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If there are hundreds of thousands of plant varieties in that massive seed bank in Svalbard, and only 150 plants are cultivated for consumption today, how the h

If there are hundreds of thousands of plant varieties in that massive seed bank in Svalbard, and only 150 plants are cultivated for consumption today, how the heck is eating a more diverse range of plants supposed to replace seed banks? Is it that everyone on earth is going to eat 1000x more plants than we do now, or is it that there will be 1000x more farms, each making 1/1000th as much money? I know the author is not arguing to tear down all the seed banks, they're saying we should keep plants alive by growing them. But I don't see how it pencils out. To me, this article makes the case for seed banks stronger by pointing out how that proposition is just impossible in reality.

citruscomputing 2y ago
If I understand correctly, it's that everyone will still eat < 100 plants, but they'll be different ones from everyone else. Maybe every grocery store won't have the exact same kinds of squash in it. Maybe we'll have more region-specific crops! The example given about olive trees is illustrative, I think.
- karaterobot 2y ago
  That's where the economics question comes in. How do you make a living as a farmer selling a very specific variety of squash, when there are now (let's say) 9000 varieties of squash on the market, and the same number of people out there buying squash?
  - Retric 2y ago
    The same way you make a living when there is 1 type of squash in the market and 9000 farmers planting it. Mostly through government subsidies sometimes supplemented by selling actual food eaten by actual people. That’s perhaps overstating things, but remove biofuels and we would have an even larger surplus even as everyone gets fat from excess production. Western farming has no real need for increased efficiency unless we get rid of a lot of farmland.
    - karaterobot 2y ago
      Setting aside the subsidies part, if every grocery store decided to stock 9000 types of squash, this could totally work.
      - Retric 2y ago
        Or 4,000 stores selling 3 un/labeled types. Grapes, apples, and a few others get labels but I see a lot of generic items. Do you know the exact kind of carrots you’re buying in those little bags? Are your pumpkins just labeled pumpkins? How about blueberries etc etc.
- tschwimmer 2y ago
  how do you allocate which types of squash farmers will be able to plant? Knowing very little about farming, I do know that certain varieties have much more desirable traits than others. For example, yield, pest resistance, soil acceptance, etc. What if everyone just wants to grow the "good" kinds of squash? How do you allocate the winners and losers? How do you allocate who will get to eat the "good" squash?
aeternum 2y ago
My idea can't be wrong, it's the world that must change. That about summarizes these types of articles. Solutions that do not require the world to change its behavior should be favored. Perhaps we could launch seed containers into low orbits such that they automatically and safely return to earth centuries in the future just in case.
- wolverine876 2y ago
  The way the world is today, that's the result of earlier people who changed it. Almost everything we have, from religion to politics to technology to morality to language to culture, etc. etc., all comes from people who intentionally changed things. Compare us to our ancestors 10,000 years ago, nomads emerging from the Paleolithic with only stone tools, no writing, etc. Reactionary perspectives - the hot trend of the unwitting - seem to think that the world was what they grew up with, as some natural state. Someone dreamed, worked, sacrificed, persuaded, etc. to make it this way. It's great news - we can do it; we can make a better world. You don't have to be Copernicus or Jefferson to do it. Our ancestors paved the way, put down lane markers and signs, gave us every tool we need. What are you waiting for?
  - meristohm 2y ago
    > Compare us to our ancestors 10,000 years ago, nomads emerging from the Paleolithic with only stone tools, no writing, etc. Aren't we still those people? Aren't stone tools, and tools made of wood, bone, and other plant & animal parts, enough? They don't require smelting (though I wouldn't be surprised if someone(s) 10,000 years ago got curious about the metal bits in their fire and traced it back to iron deposits in the sediment stuck to the wood gathered from a dry riverbed), and are far less environmentally damaging than a lot of the stuff we make these days. Numerous other animals make and use tools, and plenty others don't seem to, and they get by okay- a meaningful life can be lived without the technological trappings we've cocooned ourselves in. I take neither this phone nor reading and writing for granted; it's all wonderful and unnecessary technology. Who needs to read & write when you are part of a tight-knit, mutually-supportive community with a rich oral tradition going back millennia?
NoMoreNicksLeft 2y ago
I want my own small farm, but I think that I want to make food instead of money. It's a different proposition, I suppose.
- groby_b 2y ago
  This is likely not an answer. Small-scale sustenance farming is not enough to support humanity at scale. (Without ag-industry methods, we're about 4 billion people past the planets carrying capacity) Also, if that small farm is something you dream about, I strongly suggest actually working on a farm for a while. It is surprisingly not fun. I know "I'm gonna have a farm" is a popular escapist things for many folks in tech - it is for me as well, the fantasy is great :) It's just good to know what that actually means, and then deciding if you really want to do that. (For me, it means I have three plants on my balcony to keep the dream, and skip the full experience because I know I wouldn't enjoy it)
  - chefkd 2y ago
    This may be a little tangential (sorry) how is the planet's carrying capacity calculated? The malthusian school of thought never made sense to me
    - groby_b 2y ago
      Super-simplified explanation: Three things matter for carrying capacity. 1) How many calories does a human need to survive? 2) How many calories can we squeeze out of an acre of arable land? 3) How many acres of arable land are there? The first one is pretty much immutable. The third one is maybe somewhat mutable, but to a very limited extent. We can squabble how much, but let's assume it's fairly immutable. Large changes would need energy amounts that are currently prohibitive. That leaves calories per acre. And that's where ag-industrial methods had an impact that's absolutely bonkers[1]. As the graph shows, this is not a fixed number - that's why Malthus' predictions ultimately didn't come to pass - but you need ag-industry to squeeze out those numbers. (Without mechanized agriculture, massive production of artificial fertilizer, and Borlaug's dwarf wheat, Earth would have run into massive hunger by the end of the 80s - look for "Green Revolution" for lots of info on that) And small scale subsistence farming (which is what most folks think of when the say "I want to grow food") cannot utilize all of those techniques. That's also where the "4 billion" number comes from - we know how many calories/acre non-industrial farming generated, and it was at best enough calories for ~4 billion people. Optimistically. [1] https://www.researchgate.net/figure/USDA-per-acre-crop-production-figures-plotted-over-time-Production-data-is-scaled-by_fig2_367217594 https://www.researchgate.net/figure/USDA-per-acre-crop-produ...

