4 ms·

There are 8B of us homie. Big Ag, mono culture, pesticides all come with the territory. Have you ever kept a garden? Did you do it on natural soil, with no pes

There are 8B of us homie. Big Ag, mono culture, pesticides all come with the territory. Have you ever kept a garden? Did you do it on natural soil, with no pesticides? The food problem is hard, especially because food isn't very fungible. (Consider crickets if you think otherwise) GMO's should be regulated so that pesticide restiance is mitigated. Personally I think GMOs should have multiple pesticide restistances for each class of pest so that resistant pest mutations can be treated with a seperate pesticide.

mschuster91 3y ago
First of all, your account seems to be shadowbanned, you might want to email the mods. > The food problem is hard, especially because food isn't very fungible. Indeed it is, and modern agriculture has drastically improved human life from the situation of just a century ago. The thing is, we've gone too far - in our quest for more and more and more food production, we have endangered nature itself. Soils are degrading because the crops use too much nutrients and because the wildlife - particularly small burrowing animals - get killed off by pesticides directly or because their food got killed off by pesticides. On top of that, heavy farm machines compress the soil... and so it can't soak up water any more, leading to flood and drought issues (it can't retain water because the soil is too compacted for the water to seep through, so no buffer for drought times, and when rain falls it just washes the topsoil with it and is gone). And that doesn't even mention insects and their role in food chains. > GMO's should be regulated so that pesticide restiance is mitigated. Personally I think GMOs should have multiple pesticide restistances for each class of pest so that resistant pest mutations can be treated with a seperate pesticide. You didn't get my point: pesticides kill everything but the GMO plants that are designed to be resistant, thus impacting the food chain of nature as an ecosystem. We've engineered places that are literally inhospitable to wildlife, with serious and far-reaching consequences. We barely understand food chains and anchor species as a concept, we only discovered just how huge a role wolves and beavers play in nature a few decades ago [1]. And yet, despite the warning signs (such as insect free car windshields despite driving through the countryside for hours), we keep on and on doing what we know is likely harmful! [1] https://www.yellowstonepark.com/things-to-do/wildlife/wolf-reintroduction-changes-ecosystem/ https://www.yellowstonepark.com/things-to-do/wildlife/wolf-r...
- heyoni 3y ago
  I just realized there aren't any bugs on my windshield when I drive but that wasn't the case when I was a kid...
  - maxerickson 3y ago
    In the US, more vegetation is cleared, making the space over the travel lane a less fun place to be for an insect. Around here I'm pretty sure it's about the deer.
- jagtstronaut 3y ago
  2 things: 1. Modern agriculture is generally better for the soil than traditional. Look up the difference between till and no till. You just can’t do no till at the scale needed to feed the world unless we all start picking weeds full time. 2. The point that they are making is that there are ways to create biodiversity within modern ag that are actually required by law. You are not supposed to plant gmo or spray your whole field to keep a remnant of the original population, riparian buffers, cover crops (voluntary), and other voluntary buffer zones (pollinator fields etc). These can all preserve biodiversity and prevent resistance while still outputting the food needed at the price we all want to pay.
ClumsyPilot 3y ago
> Big Ag, mono culture, pesticides all come with the territory. I am getting the impressing that you are not familiar with corrupt practices of Big Ag, most which have nothing to do with producing more food, and have everything to do with padding their profit margins and abusing their power. For example, farmers hire agronomists, but actually agronomists make more money from kickbacks from producers of pesticides / agrochemicals than they do from farmers. Many of them are actually undercover pesticide pushers, rather than trusted professionals. We have metric tons of research that shows that pesticides are overused, and poorly targeted. Not unlike the opioid crisis in US

mschuster91 3y ago

First of all, your account seems to be shadowbanned, you might want to email the mods. > The food problem is hard, especially because food isn't very fungible. Indeed it is, and modern agriculture has drastically improved human life from the situation of just a century ago. The thing is, we've gone too far - in our quest for more and more and more food production, we have endangered nature itself. Soils are degrading because the crops use too much nutrients and because the wildlife - particularly small burrowing animals - get killed off by pesticides directly or because their food got killed off by pesticides. On top of that, heavy farm machines compress the soil... and so it can't soak up water any more, leading to flood and drought issues (it can't retain water because the soil is too compacted for the water to seep through, so no buffer for drought times, and when rain falls it just washes the topsoil with it and is gone). And that doesn't even mention insects and their role in food chains. > GMO's should be regulated so that pesticide restiance is mitigated. Personally I think GMOs should have multiple pesticide restistances for each class of pest so that resistant pest mutations can be treated with a seperate pesticide. You didn't get my point: pesticides kill everything but the GMO plants that are designed to be resistant, thus impacting the food chain of nature as an ecosystem. We've engineered places that are literally inhospitable to wildlife, with serious and far-reaching consequences. We barely understand food chains and anchor species as a concept, we only discovered just how huge a role wolves and beavers play in nature a few decades ago [1]. And yet, despite the warning signs (such as insect free car windshields despite driving through the countryside for hours), we keep on and on doing what we know is likely harmful! [1] https://www.yellowstonepark.com/things-to-do/wildlife/wolf-reintroduction-changes-ecosystem/ https://www.yellowstonepark.com/things-to-do/wildlife/wolf-r...

heyoni 3y ago
I just realized there aren't any bugs on my windshield when I drive but that wasn't the case when I was a kid...
- maxerickson 3y ago
  In the US, more vegetation is cleared, making the space over the travel lane a less fun place to be for an insect. Around here I'm pretty sure it's about the deer.
jagtstronaut 3y ago
2 things: 1. Modern agriculture is generally better for the soil than traditional. Look up the difference between till and no till. You just can’t do no till at the scale needed to feed the world unless we all start picking weeds full time. 2. The point that they are making is that there are ways to create biodiversity within modern ag that are actually required by law. You are not supposed to plant gmo or spray your whole field to keep a remnant of the original population, riparian buffers, cover crops (voluntary), and other voluntary buffer zones (pollinator fields etc). These can all preserve biodiversity and prevent resistance while still outputting the food needed at the price we all want to pay.

ClumsyPilot 3y ago

> Big Ag, mono culture, pesticides all come with the territory. I am getting the impressing that you are not familiar with corrupt practices of Big Ag, most which have nothing to do with producing more food, and have everything to do with padding their profit margins and abusing their power. For example, farmers hire agronomists, but actually agronomists make more money from kickbacks from producers of pesticides / agrochemicals than they do from farmers. Many of them are actually undercover pesticide pushers, rather than trusted professionals. We have metric tons of research that shows that pesticides are overused, and poorly targeted. Not unlike the opioid crisis in US