9 ms·
Plastic is taking over farms
- demondemidi 3y agoHard to get outraged when we’ve so clearly lost the war against billionaires and the consequences of the practices that get them there. Like industrial farming that needs to use a billion tons of plastic to increase profits by decreasing costs. And predatory practices deployed on small independent farms that act responsibly.
- morkalork 3y agoFeels like we've just been free falling through trap door functions continuously for years. They've acquired too much wealth and can buy power through lobbyists, corporate personhood, money is "free speech", and lately just flat out bankrolling the lavish lifestyle of a supreme court judge. Good luck undoing all that!
- Ericson2314 3y agoPastoralism is brain rot, we should not romanticize "small farms". The romanticization of farming probably has a lot to do with bad agricultural policy. (In the US we can blame the senate, but what about in Europe?) Also, are there any agricultural billionaires? I kind of doubt it: usually they are rich but not that rich.
- hosh 3y agoIt doesn’t have to be romanticized. A local-first, decentralized food system can be more resilient and provide fresher, more nutritious foods.
- whimsicalism 3y agodoubt [0] 0: see Sri Lanka’s attempted shift to local, small scale agriculture and how that went.
- hosh 3y agoCounter example: Cuba, during the sanctions.
- whimsicalism 3y agoCuba imports 80%+ of its food. It received extensive soviet industrial agriculture consults. It is not a counter example.
- hosh 3y agoI don’t know which era you are talking about. I was talking about the decade after 1989, about when the Soviets were collapsing, before the recent economic downturn. They were not importing food, nor were there oil available to run trucks, tractors or make fertilizer - https://www.architectural-review.com/essays/cubas-urban-farming-revolution-how-to-create-self-sufficient-cities https://www.architectural-review.com/essays/cubas-urban-farm...
- whimsicalism 3y agoCubans were literally starving and caloric intake is estimate to have been reduced by 38% in the period you are talking about before food imports resurged. [0] Another great example case, thank you for pointing that out. 0: https://s3.amazonaws.com/oxfam-us/static/oa4/OA-CubaGoingAgainstGrain_FoodCrisis.pdf https://s3.amazonaws.com/oxfam-us/static/oa4/OA-CubaGoingAga...
- whimsicalism 3y agoIndustrial farms, a key part of the green revolution, are what enable us to support our population of 8 or so billion and prevent them from starving.
- adrian_b 3y agoAnd why is it desirable to have a population of 8 billion that needs such farms for survival, instead of having a stable population of 1 billion that could be sustained by more future-proof agricultural techniques?
- whimsicalism 3y agoFeel free to volunteer to not have children and spread the word to your family and friends. I find most people who espouse your views typically don’t because the people they are always imagining dying/killing/banning from having babies are usually in the third-world, or at least very far away. They don’t imagine the very real killing, wars, etc. that would have to take place to forcibly sterilize people. I don’t think organic agriculture is such an important end that we should render 7/8 of the population dead or infertile so that we can transition to organic.
- silverquiet 3y ago> Feel free to volunteer to not have children and spread the word to your family and friends. Given the precipitous drops in fertility in the developed world, I'd say that this is happening.
- freitzkriesler2 3y agoThe people who are having children are those that happen to be the biggest polluters: Africa, India, and China(birth rates are collapsing here but not fast enough). The greenest people are north Americans (excluding Mexico) and Europe. They just so happen to not have any kids. The solution is to put the economic burden of pollution onto those that cause it the most and right now the biggest burdens are on western states who do the most already to greenify their economies. And don't post the innane," they're poor and need to burn coal to get ahead!". India is the worst offender with dumping plastic in the ocean. China is even worse with industrial pollutants destroying what good land they had. The 3rd world needs to be brought to heel if climate change is to be stopped.
- kernoble 3y agoFYI Plastic Mulch is very different from the mulch one normally thinks of. It's just a barrier to prevent light from reaching the soil, preventing weeds. https://www.harrisseeds.com/collections/mulches-plastic-and-paper https://www.harrisseeds.com/collections/mulches-plastic-and-... I thought people were using shredded plastic or pellets to cover the ground!
- balaji1 3y agoWould you have been surprised if you did find that plastic mulch is actually shredded plastic? I wouldn't have been. That's the prevalence and abuse of plastic. In USA, open farm lands are literally covered by huge sheets of plastic.
- 303uru 3y agoHave you ever used the stuff? Because by the end of the growing season it very much is shredded plastic.
