4 ms·
I am highly skeptical of these claims. Corn is not new. Nor is wheat. Or rye or whatever. We have records of yields pre-green revolution, pre-GMO, pre-mechaniza
by JackPoach 6y ago
I am highly skeptical of these claims. Corn is not new. Nor is wheat. Or rye or whatever. We have records of yields pre-green revolution, pre-GMO, pre-mechanization, pre-fertilizers, etc. And they aren't that great. Yes, modern agriculture is not sustainable and we should incorporate as many organic techniques as we can. But we also should be ready to take lower yields. And that's fine. We don't need that much corn. It doesn't go to human consumption, hardly any. It goes toward animal feed and high-fructose syrup production. We can survive with less Coke and less factory farmed poultry. But we should stop romantisizing our past and treat organic agriculture as something new or magical.
- mikey_p 6y agoDon't forget to factor ethanol production in as well. In many places it is providing huge incentives for massive corn yields and production.
- JackPoach 6y agoI am 99% sure that corn ethanol is US and Brazil story. Anyway with oil prices this low, it makes no sense. The whole idea was insane from the beginning as corn ethanol has negative EROI (more energy is spent on producing a single unit of corn ethanol than you can produce by burning it.).
- pm90 6y agoIt makes more sense if you think about it as an artificial market for the excess corn produced by US farmers. You have to do something with it, might as well make HFCS and ethanol.
- falcolas 6y agoThankfully, there are other things that can be done (specifically, making food) with that same corn - it just requires a bit more processing (mechanical or chemical) to free the endosperm from the hull.
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- mcjiggerlog 6y agoLower yields = more land use to meet demand = more deforestation and loss of wilderness and biodiversity. Maximising yields is definitely something we want to do if we are interested in saving this planet.
- shmageggy 6y agoAFAIK the debate is still out on what the best long term solution will be regarding intensity versus land-use. The organic approach allows biodiversity on the farm itself, as opposed to a monocrop which becomes a desert for any other species. For example, this article about almond farming where the organic farm has lower yields but doesn't kill off the bees that are used to pollinate it. https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2020/jan/07/honeybees-deaths-almonds-hives-aoe https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2020/jan/07/honeybee...
- jnmandal 6y agoYou are externalizing the factor of soil health. When we start a field with fertile, normal soil, and add extra inputs, yields absolutely go up in the near term. But after decades of that, then your yield is back to where it was when you didn't have inputs, and now your soil has become dirt. Yet the problem is you are required to pay for inputs just to keep that land at par with the year before. And if you want to wean off the inputs and switch back to the original method, yields will go down for a few years until the soil is regenerated. After which point you will still only be back to normal. The increased yields from input-heavy factory farming can essentially be seen as a loan of yield from the future. If you are overleveraged, and your capital (in this case the nutrients in the soil) is finite then when capital is depleted (leeching into the environment in this case) getting back to square one will require investment or continued increase in leverage.