5 ms·

yeah, i was also not sure whether I've missed something. Equating "Technological Progress" to "Increase in Agricultural Output" doesn't make sense...maybe we do

yeah, i was also not sure whether I've missed something. Equating "Technological Progress" to "Increase in Agricultural Output" doesn't make sense...maybe we don't need that much more food, that's why it's slowing down. Maybe the american agricultural output could double in the next 10 years, but is it energy well spent? After all, it's a bit of a zero-sum game, a society has finite capacity for research and must spend its budget wisely.

lambdadmitry 5y ago
Agricultural output is usually per unit of land and/or inputs, so more output means less land, less pollution, and less ecological damage for a fixed amount of food produced. If some fields can be reforested instead, it'd pull carbon out of the air and increase biodiversity.
- tspike 5y ago
  Most agricultural land was short grass or long grass prairie prior to being plowed over. Prairie is the most endangered ecosystem on the planet. Perhaps instead of "reforestation" we can look at restoring native prairie.
- nosianu 5y ago
  What will happen instead is that all land that could possibly be used will continue to be used. Overproduction will instead be exported, which will hit farmers in less developed countries who cannot compete hard. https://theexchange.africa/industry-and-trade/agribusiness/why-africas-smallholder-growers-cant-compete-with-european-american-farmers/ https://theexchange.africa/industry-and-trade/agribusiness/w... It's not just food from fields. Meat also is overproduced to be exported in countries like the US, UK or Germany and others. https://beef2live.com/story-world-beef-imports-ranking-countries-0-106900 https://beef2live.com/story-world-beef-imports-ranking-count... (some countries, like the US, are both big im- as well as exporters) I know from following relevant news that here in Germany we could significantly scale down our environmentally bad big pig farms, which also suffer from crowded conditions and not exactly a good life for the animals, if not both the businesses involved as well as government concerned about GDP and creating a lot of exports would oppose restrictions on the meat industry. I'm not even against meat at all, but this is a bad cycle. We can export more when/if we are cheap, and that requires industrialized "meat production" to the detriment of the animals. The incentives are wrong IMO. Some might argue that imported cheaper food is better for African countries, but they can't compete on high-tech, they can't compete in agriculture, how are they supposed to bootstrap their economies? There also are reports about all the worn clothing that ends up in Africa, so no local textile industry either. Unchecked, tose able to produce cheaply will never voluntarily restrain themselves and give up "productive land". Instead, they will use their advantage to conquer ever more markets.
kiba 5y ago
Is it physically or biologically possible to double agricultural output in the next ten years? It doesn't matter how much you spend on R&D if we hit the limit of what we can do with biology.
- mikeyouse 5y ago
  Probably yes.. e.g. there's a massive amount of research into RuBisCO. If we could speed up the primary carbon-fixing reaction, we could massively increase Ag output (also could make a dent in carbon sequestration): https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/RuBisCO#Genetic_engineering https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/RuBisCO#Genetic_engineering There's tons about plant bio we don't fully understand and a lot of room for R&D. An imperfect measure, but in 2021, Google Scholar added over 5,000 results for the term; https://scholar.google.com/scholar?hl=en&as_sdt=0%2C23&as_ylo=2021&q=rubisco&btnG= https://scholar.google.com/scholar?hl=en&as_sdt=0%2C23&as_yl...
- kickout 5y ago
  Yes, it is possible. Probably just entering a new golden age with genomic tools and excellent metadata on the farms that currently do produce. Plenty of arable land, but ideally we only want the most efficient land in production.
- BurningFrog 5y ago
  If/when we figure out how to make good tasting beef industrially, without the intermittent "there is a cow" stage, the world will change a LOT, for the better.
- deleted 5y ago
  [deleted]

lambdadmitry 5y ago

Agricultural output is usually per unit of land and/or inputs, so more output means less land, less pollution, and less ecological damage for a fixed amount of food produced. If some fields can be reforested instead, it'd pull carbon out of the air and increase biodiversity.

tspike 5y ago
Most agricultural land was short grass or long grass prairie prior to being plowed over. Prairie is the most endangered ecosystem on the planet. Perhaps instead of "reforestation" we can look at restoring native prairie.
nosianu 5y ago
What will happen instead is that all land that could possibly be used will continue to be used. Overproduction will instead be exported, which will hit farmers in less developed countries who cannot compete hard. https://theexchange.africa/industry-and-trade/agribusiness/why-africas-smallholder-growers-cant-compete-with-european-american-farmers/ https://theexchange.africa/industry-and-trade/agribusiness/w... It's not just food from fields. Meat also is overproduced to be exported in countries like the US, UK or Germany and others. https://beef2live.com/story-world-beef-imports-ranking-countries-0-106900 https://beef2live.com/story-world-beef-imports-ranking-count... (some countries, like the US, are both big im- as well as exporters) I know from following relevant news that here in Germany we could significantly scale down our environmentally bad big pig farms, which also suffer from crowded conditions and not exactly a good life for the animals, if not both the businesses involved as well as government concerned about GDP and creating a lot of exports would oppose restrictions on the meat industry. I'm not even against meat at all, but this is a bad cycle. We can export more when/if we are cheap, and that requires industrialized "meat production" to the detriment of the animals. The incentives are wrong IMO. Some might argue that imported cheaper food is better for African countries, but they can't compete on high-tech, they can't compete in agriculture, how are they supposed to bootstrap their economies? There also are reports about all the worn clothing that ends up in Africa, so no local textile industry either. Unchecked, tose able to produce cheaply will never voluntarily restrain themselves and give up "productive land". Instead, they will use their advantage to conquer ever more markets.

kiba 5y ago

Is it physically or biologically possible to double agricultural output in the next ten years? It doesn't matter how much you spend on R&D if we hit the limit of what we can do with biology.

mikeyouse 5y ago
Probably yes.. e.g. there's a massive amount of research into RuBisCO. If we could speed up the primary carbon-fixing reaction, we could massively increase Ag output (also could make a dent in carbon sequestration): https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/RuBisCO#Genetic_engineering https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/RuBisCO#Genetic_engineering There's tons about plant bio we don't fully understand and a lot of room for R&D. An imperfect measure, but in 2021, Google Scholar added over 5,000 results for the term; https://scholar.google.com/scholar?hl=en&as_sdt=0%2C23&as_ylo=2021&q=rubisco&btnG= https://scholar.google.com/scholar?hl=en&as_sdt=0%2C23&as_yl...
kickout 5y ago
Yes, it is possible. Probably just entering a new golden age with genomic tools and excellent metadata on the farms that currently do produce. Plenty of arable land, but ideally we only want the most efficient land in production.
BurningFrog 5y ago
If/when we figure out how to make good tasting beef industrially, without the intermittent "there is a cow" stage, the world will change a LOT, for the better.
deleted 5y ago
[deleted]