3 ms·

There is a government agency that goes around trying to teach farmers how to farm in a way to bring fertility back to soil life, and have even parterned with pe

by hosh 5y ago

There is a government agency that goes around trying to teach farmers how to farm in a way to bring fertility back to soil life, and have even parterned with people farming with notill to talk to conventional farmers. Despite going around making presentations for years, it is still a hard sell to farmers. Examples (and I am paraphrasing not quoting): "What if my crop goes bad? Or hail? How do I deal with pests?" "Polycropping means that you'll have some kind of crop even if some of them don't do well, or the market crashes on one of them" "I can't run my farm and make a profit without the subsidies" "I was able to get off of subsidies and my farm is more profitable and resilient than it had been before." "I'd still have to get manure from somewhere and prices will go up" "I run a livestock operation on the fallow fields. They help fertilize the fields until I put crops back on them. I sell both crops and livestock." And so on.

bluGill 5y ago
Much like science advances with the death of the older generation, farming advances as the old farmers die. The average farmer is something like 55 years old. Young farmers are far more willing in generation to try new things. No till is standard farming practice these days. You can't get government subsides in many cases if you do traditional tilling. (there are other types of tilling allowed - they are much better for the soil)
- hosh 5y ago
  Well ... notill is something that some indigenous people had as a practice. I think we lost a lot more in our shift to modernity. We've been living on this narrative that what comes next is necessarily better than what came before, and while there are some progress, that narrative doesn't hold up to be universally true. https://www.atnesa.org/contil/contil-shetto-indigenous.pdf https://www.atnesa.org/contil/contil-shetto-indigenous.pdf If folks thought notill is so revolutionary, wait 'til they see perennial food forests and agroforestry. Those also have indigenous roots.
  - xyzzyz 5y ago
    > Well ... notill is something that some indigenous people had as a practice. Okay, what were their yields per acre? Or is the plan to go back to population levels of indigenous people?
    - hosh 5y ago
      It’s less about yields and more about ways of viewing and experiencing the world, which in turn changes the kind of questions people ask. “What are the yield numbers for practice X?” “How can we maximize yields?” “How can we supply population size Y?” “How do we grow food to standards that are sellable in grocery markets?” “How can we keep grown produce fresh enough to transport them thousands of miles away?” In contrast to things like: “What makes for a healthy ecosystem (which includes plants, animals, fungi, and humans)?” (A farm as an ecosystem rather than a machine that produces food) “How do we incorporate waste as an input to another living system within the ecosystem?” “What can we grow locally that would support the community and reduce dependency on long-haul transported food?” “What are the feedback cycles in our ecosystem and how can I design in a way to add more of such processes?” “What small changes I can make to those feedback cycles that would create larger effects in the ecosystem?” “What yields are we not incorporating into the design of our ecosystem?” “How can I turn the margins into productive land?”

by hosh 5y ago

bluGill 5y ago

Much like science advances with the death of the older generation, farming advances as the old farmers die. The average farmer is something like 55 years old. Young farmers are far more willing in generation to try new things. No till is standard farming practice these days. You can't get government subsides in many cases if you do traditional tilling. (there are other types of tilling allowed - they are much better for the soil)

hosh 5y ago
Well ... notill is something that some indigenous people had as a practice. I think we lost a lot more in our shift to modernity. We've been living on this narrative that what comes next is necessarily better than what came before, and while there are some progress, that narrative doesn't hold up to be universally true. https://www.atnesa.org/contil/contil-shetto-indigenous.pdf https://www.atnesa.org/contil/contil-shetto-indigenous.pdf If folks thought notill is so revolutionary, wait 'til they see perennial food forests and agroforestry. Those also have indigenous roots.
- xyzzyz 5y ago
  > Well ... notill is something that some indigenous people had as a practice. Okay, what were their yields per acre? Or is the plan to go back to population levels of indigenous people?
  - hosh 5y ago
    It’s less about yields and more about ways of viewing and experiencing the world, which in turn changes the kind of questions people ask. “What are the yield numbers for practice X?” “How can we maximize yields?” “How can we supply population size Y?” “How do we grow food to standards that are sellable in grocery markets?” “How can we keep grown produce fresh enough to transport them thousands of miles away?” In contrast to things like: “What makes for a healthy ecosystem (which includes plants, animals, fungi, and humans)?” (A farm as an ecosystem rather than a machine that produces food) “How do we incorporate waste as an input to another living system within the ecosystem?” “What can we grow locally that would support the community and reduce dependency on long-haul transported food?” “What are the feedback cycles in our ecosystem and how can I design in a way to add more of such processes?” “What small changes I can make to those feedback cycles that would create larger effects in the ecosystem?” “What yields are we not incorporating into the design of our ecosystem?” “How can I turn the margins into productive land?”