6 ms·

If the yield is better, why don't more do it? Is it just because it takes more skill, basically? In other words, what are the economic incentives working agains

by cnity 3y ago

If the yield is better, why don't more do it? Is it just because it takes more skill, basically? In other words, what are the economic incentives working against adopting this farming method? I'm very interested because this type of farming sounds wonderful to me.

helpfulContrib 3y ago
It takes attention and skill and involvement. And I think the point where more will do it, is at the border and fence-line. Once a neighbor starts growing a food forest, that idea can rapidly spread. It does take years, though...
- spiderfarmer 3y ago
  It has nothing to do with attention or skill. Food forests are simply bad businesses. If they weren't, we would see adoption pretty quickly. Idealism only takes you so far, in the end people need to make a living.
  - Ekaros 3y ago
    I'm always surprised that people think farming isn't like any other industry in capitalism. They will aim to make as much profit with resources they have available. If doing farming differently would certainly net more, they would do it. So I take there is some component that is forgotten. Be it scaling, labour input or available market for higher priced products.
    - spiderfarmer 3y ago
      In a lot of countries people still think farmers are stupid. Because of that a lot people think that even amateurs can do a better job, as long as they are not a traditional farmer.
      - myshpa 3y ago
        Ernst Gotsch and Masanobu Fukuoka are not amateurs ... they both have been farming for decades.
      - Lutger 3y ago
        Are you saying people like Shepard, Fukuoka and Götsch are amateurs? Do you even know who these people are?
        lowkeyoptimist 3y ago
        They said nothing of the sort. People in here are passing this method of farming off as a settled fact that it is better, when even Gotsch says it is still experimental and admits using fertilizer would boost yields of wheat, soy, and maize. Dropping yields of some of these key crops in the world's calorie consumption nearly 30% would be devastating to countries that depend on imports. https://agendagotsch.com/en/large-scale-syntropic-farming-results-and-challenges/ https://agendagotsch.com/en/large-scale-syntropic-farming-re... World's most important sources of calories: https://www.worldatlas.com/articles/most-important-staple-foods-in-the-world.html https://www.worldatlas.com/articles/most-important-staple-fo...
    - randomdata 3y ago
      > I'm always surprised that people think farming isn't like any other industry in capitalism. They probably don't see farming as being like capitalism because farming is, with some exceptions, mostly socialist in nature – the workers own the means of production. > They will aim to make as much profit with resources they have available. That is certainly true, although not a feature of capitalism. Wanting something in return for offering something to another transcends capital ownership structures.
    - helpfulContrib 3y ago
      Farming is not just a for-profit industry, or at least - not always a mass-scale profit industry. Maintaining ones own - or community - garden is a fantastic way to just improve the quality of your own life, and the life of others around you. That's a different kind of profit.
  - kasey_junk 3y ago
    Food forests also don’t do well producing the most highly subsidized crops (rice, cotton, feed corn & soy, etc). I don’t know if they’d be viable vs non-subsidized farms either but in the US it is really hard to have a conversation about farm profitability without looking at how the government puts their finger on the scales.
    - bluGill 3y ago
      US farm subsidies come in two forms: crop insurance (for the major crops you list) that ensure farmers can have some bad years/crop failures and not lose the farm; and CRP where the government "rents" marginal land so that farmers don't attempt to farm it (in drought years they will allow taking one crop of hay). At one time there were a lot more subsidies, but not anymore.
      - kasey_junk 3y ago
        There are all manner of “hidden” subsidies for commodity agriculture. The CFTC for instance runs out reach on agg derivatives even when they are low volume contracts (cheese). https://www.cftc.gov/Agriculture https://www.cftc.gov/Agriculture Not fitting into the norm in this case costs more than it would for other innovations.
  - deleted 3y ago
    [deleted]
  - Lutger 3y ago
    We are seeing adoption very quickly though, and we might be able to make them profitable. It is too soon to tell.
  - helpfulContrib 3y ago
    Food forests are only bad business because bad business has made it so. Where food forests win, is where people don't want mono-culture food products, and prefer to grow - and eat - locally. Of course, if you've never stepped off the grid, you can't look at it, critically. If you have, you may wonder why you ever lived on it, in the first place. We'd all be much, much healthier if we could eat locally, and grow our own foods - in whatever manner is feasible - instead of burning oil to do it.
- cnity 3y ago
  Based on what I've seen in cities, something tells me that many of the neighbours will complain of pests and get regulators involved to prevent the food forest approach. I'd like to see otherwise though.
mark_up 3y ago
[dead]
myshpa 3y ago
It requires a change in attitude and is more knowledge-intensive. Additionally, it probably requires more labor initially, although that decreases as the soil improves. https://www.echocommunity.org/resources/ae1d762e-d561-4a7e-80b3-de9ddeaa6259 https://www.echocommunity.org/resources/ae1d762e-d561-4a7e-8... The promises of syntropic farming are many: large yields; multiple income streams; optimal use of land; no need for external inputs; improved soil quality; minimal weeding; plant resilience due to biodiversity; and better water management, both in extreme wet and dry times. Gietzen tells the story of Götsch’s cacao farm, showing that an established syntropic system can sustain high productivity with a level of labor that is comparable to that needed to manage a conventional farm. However, syntropic farming can be complicated to understand and apply. It requires in-depth knowledge of biological processes, access to many different kinds of seeds, and careful management. https://news.mongabay.com/2020/07/in-syntropic-agriculture-farmers-stop-fighting-nature-and-learn-to-embrace-it/ https://news.mongabay.com/2020/07/in-syntropic-agriculture-f... He refused to use artificial fertilizers and pesticides. He let most of the land grow naturally, and on 12 hectares (30 acres) he planted bananas and cocoa, cutting back the surrounding trees regularly. Today, he harvests an average 920 kgs (2,000 lb) of cocoa beans per hectare, more than three times the average across Brazil of 300 kg (660 lb) per hectare. And because he doesn’t spend money on fertilizers and pesticides, unlike the farmers around him, Götsch enjoys higher profits. ... Then a drought hit the region. But not on Götsch’s farm. The dense vegetation of the 120 hectares locally created a lot of evaporation and the rain continued to fall. His success as a “rainmaker” finally earned Götsch the respect of his neighbors. They started to imitate him. Today, the forested area in the surroundings spans 1,000 hectares (2,500 acres). “When you fly over my finca now, you can’t see it anymore, because it is covered by clouds all year round,” Götsch says proudly. https://agendagotsch.com/en/large-scale-syntropic-farming-results-and-challenges/ https://agendagotsch.com/en/large-scale-syntropic-farming-re...
Lutger 3y ago
A lot of these methods aren't easy to scale (yet) and depend on the outstanding expertise of individuals. There are also various incentives and circumstances that work against it, depending on the country where you live: - you can't get loans from the bank because its not a proven method (applies to food forests or other types of agroforestry, not to organic farming anymore) - you need some time investment to get the operation profitable, can be as much as ten years for a food forest - regulations may prevent you from acquiring land, simply because the method isn't known - you may not get subsidy and / or tax cuts because you have a different system or produce different crops - the crops you produce may not always get the best prize on the market - you simply aren't profiting from externalized costs, hence you are less competitive An example of the last point: to support our meat and dairy industry, the Netherlands imports cheap soy from Brazil, which is produced by destroying millions of hectares of rainforest. This is a bit like fossil fuels (also used a lot in agriculture): it isn't sustainable and it is taking advantage of cheap labor and destroying natural resources elsewhere. If you want to produce meat or dairy in a sustainable way in the Netherlands without taking a toll on the Amazonian Rainforest, you will need a lot of land which is very expensive, and therefore you aren't competitive anymore.

