5 ms·

How about a return to traditional agriculture, which would provide more jobs, cleaner food, and decentralization and localization of food infrastructure? Why t

by wprl 13y ago

How about a return to traditional agriculture, which would provide more jobs, cleaner food, and decentralization and localization of food infrastructure? Why the relentless pursuit of industrialization and homogeneity at any cost?

philwelch 13y ago
Because it doesn't scale to feeding 7 billion people for one. Because most people in industrialized countries don't want to be farm labor for two.
- wprl 13y ago
  Perhaps it's true that you can't feed the whole world without industrialized food, but you could feed the vast majority of people who live in cooperative climates. It's debatable whether the rest couldn't be fed as well. Also, it wouldn't take "most people" to support small-farm agriculture. Many would gladly raise organic produce and livestock, and sell locally if the food economy were not stacked against them. It also provides more financial independence than minimum wage jobs, and many full-time jobs. Not to mention it would create many jobs.
  - philwelch 13y ago
    Creating jobs that people don't want and won't show up for, more like. With unemployment where it is now, you'd think Americans would sign up to pick fruit. But they don't, and we're dependent on migrant labor. More labor also means more expensive food. In the whole spectrum of human existence, farming sucks. It sucked so much that people remained hunter-gatherers as long as they could to avoid it, and it sucks so much that people leapt at the chance to become industrial wage slaves to avoid it. Turning more people into farmers out of some crazy left wing ideology sounds like a bad idea to me. I think Cambodia tried it once.
    - wprl 13y ago
      Unfortunately, your opinion just isn't based in fact.
      - philwelch 13y ago
        My opinion is based on the current US farm labor situation and the general history of mankind that saw hunter-gatherers forcibly displace agricultural civilizations throughout the Middle Ages followed by massive migration to cities since th Industrial Revolution. Your opinion is based on what facts exactly?
        wprl 13y ago
        The displacement caused by industrialization and imperialism, and the economies they foster, is not a situation in which enfranchised working class people are making informed decisions about their future, freely choose their lot, and draw from the public resources managed by their benevolent representative governments. It wasn't the case then, and it isn't the case now. The fact is that industrialized agriculture represents a massive centralization of the production of a basic necessity of life. It is made to be perceived to be less inexpensive through subsidies on low-nutrition crops such as corn, sugar, and wheat, subsidies for import and export, state-funded research into literal Frankenstein's monsters built of corn, fish, and insect genes. Patents for the basic building blocks of life are issued and violations enforced, even cases of accidental spread of these genes by wind. Pollutants and hormones abound. And what do we get? Lower nutrition when picked, lower nutrition because of shipping and storage, insecticides, hormones, anti-biotics, factory meat and egg production that makes a mockery of animal life, runoff that poisons our water supply and wildlife. What is good about subsidizing junk crops? What is good about subsidizing the fuel used to ship food across the world when it can be grown literally in one's backyard? What if we funded robotics and technology for small agriculture instead of drones that kill Pakistani civilians and children? What is good about the conflation of money and value, to the point where money is lauded over health and freedom? Your premise seems to be that people have decided they want industrialized agriculture because farming "sucks." To you this seems to imply that therefore industrialized agriculture is good and that there are not alternatives. We will and should become more and more materialistic, inert, disconnected from family and nature, because what people want must be good. We are not being manipulated by world government systems that have their own benefit at heart. I reject this premise wholeheartedly.
- penguindev 13y ago
  Why should anything scale to feeding 7 billion? You realize we are at 7 billion now because of previous scientific food efforts, like hybridizing wheat / GMO / toxic insecticides? All science is doing is making the problem bigger and bigger. Stop subsidizing population growth.
  - philwelch 13y ago
    So you recommend letting people starve to death.
    - penguindev 13y ago
      I recommend people respect our planet, animals, and each other, and live responsibly and sustainably with what we have been given and has proven to already work. I also recommend thinking critically, logically, and avoiding false dichotomies.
      - philwelch 13y ago
        There are 7 billion people alive today. If we can't produce enough food for them all, people will starve. There's nothing false about that dichotomy, only your evasion.
        penguindev 13y ago
        So if the african, muslim countries, and india adopted a one child policy tomorrow like china did, how many people would starve? versus your proposal of continuing mad science and putting it in our bodies. We have 1 billion undernourished today (note that there were only 1 billion in the whole world in 1804). And most of the rest of us are getting diabetes due to massive sugar and starch intake, promised by science as being 'good for us'. We also have mercury in our fish, hormones in our cows, insecticides in our veggies, fracking chemicals in our groundwater to get natural gas to make synthetic fertilizer, chemicals fed to pigs to make them grow faster (in the US anyway, china doesn't even allow that crap to be sold)... So why exactly do some people still think malthus was wrong? How exactly can some people defend population growth? How exactly are you going to prove this shit is 'SAFE'? When scientists for 50 years haven't even been able to prove if animal fat is healthy for us or not? And we have been eating that for a million years? Do you understand 'First, Do No Harm?'
tomjen3 13y ago
Because some of us have heard about the conditions subsitense farmers (and that is really what you are talking about) lived under. Industrializations biggest contribution to mankinds improvement of life is to get us away from the farm. The farm you imagine will never and can never be. If we can't used modern farming methods then we have to work with hard back-breaking labor 14+ hours a day from childhood and until we die, likely around 60 years old. If you want to, keep your job but plant a garden and grow some food in it - then you will get the connection to nature that it appears some people need, without destroying your life.
- wprl 13y ago
  That's what I am doing, actually. As a beginner, I'm producing about 15% of my food now, eggs and vegetables, while also running a software business, and hanging about on HN. I live in a small city on about 1/4 acre. I expect to improve my yield quite a bit — three or four times in the next few seasons. I buy almost exclusively organic, local produce and meat. It's amazing how the savings begin to add up when you cook your own meals and buy in bulk when possible. Sure, not everyone will want to do all this, but I think it goes to show how many assumptions about the current food economy/infrastructure are not true and how much could change thinking creatively, and prioritizing health, the environment, self-determination, etc. over convenience of industrialized and junk/fast foods. Someone with mechanized equipment and a few acres could produce much more organic produce than I do in the same amount of time, and meat, cheese, and eggs. Enough to supply dozens or more families with food. And because internet access is available, they are not disconnected from the world and could even run a software business like I do (or be an artist, or accountant, or mechanic, or virtual assistant, chef, or any number of jobs). There are dozens more creative ways to reduce or eliminate our dependence on industrialized food. Technology should promote life, not seek to replace it. If you read all that, then thanks.
  - tomjen3 13y ago
    Okay that is fair enough, I love people who try new things but I am somewhat tired of those who just want to recreate an idillyc past that never was.
  - 13y ago
mistercow 13y ago
There are many reasons, but all the others become moot when you take into account that a return to traditional agriculture is economically impossible. It survives as a niche product, but it can't remotely compete on scale and price.

