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Industrial Agricultural is a biohazard. We need to embrace the methods we used to feed ourselves for millions of years, with nature instead of in opposition of

by foxhop 6y ago

Industrial Agricultural is a biohazard. We need to embrace the methods we used to feed ourselves for millions of years, with nature instead of in opposition of nature. Reference: https://archive.org/details/permaculture1adesignersmanualbybillmollison https://archive.org/details/permaculture1adesignersmanualbyb...

zokier 6y ago
You mean cut the world population by order of magnitude and have majority of the populace slave on fields for a pittance. Sounds delightful.
- foxhop 6y ago
  That's not at all what I said or mean. Working with nature means using natural systems to produce food with less human energy and fossil fuels, and chemicals, and cutting down forests. A quick quote from the referenced work: """ The pragmatic and practical approach to the main body of this work largely omits reference to those visions or beliefs classifiable as spiritual or mystical; not because these are not a normal part of human experience, but because they are arrived at as a result of long contemplation or intense involvement with the mysteries that eternally surround us. We may “dream" understanding, but it is something we cannot demand, define, or teach to others; it is for each of us to develop. There are things that nobody else can help us with, but in a book written to help people make real-life decisions, to build new landscapes, to regenerate damaged forests, and to lighten our load on earth, the present need is for clear and practical approaches. In the preceding chapters, well-tried and common- sense techniques and strategies of earth restoration have been described and figured. All of this comes to naught if we, as a people, continue to invest in arms and destruction, to permit land abuse, and to fail to tackle the social and political impediments to reclaiming desertified and abused lands, or even to prevent the poisoning of land. Thus, the following sections give strategies for change in the social and economic areas of society. These strategies may, in fact, be of more assistance to real change than the skills of land management, for society has far more competent farmers and engineers than it has ethical ... """
  - luckylion 6y ago
    > produce food with less human energy and fossil fuels, and chemicals, and cutting down forests It requires less input, less labor, less land --- why isn't it already trashing the market by simply being much cheaper?
    - jayjader 6y ago
      Not that this is a sure-fire explanation, but off the top of my head I can think of at least 2 industries that would have vested interests in suppressing permaculture: pesticides & fertilizers. Annecdotally, many farmers here in France are straight up taught their trade by instructional material made by fertilizer, pesticide, and seed/grain manufacturers. So they might not even be aware of potential "better" options. An imperfect analogy is that legalizing cannabis requires less labor & more funds than keeping it illegal, yet we're still hesitating to do that in many countries. Humans (and thus most markets) have other incentives than simply having things for cheaper.
- dundarious 6y ago
  Have you read their link? That doesn’t seem like the charitable interpretation of their views, though I share your desire to avoid that fate.
- foobiter 6y ago
  americans literally killed millions of bison for no reason, that was one example of a food source that would have been near infinite if managed correctly
zokier 6y ago
> we used to feed ourselves for millions of years Use of fire at all emerged about 1.5 million years ago. Homo Sapiens emerged about 300 thousand years ago. First signd of any sort of agriculture are from about 15 thousand years ago. Stone age ended and we got first bronze tools less than 10 thousand years ago. The only method we have had "for millions of years" is hunter-gathering with stone tools.
- IgorPartola 6y ago
  Not only this but ancient agriculture supported fewer humans with a lot more work. This romanticized idea of growing food the old fashioned way and forget today’s busy way of life omits the part of doing nothing but growing food from not figuratively dawn to dusk. I spent some time in my youth farming the old fashioned way: hand tools only, carrying water from somewhere else, removing pests and weeds by hand. It is a terribly labor intensive process that managed to supplement my family’s food needs but not eliminate the need for purchased food by any means. We managed to do literally nothing else. We certainly couldn’t have fed anyone else since we didn’t have any kind of excess. I don’t like industrial food. It is killing the planet abs pretty quickly. But it’s not doing it because farmers are evil. It’s because it the cheapest way to produce food. If we as a society want to go to a place where food costs 10-100x as much while availability goes down by about the same amount, let’s figure out how we will prevent mass starvation and population decline. But if the GP expects that farmers will switch to compost abs hand tools, they should probably expect to pay a lot more for a lot less food.
  - Scoundreller 6y ago
    I’d argue that the average western person’s food budget comes from: 1) desire to eat « fresh » foods out-of-season (greenhouses, air transport, lengthy controlled-atmosphere storage) 2) feeding food to food and getting 1/10th back (feeding corn to a cow) 3) desire for labour-intensive foods. Potatoes can be straightforward harvested from a field by a machine. Alfalfa (or anything in a greenhouse) cannot. I think the biggest barrier to going back to « the old way » is not having manufactured fertilizer. Nobody cares if the water came by pump instead of by hand. But I supposed over-watered at the end = more water in the product instead of useful matter.
a_crc 6y ago
Millions of years? Agriculture is less than 120,000 years old by most accounts. Are you suggesting the bulk of humanity returns to hunting and gathering? Even then accounts of early human history have us emerging less than a million years ago. I think permaculture practices have their benefits but that kind of hyperbole doesn't help the cause.
dghughes 6y ago
I live in a rural area with farming and fishing as main industries. Many of the farms are family owned due to the limited land area here (island). Farmers want to grow food for people many have done it for generations. The rural area and nature is what they love. They want to grow food in a way that's as healthy as possible they don't want to deal with agricultural herbicides and pesticides. But many people are in denial about how much work is needed to grow the food that feeds everyone. Crop yields need to be high and costs low at the grocery store end but farmers often only get around 200 dollars per ton for their hard effort. Here's an old article from my region: https://www.theguardian.pe.ca/opinion/it-costs-a-pile-to-grow-a-potato-110758/ https://www.theguardian.pe.ca/opinion/it-costs-a-pile-to-gro... * Land $3 to $5 million * Equipment $1 million * Storage $1 million (shared/co-op or separate organization) * Farmer profit ~$20,000 (16 hour days all spring/summer/fall) - other costs and taxes
belorn 6y ago
A first good step would be to add the external cost of fertilizers to the price. We are all paying for the destruction of oceans, the result of using fossil fuels in the production chain, and the by-product which get stored in large pools like this, and yet they can easily out compete more ecological minded production since the cost get applied to society at large rather than the industrial farm that bought the fertilizer.