citruscomputing 2y ago

If I understand correctly, it's that everyone will still eat < 100 plants, but they'll be different ones from everyone else. Maybe every grocery store won't have the exact same kinds of squash in it. Maybe we'll have more region-specific crops! The example given about olive trees is illustrative, I think.

karaterobot 2y ago
That's where the economics question comes in. How do you make a living as a farmer selling a very specific variety of squash, when there are now (let's say) 9000 varieties of squash on the market, and the same number of people out there buying squash?
- Retric 2y ago
  The same way you make a living when there is 1 type of squash in the market and 9000 farmers planting it. Mostly through government subsidies sometimes supplemented by selling actual food eaten by actual people. That’s perhaps overstating things, but remove biofuels and we would have an even larger surplus even as everyone gets fat from excess production. Western farming has no real need for increased efficiency unless we get rid of a lot of farmland.
  - karaterobot 2y ago
    Setting aside the subsidies part, if every grocery store decided to stock 9000 types of squash, this could totally work.
    - Retric 2y ago
      Or 4,000 stores selling 3 un/labeled types. Grapes, apples, and a few others get labels but I see a lot of generic items. Do you know the exact kind of carrots you’re buying in those little bags? Are your pumpkins just labeled pumpkins? How about blueberries etc etc.
tschwimmer 2y ago
how do you allocate which types of squash farmers will be able to plant? Knowing very little about farming, I do know that certain varieties have much more desirable traits than others. For example, yield, pest resistance, soil acceptance, etc. What if everyone just wants to grow the "good" kinds of squash? How do you allocate the winners and losers? How do you allocate who will get to eat the "good" squash?

