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Making food production more polluting per acre can be more environmentally friendly as long as it raises food production per acre by a greater factor. Say that
by sketerpot 18y ago
Making food production more polluting per acre can be more environmentally friendly as long as it raises food production per acre by a greater factor.
Say that using a pesticide means that farming causes twice as much pollution per acre, but four times as much food per acre. That means you can feed people with a quarter of the land, and therefore half the pollution. The real numbers aren't so simple, but the principle still applies. This focus on local organic food sounds driven more by warm fuzzy feelings than by reality.
- skyfaller 18y agoIf you just make up numbers you can justify just about anything. Let us add in some more external costs to these imaginary numbers. What does it cost to get the petroleum used to manufacture the pesticides, chemical fertilizer, etc. used in conventional farming (cough cough war in Iraq)? How much does it cost to transport food around the world instead of growing it locally? What are the costs to public health from superbugs bred in feedlots full of sick, bloated cows inundated with antibiotics? I will now make up imaginary numbers for these costs large enough to trump your imaginary numbers. P.S. If you want some real numbers and facts, you should check out Michael Pollan's "The Omnivore's Dilemma", especially the citations in the back of the book. It's also a damn good read.
- sketerpot 18y agoI'm not saying what the real numbers are because I don't know. My point is that the goal should be feeding everyone at minimal cost (environmental, political, and otherwise). The arbitrary numbers I made up were solely to illustrate that such analysis might lead to counterintuitive results that are nevertheless right. Or it might not; it depends on the numbers.