by cnity 3y ago

helpfulContrib 3y ago

It takes attention and skill and involvement. And I think the point where more will do it, is at the border and fence-line. Once a neighbor starts growing a food forest, that idea can rapidly spread. It does take years, though...

spiderfarmer 3y ago
It has nothing to do with attention or skill. Food forests are simply bad businesses. If they weren't, we would see adoption pretty quickly. Idealism only takes you so far, in the end people need to make a living.
- Ekaros 3y ago
  I'm always surprised that people think farming isn't like any other industry in capitalism. They will aim to make as much profit with resources they have available. If doing farming differently would certainly net more, they would do it. So I take there is some component that is forgotten. Be it scaling, labour input or available market for higher priced products.
  - spiderfarmer 3y ago
    In a lot of countries people still think farmers are stupid. Because of that a lot people think that even amateurs can do a better job, as long as they are not a traditional farmer.
    - myshpa 3y ago
      Ernst Gotsch and Masanobu Fukuoka are not amateurs ... they both have been farming for decades.
    - Lutger 3y ago
      Are you saying people like Shepard, Fukuoka and Götsch are amateurs? Do you even know who these people are?
      - lowkeyoptimist 3y ago
        They said nothing of the sort. People in here are passing this method of farming off as a settled fact that it is better, when even Gotsch says it is still experimental and admits using fertilizer would boost yields of wheat, soy, and maize. Dropping yields of some of these key crops in the world's calorie consumption nearly 30% would be devastating to countries that depend on imports. https://agendagotsch.com/en/large-scale-syntropic-farming-results-and-challenges/ https://agendagotsch.com/en/large-scale-syntropic-farming-re... World's most important sources of calories: https://www.worldatlas.com/articles/most-important-staple-foods-in-the-world.html https://www.worldatlas.com/articles/most-important-staple-fo...
  - randomdata 3y ago
    > I'm always surprised that people think farming isn't like any other industry in capitalism. They probably don't see farming as being like capitalism because farming is, with some exceptions, mostly socialist in nature – the workers own the means of production. > They will aim to make as much profit with resources they have available. That is certainly true, although not a feature of capitalism. Wanting something in return for offering something to another transcends capital ownership structures.
  - helpfulContrib 3y ago
    Farming is not just a for-profit industry, or at least - not always a mass-scale profit industry. Maintaining ones own - or community - garden is a fantastic way to just improve the quality of your own life, and the life of others around you. That's a different kind of profit.
- kasey_junk 3y ago
  Food forests also don’t do well producing the most highly subsidized crops (rice, cotton, feed corn & soy, etc). I don’t know if they’d be viable vs non-subsidized farms either but in the US it is really hard to have a conversation about farm profitability without looking at how the government puts their finger on the scales.
  - bluGill 3y ago
    US farm subsidies come in two forms: crop insurance (for the major crops you list) that ensure farmers can have some bad years/crop failures and not lose the farm; and CRP where the government "rents" marginal land so that farmers don't attempt to farm it (in drought years they will allow taking one crop of hay). At one time there were a lot more subsidies, but not anymore.
    - kasey_junk 3y ago
      There are all manner of “hidden” subsidies for commodity agriculture. The CFTC for instance runs out reach on agg derivatives even when they are low volume contracts (cheese). https://www.cftc.gov/Agriculture https://www.cftc.gov/Agriculture Not fitting into the norm in this case costs more than it would for other innovations.
- deleted 3y ago
  [deleted]
- Lutger 3y ago
  We are seeing adoption very quickly though, and we might be able to make them profitable. It is too soon to tell.
- helpfulContrib 3y ago
  Food forests are only bad business because bad business has made it so. Where food forests win, is where people don't want mono-culture food products, and prefer to grow - and eat - locally. Of course, if you've never stepped off the grid, you can't look at it, critically. If you have, you may wonder why you ever lived on it, in the first place. We'd all be much, much healthier if we could eat locally, and grow our own foods - in whatever manner is feasible - instead of burning oil to do it.
cnity 3y ago
Based on what I've seen in cities, something tells me that many of the neighbours will complain of pests and get regulators involved to prevent the food forest approach. I'd like to see otherwise though.

