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> Without a radical change in the way we eat, by 2050 the world will need to grow around 50% more grain. Is that the only way? What if we grow grains that need

• rhn_mk1 4y ago
  It's not the only way. We could keep eating grain but stop the multiplication of humans on the planet. But technology won't solve the problem that if human eating habits stay on the current trajectory, they will eat 50% more grain. I get it that this is not what you meant. But the progress of technology, while you can rely on it getting somewhere, is unpredictable. It'd be foolish to count on it without considering contingencies in case it doesn't deliver.
  • soheil 4y ago
    I know it's good to always hedge against risk. But to hedge against technological progress is shorting humanity as a whole and is a dark place to go. Arguments of type "let's reduce population" nonetheless stem from that line of thinking as you eluded to.
    • rhn_mk1 4y ago
      I don't see how hedging about development of a particular technology is a bad thing. We have expected CPUs to get faster, but it didn't get there. Some people were presumably hedging against it, and now we've routed around this with multi-core computers. People might have expected flying cars, yet they didn't come to be. Instead, quick communication has been solved by the Internet. The world has many ideas, and they can be explored simultaneously, but we also must face the possibility of failure in case we paint ourselves into a corner, like we just did with the global warming. I find broad exploration rather optimistic compared to being single-minded about something happening in the future.
  • vixen99 4y ago
    Stop the multiplication of humans sounds authoritarian. Is that how you meant it? A recent experiment along those lines didn't go so well. https://www.npr.org/2021/06/21/1008656293/the-legacy-of-the-lasting-effects-of-chinas-1-child-policy https://www.npr.org/2021/06/21/1008656293/the-legacy-of-the-...
    • rhn_mk1 4y ago
      I didn't mean this as authoritarian, I meant is as the only alternative answer to the question as it was asked.
• nemo44x 4y ago
  It’s a ridiculous article that proposes we use poor countries to cultivate fermented gruel for fats and protein and then rely on a radical farming method that struggles to replicate anywhere outside the handsome farmers small plot of land. If you were to ask experts 50 years ago if you’d be able to feed todays population with their methods they’d say no. But we engineered methods to not only do this but annihilate global starvation. All without having to eat fermented gruel.
• tastyfreeze 4y ago
  Modern farming results in a lot of rainfall runoff. Healthy soil infiltrates and absorbs rainfall. The water then slowly makes its way to waterways and aquafers. We can use far less water by having healthy soil. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5rbSWey0pOg https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5rbSWey0pOg
• Melatonic 4y ago
  In my opinion what we really need (if we are going to continue to live a lifestyle at all similar to what we have now) are big investments in new farming methods that allow food to be grown next to where people live. If you want to live in a big city now (which potentially can have big environmental benefits with multiunit housing and whatnot) your food probably comes from far away. Imagine if the highrise next to you instead grew tons of fresh vegetables, mushrooms, and other food and you could buy it direct from the "farm" at a store at the base? Nothing would be wasted in shipping - it would be as fresh as possible - prices could be low - and convenient as hell. I don't see any reason why we could not (with better understanding of soil) have complex systems of fungi and dirt in such a system as well.
  • soheil 4y ago
    > I don't see any reason why we could not Because of pollution from the city getting into the food and also as importantly the pollution from farming back into the environment.
  • black_puppydog 4y ago
    would the farm next door also be farming beef & chicken?