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> Think about it, if it wasn't so that would mean that our ancestors discovered optimal farming in antiquity, eh? Farming has undergone several fundamental cha

> Think about it, if it wasn't so that would mean that our ancestors discovered optimal farming in antiquity, eh? Farming has undergone several fundamental changes throughout history after that though, notably in medieval times and then everything industrialization brought

tremon 5y ago
Farming has undergone several fundamental changes Can you name some that can't be reduced to "but on a [insert new machine]"? The only one I can think of is artificial fertilizer, which isn't a sustainable practice in the long run either.
- ajuc 5y ago
  Bosh-Haber process increased food supply several times in less than a decade. There was no starvation in a developed country ever since it got adopted on mass scale. It happened less than 100 years ago. Compared to that every other revolution in farming was insignificant.
  - mistrial9 5y ago
    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Haber_process https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Haber_process
- saalweachter 5y ago
  US Corn Grain Yield Trends Since 1866: https://www.agry.purdue.edu/ext/corn/news/timeless/images/US_Corn_Yld_Trend.png https://www.agry.purdue.edu/ext/corn/news/timeless/images/US... It may take years for new practices to be widespread and accepted, but I assure you, if you can make that chart continue to go up, ~every grain farmer in the US will happily be on board. There is a certain world-view and a romanticizing to farming, but at the end of the day, farmers are businessmen who just want to grow as much food as possible, as cheaply as possible. They may grumble as much as a software developer when forced to learn new tools, and they won't drop everything for an unproven promise, but they'll happily abandon their old ways in favor of new ones once they're proven.
- ravi-delia 5y ago
  Crop rotation replacing leaving fields fallow was a huge leap, as was the first really heavily selected strain of wheat.

tremon 5y ago

Farming has undergone several fundamental changes Can you name some that can't be reduced to "but on a [insert new machine]"? The only one I can think of is artificial fertilizer, which isn't a sustainable practice in the long run either.

ajuc 5y ago
Bosh-Haber process increased food supply several times in less than a decade. There was no starvation in a developed country ever since it got adopted on mass scale. It happened less than 100 years ago. Compared to that every other revolution in farming was insignificant.
- mistrial9 5y ago
  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Haber_process https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Haber_process
saalweachter 5y ago
US Corn Grain Yield Trends Since 1866: https://www.agry.purdue.edu/ext/corn/news/timeless/images/US_Corn_Yld_Trend.png https://www.agry.purdue.edu/ext/corn/news/timeless/images/US... It may take years for new practices to be widespread and accepted, but I assure you, if you can make that chart continue to go up, ~every grain farmer in the US will happily be on board. There is a certain world-view and a romanticizing to farming, but at the end of the day, farmers are businessmen who just want to grow as much food as possible, as cheaply as possible. They may grumble as much as a software developer when forced to learn new tools, and they won't drop everything for an unproven promise, but they'll happily abandon their old ways in favor of new ones once they're proven.
ravi-delia 5y ago
Crop rotation replacing leaving fields fallow was a huge leap, as was the first really heavily selected strain of wheat.