity instead of monocrops.
  - bluGill 6y ago
    Those old "3-sisters" ways of growing corn were done - but it greatly reduces the yields of all 3 crops because they compete with and harm each other.
    - hinkley 6y ago
      The goal is to increase the combined yield without a proportional increase in labor. Mark Shepard likes to brag about how he gets less half a harvest of six+ different species in the same field. He's still getting 2-3x as much food out of the space. Most importantly, I believe (and he agrees), when you monocrop you go for broke. If something goes wrong, you have very little to sell at the end of the year. If it's a bumper crop year, prices will be depressed if it's a good year for everybody. In either scenario, the dealer (bank) always wins. With six crops, the standard deviation between good years and bad years is reduced, which makes farming less of a trip to Vegas. That he gets more out of the same land brings up his average expected income. It's more work, yes, but he points out that many farmers have to take a side job to make ends meet, and he theoretically doesn't (he speaks and consults), so he can invest that time into increasing his farm's productivity.