3 ms·

....wheat? Rye? Any other similar staple crop? It doesn't have to be some extreme shut down, it can be a transition to something better for society.

Broken_Hippo 5y ago
That sounds all simple, but if someone doesn't already grow those crops, they'll need to change equipment. They might need some time to gain knowledge - after all, they've specialized their field. And "better for society" is... well, not a given. I don't know enough about farming to know what sorts of beneficial crops can be grown where corn/soybeans grow well and I'm not optimistic enough to think we won't just use the "new and improved" crop in much of the same abusive ways that we use the corn crops. I'm going to guess that we could make animal feed for confinement farming out of something that isn't corn We could probably make a sweet syrup out of it, too, and I'm guessing the main benefit to people is that they've made corn syrup the absolute villian and swept away nuance surrounding it, and would welcome the new replacement without much though. We just need society to be a bit better, I suppose. Quit confinement farming livestock and have better animal welfare laws, for example. Make healthy eating very cheap (and easy with premade food too), have a sugar tax of sorts and food laws to keep sugar out of unexpected places and reduce sugar some other context. Oh, and probably expand public transport exponentially. Feed, corn syrup, and biofuel dependence should drop.
jillesvangurp 5y ago
Of course. Stop incentivizing bad stuff. Start incentivizing good stuff. The key thing is to start that transition and not to waste time prolonging the problem. The Dutch government is actually paying farmers to stop farming. Nitrogen emissions are a big problem in densely populated areas and cattle farming is a known big contributor to that. So, they are paying farmers to get out of the business of converting subsidies into manure. The main point is not to keep them farming but to stop them from doing harmful things. If they can farm other things in a less harmful way; great. But otherwise, things like forests, nature reserves, etc. are also valuable to have. Nothing wrong with subsidizing farmers to create those.
rhino369 5y ago
Why are other grains better for society? If Iowa, Illinois, and Nebraska farmed Rye instead, we'd be putting Rye based ethanol in our gas instead.

Broken_Hippo 5y ago

That sounds all simple, but if someone doesn't already grow those crops, they'll need to change equipment. They might need some time to gain knowledge - after all, they've specialized their field. And "better for society" is... well, not a given. I don't know enough about farming to know what sorts of beneficial crops can be grown where corn/soybeans grow well and I'm not optimistic enough to think we won't just use the "new and improved" crop in much of the same abusive ways that we use the corn crops. I'm going to guess that we could make animal feed for confinement farming out of something that isn't corn We could probably make a sweet syrup out of it, too, and I'm guessing the main benefit to people is that they've made corn syrup the absolute villian and swept away nuance surrounding it, and would welcome the new replacement without much though. We just need society to be a bit better, I suppose. Quit confinement farming livestock and have better animal welfare laws, for example. Make healthy eating very cheap (and easy with premade food too), have a sugar tax of sorts and food laws to keep sugar out of unexpected places and reduce sugar some other context. Oh, and probably expand public transport exponentially. Feed, corn syrup, and biofuel dependence should drop.

jillesvangurp 5y ago

Of course. Stop incentivizing bad stuff. Start incentivizing good stuff. The key thing is to start that transition and not to waste time prolonging the problem. The Dutch government is actually paying farmers to stop farming. Nitrogen emissions are a big problem in densely populated areas and cattle farming is a known big contributor to that. So, they are paying farmers to get out of the business of converting subsidies into manure. The main point is not to keep them farming but to stop them from doing harmful things. If they can farm other things in a less harmful way; great. But otherwise, things like forests, nature reserves, etc. are also valuable to have. Nothing wrong with subsidizing farmers to create those.

rhino369 5y ago

Why are other grains better for society? If Iowa, Illinois, and Nebraska farmed Rye instead, we'd be putting Rye based ethanol in our gas instead.