- Steven420 3y agoThat's only if you buy the cheap stuff that isn't uv resistant
- pfdietz 3y agoThis is feeling like another iteration of the Outrage Engine. Can we restrict our outrage to things that are known to be bad, not that we feel (however strongly) are bad?
- rcMgD2BwE72F 3y ago>things that are known to be bad Plastic pollution denial is a thing now?
- userbinator 3y agoThose on the "plastics bad" insanity bandwagon should take a look at life in the mid 19th century, before plastics were invented. This is just a repeat of "microwave ovens bad" and "cellphone radiation bad", mixed with radical ideology and propagated by engagement-focused media.
- whimsicalism 3y agoI am extremely skeptical of people who say stuff like life is worse today, capitalism has ruined everything, etc. etc. Even to me, it is obvious why plastic pollution is undesirable and is not the same as “cellphone radiation bad”
- dappermanneke 3y agoits pretty difficult to dig up any solid evidence plastic pollution has effects on health beyond banned plasticisers, and even then. whereas plastic mitigation efforts often result in exacerbating actual issues like leading to more carbon emissions sure, plastic waste should be responsibly handled. but plastics have major benefits to solving many other problems. in this case it's compounded by readers that have nothing to do with farming (or who have a garden and think they could live off of it) thinking farmers are trying to kill them also, the article railing against landfills is part of the issue to me. plastic that is landfilled is absolutely responsibly managed plastic. we /want/ our waste to become part of geology, not keep circulating, if possible
- destitude 3y agoI'm using plastic baling twine for large round bales. I'd love to use hemp twine but have never found anybody that made it since I last looked. The other "biodegradable" twine available is soaked in some kind of chemical like diesel or something that makes it much worse for handling with hands and won't use it.
- AndrewKemendo 3y agoWould you use recycled plastic twine?
- destitude 3y agoWould be better if had something that is truly biodegradable.
- AndrewKemendo 3y agoYeah agreed. OK thanks
- destitude 3y agoActually I just decided to search for hemp baling twine and actually found something on "tractor tools direct". I'll have to investigate more where the stuff was made and if it is treated at all.
- destitude 3y agoOkay.. I called them and it appears the hemp baling twine should work for me. It is raw untreated hemp twine however the country of origin is China. I think I will give this a shot.
- AndrewKemendo 3y agoThere’s got to be American hemp twine producers right?!
- whimsicalism 3y ago> The survey also showed that, across all regions, farmers, almost unanimously, were opposed to covering the costs of recycling themselves. > The answer: Extended Producer Responsibility (EPR). Shifting the responsibility for managing materials at the end of life away from consumers and onto producers, … It’s not uncommon for manufacturers of computers or tires to ask consumers to pay an extra fee at the time of purchase for the cost of collecting and recycling the product. Anyone with a basic understanding of economics knows that this is economically equivalent to making the farmers pay for the recycling.
- yummypaint 3y agoGood. It's part of their businesses expenses and should not be externalized. If that causes them to shift away from plastic then it was never viable to begin with.
- whimsicalism 3y agoI fully agree, but think it is misleading that the article presents this as a solution for the farmers desires.
- kragen 3y agoit's a solution in the sense that it forces them to pay even though they don't want to, just like payroll withholding is a solution to the problem of people not wanting to pay income tax
- circusfly 3y ago"It’s not uncommon for manufacturers of computers or tires to ask consumers to pay an extra fee at the time of purchase for the cost of collecting and recycling the product." The quote is stating that expenses are passed to the consumer, how is that good? It's also talking about things like tires, I think we can all agree the world wouldn't function without tires unless we're all willing to go back to the horse and buggy?
- AndrewKemendo 3y agoPlastic is one of the best examples of an Anthropocene trap that is pushing the polycrisis into ecological unpredictability and collapse of consistent life harboring systems Very well done study on this recently: https://royalsocietypublishing.org/doi/10.1098/rstb.2022.0261 https://royalsocietypublishing.org/doi/10.1098/rstb.2022.026... The only solution is global majority cooperation, as game defectors maintain the generation of “externalities” that the majority is not enforcing remediation from
- micromacrofoot 3y agoPrioritizing short-term benefits over long-term consequences is probably one of the most consistent problems for humanity.
- r00fus 3y agoPlastic is literally the oil in MtG's Phyrexia. A card [1] that just seems to symbolize a lot of what I feel about how we douse our environment in petrochemical residue and forever chemicals for a bit of convenience. https://gatherer.wizards.com/pages/card/Discussion.aspx?popularpage=2&multiverseid=218058#popularPosts https://gatherer.wizards.com/pages/card/Discussion.aspx?popu...