by foxhop 6y ago

zokier 6y ago

You mean cut the world population by order of magnitude and have majority of the populace slave on fields for a pittance. Sounds delightful.

foxhop 6y ago
That's not at all what I said or mean. Working with nature means using natural systems to produce food with less human energy and fossil fuels, and chemicals, and cutting down forests. A quick quote from the referenced work: """ The pragmatic and practical approach to the main body of this work largely omits reference to those visions or beliefs classifiable as spiritual or mystical; not because these are not a normal part of human experience, but because they are arrived at as a result of long contemplation or intense involvement with the mysteries that eternally surround us. We may “dream" understanding, but it is something we cannot demand, define, or teach to others; it is for each of us to develop. There are things that nobody else can help us with, but in a book written to help people make real-life decisions, to build new landscapes, to regenerate damaged forests, and to lighten our load on earth, the present need is for clear and practical approaches. In the preceding chapters, well-tried and common- sense techniques and strategies of earth restoration have been described and figured. All of this comes to naught if we, as a people, continue to invest in arms and destruction, to permit land abuse, and to fail to tackle the social and political impediments to reclaiming desertified and abused lands, or even to prevent the poisoning of land. Thus, the following sections give strategies for change in the social and economic areas of society. These strategies may, in fact, be of more assistance to real change than the skills of land management, for society has far more competent farmers and engineers than it has ethical ... """
- luckylion 6y ago
  > produce food with less human energy and fossil fuels, and chemicals, and cutting down forests It requires less input, less labor, less land --- why isn't it already trashing the market by simply being much cheaper?
  - jayjader 6y ago
    Not that this is a sure-fire explanation, but off the top of my head I can think of at least 2 industries that would have vested interests in suppressing permaculture: pesticides & fertilizers. Annecdotally, many farmers here in France are straight up taught their trade by instructional material made by fertilizer, pesticide, and seed/grain manufacturers. So they might not even be aware of potential "better" options. An imperfect analogy is that legalizing cannabis requires less labor & more funds than keeping it illegal, yet we're still hesitating to do that in many countries. Humans (and thus most markets) have other incentives than simply having things for cheaper.
dundarious 6y ago
Have you read their link? That doesn’t seem like the charitable interpretation of their views, though I share your desire to avoid that fate.
foobiter 6y ago
americans literally killed millions of bison for no reason, that was one example of a food source that would have been near infinite if managed correctly

