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I was reading the 3rd edition of Limits to Growth (2003) and was very interested to see this article and its take on corn yields as one of their collapse scenar
by tehjoker 5y ago
I was reading the 3rd edition of Limits to Growth (2003) and was very interested to see this article and its take on corn yields as one of their collapse scenarios relied on arithmetic growth in ag yield versus exponential increase in requirements. They did note in the book that some organic farming techniques were able to increase yield substantially without need for as much fertilizer, which itself masks soil salinization. A closer reading of their charts seemed to indicate that there is enough land and yield available for the 21st century so long as the land is not destroyed by pollutants or climatic events.
They didn't go into depth about these topics and I don't know much about farming. Do you think there are non-fertilizer based techniques that would be sufficiently beneficial?
- barathr 5y agoThe current system (as noted above) is dependent upon fossil fuel inputs, and it may be a driver of a future decline as you note. Unfortunately we've boxed ourselves in -- we don't have the industrial capacity / biology for something as basic as cover cropping to meet estimated demand should everyone want/need to be sustainable/regenerative: https://www.nature.com/articles/s42003-020-1022-1?proof=t https://www.nature.com/articles/s42003-020-1022-1?proof=t
- tehjoker 5y agoThank you for that info. I didn't know what a cover crop even was. For anyone else that doesn't know this video helped me: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-XTeKmccl7w https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-XTeKmccl7w EDIT: ...and so did scrolling down below the abstract in the linked article. ^_^;