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Something about making the food supply electric sits unwell with me, which doesn’t make a lot of sense given the amount of fertilizer and transportation energy
by cmrx64 3y ago
Something about making the food supply electric sits unwell with me, which doesn’t make a lot of sense given the amount of fertilizer and transportation energy already involved. The whole system screams fragile to me.
- bamboozled 3y agoCan’t see there being a problem with hybrid approach ?
- s5300 3y ago[dead]
- zdragnar 3y agoMight be we would need to use less fertilizer- not only if it helps plants mature faster, but also because a good amount isn't used by plants anyway (water runoff, etc).
- akoboldfrying 3y ago"The EULA for your potatoes is being updated to make it easier to understand how we use your soil profile data. Hit A to accept the new agreement, or S to starve."
- Scoundreller 3y agoThey gave you a choice to refuse? They just said to me in 1pt font that eating more potato constituted acceptance of their new terms.
- analog31 3y ago"Your potato failed its firmware update. It will now poison you."
- hackernewds 3y agothis sounds tin-foily, but it's plausible this changes the nutritional as well as physical/chemical nature of the ultimate produce
- huytersd 3y agoIf anything, it seems better to me than using fertilizer, if electricity is an effective replacement. it’s a renewable resource, it doesn’t stick around and runoff into streams and rivers, and since it’s conductive through the ground, maybe it doesn’t require as much tilling of the soil as you need with fertilizer to make sure it’s properly mixed in.
- AngryData 3y agoI would say it is pretty fragile, half the worlds population is completely dependent on artificially produced fertilizer and unsustainable agricultural practices to source their food. And its not that we don't have enough arable land to produce the food we need otherwise and far more sustainably, it is just less profitable so we don't do that. And if shit does hit the fan its not like we can reopen 50% more farmland within just a few years that hasn't been used in a decade or more and is overgrown with trees and shrubs. Plus a lot of the old farmland has been depleted before being abandoned and it takes many decades, usually around 75-150 years, to build the soil back up to previous topsoil depths, which also means dealing with reduced yields and sacrificing yield and fertilizer to the soil until it is.
- ReptileMan 3y agoWeren't there some studies about engineering rapid soil recovery - the right mix of bacteria and worms?
- imtringued 3y agoThis is not correct. You can recover soil in the timescales of 20 years through active management. The problem is that this is a losing battle. If the original farmer making the money didn't care, then who is going to pay to restore a plot of land from which they make no income whatsoever?
- jojobas 3y agoHaber process has us all on the hook anyway.
- cmrx64 3y agoThat’s what I mean: given fertilizer dependence, relying on this shouldn’t be uncomfy, but it feels different somehow.