zokier 6y ago

> we used to feed ourselves for millions of years Use of fire at all emerged about 1.5 million years ago. Homo Sapiens emerged about 300 thousand years ago. First signd of any sort of agriculture are from about 15 thousand years ago. Stone age ended and we got first bronze tools less than 10 thousand years ago. The only method we have had "for millions of years" is hunter-gathering with stone tools.

IgorPartola 6y ago
Not only this but ancient agriculture supported fewer humans with a lot more work. This romanticized idea of growing food the old fashioned way and forget today’s busy way of life omits the part of doing nothing but growing food from not figuratively dawn to dusk. I spent some time in my youth farming the old fashioned way: hand tools only, carrying water from somewhere else, removing pests and weeds by hand. It is a terribly labor intensive process that managed to supplement my family’s food needs but not eliminate the need for purchased food by any means. We managed to do literally nothing else. We certainly couldn’t have fed anyone else since we didn’t have any kind of excess. I don’t like industrial food. It is killing the planet abs pretty quickly. But it’s not doing it because farmers are evil. It’s because it the cheapest way to produce food. If we as a society want to go to a place where food costs 10-100x as much while availability goes down by about the same amount, let’s figure out how we will prevent mass starvation and population decline. But if the GP expects that farmers will switch to compost abs hand tools, they should probably expect to pay a lot more for a lot less food.
- Scoundreller 6y ago
  I’d argue that the average western person’s food budget comes from: 1) desire to eat « fresh » foods out-of-season (greenhouses, air transport, lengthy controlled-atmosphere storage) 2) feeding food to food and getting 1/10th back (feeding corn to a cow) 3) desire for labour-intensive foods. Potatoes can be straightforward harvested from a field by a machine. Alfalfa (or anything in a greenhouse) cannot. I think the biggest barrier to going back to « the old way » is not having manufactured fertilizer. Nobody cares if the water came by pump instead of by hand. But I supposed over-watered at the end = more water in the product instead of useful matter.

a_crc 6y ago

Millions of years? Agriculture is less than 120,000 years old by most accounts. Are you suggesting the bulk of humanity returns to hunting and gathering? Even then accounts of early human history have us emerging less than a million years ago. I think permaculture practices have their benefits but that kind of hyperbole doesn't help the cause.

dghughes 6y ago

I live in a rural area with farming and fishing as main industries. Many of the farms are family owned due to the limited land area here (island). Farmers want to grow food for people many have done it for generations. The rural area and nature is what they love. They want to grow food in a way that's as healthy as possible they don't want to deal with agricultural herbicides and pesticides. But many people are in denial about how much work is needed to grow the food that feeds everyone. Crop yields need to be high and costs low at the grocery store end but farmers often only get around 200 dollars per ton for their hard effort. Here's an old article from my region: https://www.theguardian.pe.ca/opinion/it-costs-a-pile-to-grow-a-potato-110758/ https://www.theguardian.pe.ca/opinion/it-costs-a-pile-to-gro... * Land $3 to $5 million * Equipment $1 million * Storage $1 million (shared/co-op or separate organization) * Farmer profit ~$20,000 (16 hour days all spring/summer/fall) - other costs and taxes

belorn 6y ago

A first good step would be to add the external cost of fertilizers to the price. We are all paying for the destruction of oceans, the result of using fossil fuels in the production chain, and the by-product which get stored in large pools like this, and yet they can easily out compete more ecological minded production since the cost get applied to society at large rather than the industrial farm that bought the fertilizer.