3 ms·

Agricultural land can be pretty bad for the ecosystem, so this is probably good. The less land we farm, while maintaining food security, the better.

Cthulhu_ 4y ago
I'm confident we can have both; industrial-scale monocropping is the bad one. We can do better with farming and land management techniques going back hundreds of years, but that cuts into short-term profit margins.
- epistasis 4y ago
  > that cuts into short-term profit margins. We can always change how profits are made in farming, and farming tends to be one of the areas that even "free market" economies like the US tend to interfere the most in. I would be far far far more concerned about the change in labor requirements needed to use these methods. If we suddenly need 30% of our workforce working in fields in order to feed ourselves, profit is not the problem. And we also need to evaluate these methods for actual increases in ecosystem diversity. When it comes to the ecosystem and land use, most of the population evaluates aesthetics rather than actual environmental impact in terms of how much of the non-human ecosystem is allowed to flourish. Which, for example, results in lots of people thinking that placing their homes in the midst of lots of greenery, sprawled out, is more environmentally friendly than a multi family apartment complex, or a small village with houses right next to each other, where you can walk for most of your daily needs. Whereas in reality in most ecosystems, the constraint is land untouched by humans, so that apex predators have enough land to exist, and enough of the smaller creatures to feed them. It is very good for humans to live amongst nature, but especially with suburban sprawl we have taken that desire to live amongst nature and made it one of the most environmentally unfriendly ways of existing.
xcambar 4y ago
We can add a few more variables and draw different conclusions. The quality of the meat is lowering because of intensive "meat factories". Also, the animals are given a lot of antibiotics, which eventually lowers microbial biodiversity also in the land, and, even worse, favours antibiotic resistance at every level, down to the consumer. This is not even considering animal well-being...
- epistasis 4y ago
  I'm not fully sure what different conclusion you are drawing here. Do you have any pubs on lessened soil microbial diversity from antibiotics on farms? Does it extend beyond the farm, and if so, into water ecosystems? I'm not as familiar with ecosystem effects of antibiotics.
usrusr 4y ago
But agricultural land can also be pretty ok for the ecosystem. And many ways to get more out of less make that less likely. Fortunately there are still some ways untapped of increasing efficiency without increasing impact, like more fine-grained control of chemicals application or replacing tractors with something like https://nexat.de/ https://nexat.de/ that does the same work with less soil compaction, but those are minor optimizations, not game changers or silver bullets.
Gordonjcp 4y ago
Everything you eat comes from farms.

Cthulhu_ 4y ago

I'm confident we can have both; industrial-scale monocropping is the bad one. We can do better with farming and land management techniques going back hundreds of years, but that cuts into short-term profit margins.

epistasis 4y ago
> that cuts into short-term profit margins. We can always change how profits are made in farming, and farming tends to be one of the areas that even "free market" economies like the US tend to interfere the most in. I would be far far far more concerned about the change in labor requirements needed to use these methods. If we suddenly need 30% of our workforce working in fields in order to feed ourselves, profit is not the problem. And we also need to evaluate these methods for actual increases in ecosystem diversity. When it comes to the ecosystem and land use, most of the population evaluates aesthetics rather than actual environmental impact in terms of how much of the non-human ecosystem is allowed to flourish. Which, for example, results in lots of people thinking that placing their homes in the midst of lots of greenery, sprawled out, is more environmentally friendly than a multi family apartment complex, or a small village with houses right next to each other, where you can walk for most of your daily needs. Whereas in reality in most ecosystems, the constraint is land untouched by humans, so that apex predators have enough land to exist, and enough of the smaller creatures to feed them. It is very good for humans to live amongst nature, but especially with suburban sprawl we have taken that desire to live amongst nature and made it one of the most environmentally unfriendly ways of existing.

xcambar 4y ago

We can add a few more variables and draw different conclusions. The quality of the meat is lowering because of intensive "meat factories". Also, the animals are given a lot of antibiotics, which eventually lowers microbial biodiversity also in the land, and, even worse, favours antibiotic resistance at every level, down to the consumer. This is not even considering animal well-being...

epistasis 4y ago
I'm not fully sure what different conclusion you are drawing here. Do you have any pubs on lessened soil microbial diversity from antibiotics on farms? Does it extend beyond the farm, and if so, into water ecosystems? I'm not as familiar with ecosystem effects of antibiotics.

usrusr 4y ago

But agricultural land can also be pretty ok for the ecosystem. And many ways to get more out of less make that less likely. Fortunately there are still some ways untapped of increasing efficiency without increasing impact, like more fine-grained control of chemicals application or replacing tractors with something like https://nexat.de/ https://nexat.de/ that does the same work with less soil compaction, but those are minor optimizations, not game changers or silver bullets.

Gordonjcp 4y ago

Everything you eat comes from farms.