aeternum 2y ago

My idea can't be wrong, it's the world that must change. That about summarizes these types of articles. Solutions that do not require the world to change its behavior should be favored. Perhaps we could launch seed containers into low orbits such that they automatically and safely return to earth centuries in the future just in case.

wolverine876 2y ago
The way the world is today, that's the result of earlier people who changed it. Almost everything we have, from religion to politics to technology to morality to language to culture, etc. etc., all comes from people who intentionally changed things. Compare us to our ancestors 10,000 years ago, nomads emerging from the Paleolithic with only stone tools, no writing, etc. Reactionary perspectives - the hot trend of the unwitting - seem to think that the world was what they grew up with, as some natural state. Someone dreamed, worked, sacrificed, persuaded, etc. to make it this way. It's great news - we can do it; we can make a better world. You don't have to be Copernicus or Jefferson to do it. Our ancestors paved the way, put down lane markers and signs, gave us every tool we need. What are you waiting for?
- meristohm 2y ago
  > Compare us to our ancestors 10,000 years ago, nomads emerging from the Paleolithic with only stone tools, no writing, etc. Aren't we still those people? Aren't stone tools, and tools made of wood, bone, and other plant & animal parts, enough? They don't require smelting (though I wouldn't be surprised if someone(s) 10,000 years ago got curious about the metal bits in their fire and traced it back to iron deposits in the sediment stuck to the wood gathered from a dry riverbed), and are far less environmentally damaging than a lot of the stuff we make these days. Numerous other animals make and use tools, and plenty others don't seem to, and they get by okay- a meaningful life can be lived without the technological trappings we've cocooned ourselves in. I take neither this phone nor reading and writing for granted; it's all wonderful and unnecessary technology. Who needs to read & write when you are part of a tight-knit, mutually-supportive community with a rich oral tradition going back millennia?

NoMoreNicksLeft 2y ago

I want my own small farm, but I think that I want to make food instead of money. It's a different proposition, I suppose.

groby_b 2y ago
This is likely not an answer. Small-scale sustenance farming is not enough to support humanity at scale. (Without ag-industry methods, we're about 4 billion people past the planets carrying capacity) Also, if that small farm is something you dream about, I strongly suggest actually working on a farm for a while. It is surprisingly not fun. I know "I'm gonna have a farm" is a popular escapist things for many folks in tech - it is for me as well, the fantasy is great :) It's just good to know what that actually means, and then deciding if you really want to do that. (For me, it means I have three plants on my balcony to keep the dream, and skip the full experience because I know I wouldn't enjoy it)
- chefkd 2y ago
  This may be a little tangential (sorry) how is the planet's carrying capacity calculated? The malthusian school of thought never made sense to me
  - groby_b 2y ago
    Super-simplified explanation: Three things matter for carrying capacity. 1) How many calories does a human need to survive? 2) How many calories can we squeeze out of an acre of arable land? 3) How many acres of arable land are there? The first one is pretty much immutable. The third one is maybe somewhat mutable, but to a very limited extent. We can squabble how much, but let's assume it's fairly immutable. Large changes would need energy amounts that are currently prohibitive. That leaves calories per acre. And that's where ag-industrial methods had an impact that's absolutely bonkers[1]. As the graph shows, this is not a fixed number - that's why Malthus' predictions ultimately didn't come to pass - but you need ag-industry to squeeze out those numbers. (Without mechanized agriculture, massive production of artificial fertilizer, and Borlaug's dwarf wheat, Earth would have run into massive hunger by the end of the 80s - look for "Green Revolution" for lots of info on that) And small scale subsistence farming (which is what most folks think of when the say "I want to grow food") cannot utilize all of those techniques. That's also where the "4 billion" number comes from - we know how many calories/acre non-industrial farming generated, and it was at best enough calories for ~4 billion people. Optimistically. [1] https://www.researchgate.net/figure/USDA-per-acre-crop-production-figures-plotted-over-time-Production-data-is-scaled-by_fig2_367217594 https://www.researchgate.net/figure/USDA-per-acre-crop-produ...