4 ms·

> Are there no better-irrigated places in the US to grow all these crops? There are plenty of better irrigated places, but none so warm and bright. I think tha

> Are there no better-irrigated places in the US to grow all these crops? There are plenty of better irrigated places, but none so warm and bright. I think that's a major challenge; the amount of light and heat south and west from Colorado is incredible, and growing a lot of crops without that year-round opportunity and productivity is virtually impossible. There is also the problem that places with naturally high amounts of rain tend to have more acidic, treed, less arable soils. Around the Colorado river there were of course dry, barely arable, hard-to-farm lands which required extensive conditioning, but a lot of it mostly required water to bring it to life. Some of the ecology was oak meadow or brush, which was far easier to convert to farm land than a cedar and fir forest. Another thing to consider is that the rest of the USA, including places with more water, are already growing other crops. The centre of the USA from north to south is quite active in agriculture, and actually more so than the east and west. If you wanted to grow more things away from the Colorado River, where would you do it? We need more arable land, we need to grow more climate-appropriate crops, and... Well, we need to eat more plants. We can get by just fine if we dedicate fewer crops and less water to raising meat. It's a hard solution psychologically, but an extremely effective one technically.

pasttense01 4y ago
Well remember that 40% of the U.S. corn crop is used to produce ethanol. Ethanol use can be eliminated (electric cars and getting rid of the ethanol subsidies...). Land and climate good enough for corn is good enough for other crops.
- steve_adams_86 4y ago
  Absolutely, corn is a very nutrient, heat, and light intensive crop. The added buffer would allow for doing crop rotations including more legumes and cover crops to reduce fertilizer usage. If we need to grow less food, we can be less demanding from the soil as well. Perhaps we could build soil rather than destroy it. Several studies show that these models yield excellent crops with fewer inputs, but it’s hard as hell to compete when you go low and slow with ag. I suppose as long as we want to export food, we’ll need to continue our insane resource intensive methods, ignoring the externalities, in order to stay competitive.
otabdeveloper4 4y ago
> Well, we need to eat more plants. We can get by just fine if we dedicate fewer crops and less water to raising meat. What? People raise meat animals because animals can make use of non-arable land. It has been this way for millennia. (E.g., raising animals is the only way to survive on mountainous rocky slopes.) Apparently, your solution to scarcity of arable land is to keep using more and more of it? I know hating on meat is the politically correct position right now, but come on!
- mgrandl 4y ago
  This hasn’t been true since decades now. 96% of cattle is raised on grain instead of grazing. Merely 4% in the US are allowed to be called „grass fed“ and that doesn’t even mean they are grazing year round.
  - otabdeveloper4 4y ago
    So fix the laws so that economics aligns with ecology, no? The solution is to stop wasting strategic reserves of water and fertilizer to make non-arable land into arable land. Grow grass on this land instead and turn it into pasture. (Okay, so meat will be 15% more expensive.) Making use of non-arable land in a sustainable way is why humans invented livestock in the first place. Humans aren't herbivores, and growing crops suitable for human consumption requires enormous amounts of resources and engineering. (Essentially, terraforming on a planetary scale.) The planet's ecology can't sustain a herbivore human race.
    - mgrandl 4y ago
      > The planet's ecology can't sustain a herbivore human race. quotation needed. All scientific literature (that isn't sponsored by the livestock industry) is claiming the exact opposite.
      - otabdeveloper4 4y ago
        Do you understand the sheer amount of effort mankind must spend on soil engineering, irrigation, fertilizers and genetic engineering just to make grains that can feed people? If we were forced to eat only natural plants (not plants genetically engineered though thousands of years of unnatural selection) then 99.9 percent of mankind would starve. Meanwhile cows eat natural grass on natural pastures. We need livestock if we want to live in balance with nature without irreversibly changing the structure of the Earth's biosphere.

pasttense01 4y ago

Well remember that 40% of the U.S. corn crop is used to produce ethanol. Ethanol use can be eliminated (electric cars and getting rid of the ethanol subsidies...). Land and climate good enough for corn is good enough for other crops.

steve_adams_86 4y ago
Absolutely, corn is a very nutrient, heat, and light intensive crop. The added buffer would allow for doing crop rotations including more legumes and cover crops to reduce fertilizer usage. If we need to grow less food, we can be less demanding from the soil as well. Perhaps we could build soil rather than destroy it. Several studies show that these models yield excellent crops with fewer inputs, but it’s hard as hell to compete when you go low and slow with ag. I suppose as long as we want to export food, we’ll need to continue our insane resource intensive methods, ignoring the externalities, in order to stay competitive.

otabdeveloper4 4y ago

> Well, we need to eat more plants. We can get by just fine if we dedicate fewer crops and less water to raising meat. What? People raise meat animals because animals can make use of non-arable land. It has been this way for millennia. (E.g., raising animals is the only way to survive on mountainous rocky slopes.) Apparently, your solution to scarcity of arable land is to keep using more and more of it? I know hating on meat is the politically correct position right now, but come on!

mgrandl 4y ago
This hasn’t been true since decades now. 96% of cattle is raised on grain instead of grazing. Merely 4% in the US are allowed to be called „grass fed“ and that doesn’t even mean they are grazing year round.
- otabdeveloper4 4y ago
  So fix the laws so that economics aligns with ecology, no? The solution is to stop wasting strategic reserves of water and fertilizer to make non-arable land into arable land. Grow grass on this land instead and turn it into pasture. (Okay, so meat will be 15% more expensive.) Making use of non-arable land in a sustainable way is why humans invented livestock in the first place. Humans aren't herbivores, and growing crops suitable for human consumption requires enormous amounts of resources and engineering. (Essentially, terraforming on a planetary scale.) The planet's ecology can't sustain a herbivore human race.
  - mgrandl 4y ago
    > The planet's ecology can't sustain a herbivore human race. quotation needed. All scientific literature (that isn't sponsored by the livestock industry) is claiming the exact opposite.
    - otabdeveloper4 4y ago
      Do you understand the sheer amount of effort mankind must spend on soil engineering, irrigation, fertilizers and genetic engineering just to make grains that can feed people? If we were forced to eat only natural plants (not plants genetically engineered though thousands of years of unnatural selection) then 99.9 percent of mankind would starve. Meanwhile cows eat natural grass on natural pastures. We need livestock if we want to live in balance with nature without irreversibly changing the structure of the Earth's biosphere.