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> Soil is a miracle of which we are the beneficiaries. Soil is not a fixed quantity item though, we can make more of it. Part of the problem is the Cost of Liv

> Soil is a miracle of which we are the beneficiaries. Soil is not a fixed quantity item though, we can make more of it. Part of the problem is the Cost of Living (and subsequently the cost of a marginal farm worker), and many of our ways of scaling farm productivity are tragedies of the commons (atmosphere, water & soil quality, fertilizer farming abroad) a long while back I heard Joel Salatin speak about various systems for rebuilding dirt to soil . Really roughly it involved inedible biomass like hay, animal fecal material, churning/aeration to get bacteria more active, and then distribution across and through the land by animals (ploughing) . Geoff Lawton talks about tools for permaculture and includes bird droppings -- for a small amount of food you can get bird droppings distributed into your environment to improve the soil quality. In many ways big machinery is disadvantaged in this system because of things like their waste goes into the atmosphere rather than the soil.

imtringued 5y ago
There was a guy on youtube doing no till farming and he basically thought that commercial fertilizer and pesticide is a waste of money. Between growing seasons he is using a location specific mix of 18-20 cover crops to keep the soil covered. He didn't even clean up the residue from the previous crops, preferring to seed directly through a thickly covered bed. He barely had any problems with pests or diseases as he the predators of the pests survive and take care of the problem or he made sure there are enough mycorrhizal fungi and bacteria of the proper kind in the soil. The soil quality was getting better every single year. There are some obvious downsides. First of all, over the short term you will see lower yields as you aren't strip mining the soil for a short term benefit. Second, you actually need a huge amount of knowledge to do this properly. Third, it takes decades to build up high quality soil and only a few years to ruin it, it's like forestry in that regard.
- EdwardDiego 5y ago
  This is a very old, and very workable approach to soil health management. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Three-field_system https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Three-field_system You have to ensure that what's being taken out of the soil is at least replaced, if not replaced and added to - especially around organic material and nitrogen. Humans have understood this for thousands of years, but the advent of artificial fertilisers allowed us to skip the "fallow" bit, thus increasing productivity in the short term.
EdwardDiego 5y ago
Making more soil, that is, soil useful for human food, isn't as easy as you think. Or we would already have replaced a lot of low fertility soils with better soils. To give you a hint of why you might be oversimplifying - 2m of top soil on a layer of clay functions far differently to 2m of top soil on a layer of sand, because the fertility of the top soil is directly related to the properties of the underlying soil strata. (Also, the mineral soil you're using to create your top soil from may have issues you need to address... [0]) [0]: https://teara.govt.nz/en/diseases-of-sheep-cattle-and-deer/page-14 https://teara.govt.nz/en/diseases-of-sheep-cattle-and-deer/p...
- maerF0x0 5y ago
  Yeah I completely agree it's harder than a short post by a software engineer on HN :grin: ... But you're right that it's amazing how many variables add to the optimal solution. I think part of what's hard is that it's a process that includes time as a variable. Who wants to hold onto land for 10 years while it prepares for productivity? I think in time we'll see a combo of a need for industrial scale soilless vertical farming to feed a huge population, and a return to extremely sustainable solutions for the aristocrats that can afford the fanciest "farmers market" food.

imtringued 5y ago

There was a guy on youtube doing no till farming and he basically thought that commercial fertilizer and pesticide is a waste of money. Between growing seasons he is using a location specific mix of 18-20 cover crops to keep the soil covered. He didn't even clean up the residue from the previous crops, preferring to seed directly through a thickly covered bed. He barely had any problems with pests or diseases as he the predators of the pests survive and take care of the problem or he made sure there are enough mycorrhizal fungi and bacteria of the proper kind in the soil. The soil quality was getting better every single year. There are some obvious downsides. First of all, over the short term you will see lower yields as you aren't strip mining the soil for a short term benefit. Second, you actually need a huge amount of knowledge to do this properly. Third, it takes decades to build up high quality soil and only a few years to ruin it, it's like forestry in that regard.

EdwardDiego 5y ago
This is a very old, and very workable approach to soil health management. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Three-field_system https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Three-field_system You have to ensure that what's being taken out of the soil is at least replaced, if not replaced and added to - especially around organic material and nitrogen. Humans have understood this for thousands of years, but the advent of artificial fertilisers allowed us to skip the "fallow" bit, thus increasing productivity in the short term.

EdwardDiego 5y ago

Making more soil, that is, soil useful for human food, isn't as easy as you think. Or we would already have replaced a lot of low fertility soils with better soils. To give you a hint of why you might be oversimplifying - 2m of top soil on a layer of clay functions far differently to 2m of top soil on a layer of sand, because the fertility of the top soil is directly related to the properties of the underlying soil strata. (Also, the mineral soil you're using to create your top soil from may have issues you need to address... [0]) [0]: https://teara.govt.nz/en/diseases-of-sheep-cattle-and-deer/page-14 https://teara.govt.nz/en/diseases-of-sheep-cattle-and-deer/p...

maerF0x0 5y ago
Yeah I completely agree it's harder than a short post by a software engineer on HN :grin: ... But you're right that it's amazing how many variables add to the optimal solution. I think part of what's hard is that it's a process that includes time as a variable. Who wants to hold onto land for 10 years while it prepares for productivity? I think in time we'll see a combo of a need for industrial scale soilless vertical farming to feed a huge population, and a return to extremely sustainable solutions for the aristocrats that can afford the fanciest "farmers market" food.