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> Maybe true in glorious future where the industrialized farm can support increased biodiversity While it certainly reduces on-farm biodiversity, higher yields

by iguy 6y ago

> Maybe true in glorious future where the industrialized farm can support increased biodiversity While it certainly reduces on-farm biodiversity, higher yields also let us leave more land completely un-farmed. For example I think maybe 10% of France has returned to forest in the last 40 years, and more since 1900, but I can't seem to find a great link...

ip26 6y ago
The Jevons Paradox would like a word. E.g., we spend 14 million acres on non-food corn ethanol, and 80+ million acres of corn is fed to livestock at terrible feed conversion ratios. We'd get the same amount of net calories on our plates for 8 million acres if we ate the corn.
- iguy 6y ago
  The area farmed in the US has declined slowly since the 1950s, maybe down 20%? Am eyeballing graphs as google is failing me: https://www.ers.usda.gov/webdocs/charts/58267/farms_fig01_450px.png?v=7683.2 https://www.ers.usda.gov/webdocs/charts/58267/farms_fig01_45... It would decline faster if we didn't subsidize stupid stuff like corn ethanol, for sure. Edit, a maybe a better graph: https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/share-of-land-area-used-for-agriculture?tab=chart&country=CAN~FRA~DEU~POL~GBR~USA~JPN https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/share-of-land-area-used-f...
  - ip26 6y ago
    I don't know about France, but I understand in the US that decline has mostly been the result of residential development buying out farmland. For just one small but hot-button current example, see Napa. For a historical example, see Silicon Valley, which was once orchards.
    - iguy 6y ago
      Urban land is 69 M acres, cropland 391 (according to some quick googling) and pasture 654. So urban is 17% of cropland, or 7% of all farmland. I'm surprised it's that high to be honest, compared to plane-window impressions. Surely a majority of urban area is post-1950, how much is former crop/ranch/forest I'd struggle to guess. Would be interesting to have better numbers, and over time.

by iguy 6y ago

ip26 6y ago

The Jevons Paradox would like a word. E.g., we spend 14 million acres on non-food corn ethanol, and 80+ million acres of corn is fed to livestock at terrible feed conversion ratios. We'd get the same amount of net calories on our plates for 8 million acres if we ate the corn.

iguy 6y ago
The area farmed in the US has declined slowly since the 1950s, maybe down 20%? Am eyeballing graphs as google is failing me: https://www.ers.usda.gov/webdocs/charts/58267/farms_fig01_450px.png?v=7683.2 https://www.ers.usda.gov/webdocs/charts/58267/farms_fig01_45... It would decline faster if we didn't subsidize stupid stuff like corn ethanol, for sure. Edit, a maybe a better graph: https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/share-of-land-area-used-for-agriculture?tab=chart&country=CAN~FRA~DEU~POL~GBR~USA~JPN https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/share-of-land-area-used-f...
- ip26 6y ago
  I don't know about France, but I understand in the US that decline has mostly been the result of residential development buying out farmland. For just one small but hot-button current example, see Napa. For a historical example, see Silicon Valley, which was once orchards.
  - iguy 6y ago
    Urban land is 69 M acres, cropland 391 (according to some quick googling) and pasture 654. So urban is 17% of cropland, or 7% of all farmland. I'm surprised it's that high to be honest, compared to plane-window impressions. Surely a majority of urban area is post-1950, how much is former crop/ranch/forest I'd struggle to guess. Would be interesting to have better numbers, and over time.