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This strikes me a rhetorical sleight of hand. > I never said we'd need 40-70% of people in the agriculture. > with a pool of 40-70% people to choose from >

by ch4s3 3y ago

This strikes me a rhetorical sleight of hand. > I never said we'd need 40-70% of people in the agriculture. > with a pool of 40-70% people to choose from > There's no need to revert to high land and labor input methods. > We could > It would need new (smaller) electric machines and more workers, but maybe 1-2 times more, This is all very squishy and utopian. I just don't see a practical proposal here. You're talking about completely reworking agriculture with no viable path to providing sufficient calories at a cost that developing nations can bare. We can see the recent debacle in Sri Lanka as a cautionary tale of what can happen if you try to force such a change. On a more personal note I've seen a lot of people try to spin up hobby farms using "restorative" practices and they're producing relatively little food, using unpaid interns, still having to charge 4x grocery store price for worse food, and havign to rely on government handouts to even do that.

myshpa 3y ago
> This strikes me a rhetorical sleight of hand. > I just don't see a practical proposal here My previous comment @ https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=37589124 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=37589124 : Sustainable and regenerative agriculture is entirely possible. You may want to explore practices such as natural, syntropic, permaculture, and agroforestry farming, to name just a few. While it may require more knowledge and labor, advancements in technology and automation could potentially mean only a slight increase in the workforce, from around 2% to maybe upto 4%. > We can see the recent debacle in Sri Lanka as a cautionary tale of what can happen if you try to force such a change Without a transition period, education, or support, it was poised to end up badly. > hobby farms using "restorative" practices and they're producing relatively little food Again, take a look into syntropic agriculture (Ernst Gotsch) and natural (or 'do-nothing') farming (Masanobu Fukuoka). Their yields are comparable to or better than those of their traditional counterparts, all while repairing the soil and without using any external inputs (thus saving significant costs). https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=37390730 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=37390730

by ch4s3 3y ago

myshpa 3y ago

> This strikes me a rhetorical sleight of hand. > I just don't see a practical proposal here My previous comment @ https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=37589124 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=37589124 : Sustainable and regenerative agriculture is entirely possible. You may want to explore practices such as natural, syntropic, permaculture, and agroforestry farming, to name just a few. While it may require more knowledge and labor, advancements in technology and automation could potentially mean only a slight increase in the workforce, from around 2% to maybe upto 4%. > We can see the recent debacle in Sri Lanka as a cautionary tale of what can happen if you try to force such a change Without a transition period, education, or support, it was poised to end up badly. > hobby farms using "restorative" practices and they're producing relatively little food Again, take a look into syntropic agriculture (Ernst Gotsch) and natural (or 'do-nothing') farming (Masanobu Fukuoka). Their yields are comparable to or better than those of their traditional counterparts, all while repairing the soil and without using any external inputs (thus saving significant costs). https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=37390730 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=37390730