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"people who already knew how to farm without artificial fertilizers. Today we are nearly 8 billion and a much smaller fraction have any experience farming." As

"people who already knew how to farm without artificial fertilizers. Today we are nearly 8 billion and a much smaller fraction have any experience farming." As if it were an expensive and impractical proposition for more people to grow a little food. The reason fewer people engage in farming is that fewer people need to engage in it, and it is neither well-rewarded nor an intrinsically desirable activity for most people. It's nothing to do with not knowing how or being unable to learn.

discreteevent 4y ago
1/3 acre of potatoes to feed a family of 4. You might also need a stock of whatever one uses to treat blight. A few chickens for eggs. Maybe let the farmers keep cows as they are good at it.
ClumsyPilot 4y ago
John deer tractors digitally brick themselves if you replace a part without authorisation. Most modern Ag machinery will be gone. Modern farms don't plant seed from their last harvest, specialised farms cultivate seeds, and 'normal' farms buy them and plants them - that system will be gone. Most agrochemicals will be gone. Is your plan to give a random joe a field and a hoe? They will get maybe 30% of the yield a proffeshional farmer would. That means a famine. And they will be unavaliable for any other much-nessesary construction and repair work, because without specialised equipment it's weeks of back-breaking work just to harvest 1 field of potato. Average person does not even know the difference between a potato seed and a potato tuber, let alone the optimal varieties, time for planting, etc. Which will be impossible anyway, because the infrastructure is gone. And because you will have random idiots planting potato without any knowledge of disease and pest control, they will run rampant and cause famine: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Famine_(Ireland) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Famine_(Ireland)
- kortex 4y ago
  Hackers will suddenly become some of the most valuable people in society. Those tractors will be jailbroken inside of a month. The average human wants to survive. If that survival is predicating on knowing about sustainable potato agriculture, you better believe that folks will learn.
  - oneoff786 4y ago
    Tractors run on gas. No more gas, no more tractors.
- empthought 4y ago
  > They will get maybe 30% of the yield a proffeshional farmer would. So we only need three times as many random joes as "proffeshional" farmers to produce the same amount of food? That's much better than I thought. I agree that without industrialized farming, the food supply is questionable. But the idea that the trouble is in people not having the necessary skills, rather than petrochemical availability, is simply laughable. Agricultural society has existed for tens of thousands of years and people engage in agricultural activity to the extent that it is needed.

discreteevent 4y ago

1/3 acre of potatoes to feed a family of 4. You might also need a stock of whatever one uses to treat blight. A few chickens for eggs. Maybe let the farmers keep cows as they are good at it.

ClumsyPilot 4y ago

John deer tractors digitally brick themselves if you replace a part without authorisation. Most modern Ag machinery will be gone. Modern farms don't plant seed from their last harvest, specialised farms cultivate seeds, and 'normal' farms buy them and plants them - that system will be gone. Most agrochemicals will be gone. Is your plan to give a random joe a field and a hoe? They will get maybe 30% of the yield a proffeshional farmer would. That means a famine. And they will be unavaliable for any other much-nessesary construction and repair work, because without specialised equipment it's weeks of back-breaking work just to harvest 1 field of potato. Average person does not even know the difference between a potato seed and a potato tuber, let alone the optimal varieties, time for planting, etc. Which will be impossible anyway, because the infrastructure is gone. And because you will have random idiots planting potato without any knowledge of disease and pest control, they will run rampant and cause famine: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Famine_(Ireland) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Famine_(Ireland)

kortex 4y ago
Hackers will suddenly become some of the most valuable people in society. Those tractors will be jailbroken inside of a month. The average human wants to survive. If that survival is predicating on knowing about sustainable potato agriculture, you better believe that folks will learn.
- oneoff786 4y ago
  Tractors run on gas. No more gas, no more tractors.
empthought 4y ago
> They will get maybe 30% of the yield a proffeshional farmer would. So we only need three times as many random joes as "proffeshional" farmers to produce the same amount of food? That's much better than I thought. I agree that without industrialized farming, the food supply is questionable. But the idea that the trouble is in people not having the necessary skills, rather than petrochemical availability, is simply laughable. Agricultural society has existed for tens of thousands of years and people engage in agricultural activity to the extent that it is needed.