mark_up 3y ago

[dead]

myshpa 3y ago

It requires a change in attitude and is more knowledge-intensive. Additionally, it probably requires more labor initially, although that decreases as the soil improves. https://www.echocommunity.org/resources/ae1d762e-d561-4a7e-80b3-de9ddeaa6259 https://www.echocommunity.org/resources/ae1d762e-d561-4a7e-8... The promises of syntropic farming are many: large yields; multiple income streams; optimal use of land; no need for external inputs; improved soil quality; minimal weeding; plant resilience due to biodiversity; and better water management, both in extreme wet and dry times. Gietzen tells the story of Götsch’s cacao farm, showing that an established syntropic system can sustain high productivity with a level of labor that is comparable to that needed to manage a conventional farm. However, syntropic farming can be complicated to understand and apply. It requires in-depth knowledge of biological processes, access to many different kinds of seeds, and careful management. https://news.mongabay.com/2020/07/in-syntropic-agriculture-farmers-stop-fighting-nature-and-learn-to-embrace-it/ https://news.mongabay.com/2020/07/in-syntropic-agriculture-f... He refused to use artificial fertilizers and pesticides. He let most of the land grow naturally, and on 12 hectares (30 acres) he planted bananas and cocoa, cutting back the surrounding trees regularly. Today, he harvests an average 920 kgs (2,000 lb) of cocoa beans per hectare, more than three times the average across Brazil of 300 kg (660 lb) per hectare. And because he doesn’t spend money on fertilizers and pesticides, unlike the farmers around him, Götsch enjoys higher profits. ... Then a drought hit the region. But not on Götsch’s farm. The dense vegetation of the 120 hectares locally created a lot of evaporation and the rain continued to fall. His success as a “rainmaker” finally earned Götsch the respect of his neighbors. They started to imitate him. Today, the forested area in the surroundings spans 1,000 hectares (2,500 acres). “When you fly over my finca now, you can’t see it anymore, because it is covered by clouds all year round,” Götsch says proudly. https://agendagotsch.com/en/large-scale-syntropic-farming-results-and-challenges/ https://agendagotsch.com/en/large-scale-syntropic-farming-re...

Lutger 3y ago

A lot of these methods aren't easy to scale (yet) and depend on the outstanding expertise of individuals. There are also various incentives and circumstances that work against it, depending on the country where you live: - you can't get loans from the bank because its not a proven method (applies to food forests or other types of agroforestry, not to organic farming anymore) - you need some time investment to get the operation profitable, can be as much as ten years for a food forest - regulations may prevent you from acquiring land, simply because the method isn't known - you may not get subsidy and / or tax cuts because you have a different system or produce different crops - the crops you produce may not always get the best prize on the market - you simply aren't profiting from externalized costs, hence you are less competitive An example of the last point: to support our meat and dairy industry, the Netherlands imports cheap soy from Brazil, which is produced by destroying millions of hectares of rainforest. This is a bit like fossil fuels (also used a lot in agriculture): it isn't sustainable and it is taking advantage of cheap labor and destroying natural resources elsewhere. If you want to produce meat or dairy in a sustainable way in the Netherlands without taking a toll on the Amazonian Rainforest, you will need a lot of land which is very expensive, and therefore you aren't competitive anymore.