by wprl 13y ago

philwelch 13y ago

Because it doesn't scale to feeding 7 billion people for one. Because most people in industrialized countries don't want to be farm labor for two.

wprl 13y ago
Perhaps it's true that you can't feed the whole world without industrialized food, but you could feed the vast majority of people who live in cooperative climates. It's debatable whether the rest couldn't be fed as well. Also, it wouldn't take "most people" to support small-farm agriculture. Many would gladly raise organic produce and livestock, and sell locally if the food economy were not stacked against them. It also provides more financial independence than minimum wage jobs, and many full-time jobs. Not to mention it would create many jobs.
- philwelch 13y ago
  Creating jobs that people don't want and won't show up for, more like. With unemployment where it is now, you'd think Americans would sign up to pick fruit. But they don't, and we're dependent on migrant labor. More labor also means more expensive food. In the whole spectrum of human existence, farming sucks. It sucked so much that people remained hunter-gatherers as long as they could to avoid it, and it sucks so much that people leapt at the chance to become industrial wage slaves to avoid it. Turning more people into farmers out of some crazy left wing ideology sounds like a bad idea to me. I think Cambodia tried it once.
  - wprl 13y ago
    Unfortunately, your opinion just isn't based in fact.
    - philwelch 13y ago
      My opinion is based on the current US farm labor situation and the general history of mankind that saw hunter-gatherers forcibly displace agricultural civilizations throughout the Middle Ages followed by massive migration to cities since th Industrial Revolution. Your opinion is based on what facts exactly?
      - wprl 13y ago
        The displacement caused by industrialization and imperialism, and the economies they foster, is not a situation in which enfranchised working class people are making informed decisions about their future, freely choose their lot, and draw from the public resources managed by their benevolent representative governments. It wasn't the case then, and it isn't the case now. The fact is that industrialized agriculture represents a massive centralization of the production of a basic necessity of life. It is made to be perceived to be less inexpensive through subsidies on low-nutrition crops such as corn, sugar, and wheat, subsidies for import and export, state-funded research into literal Frankenstein's monsters built of corn, fish, and insect genes. Patents for the basic building blocks of life are issued and violations enforced, even cases of accidental spread of these genes by wind. Pollutants and hormones abound. And what do we get? Lower nutrition when picked, lower nutrition because of shipping and storage, insecticides, hormones, anti-biotics, factory meat and egg production that makes a mockery of animal life, runoff that poisons our water supply and wildlife. What is good about subsidizing junk crops? What is good about subsidizing the fuel used to ship food across the world when it can be grown literally in one's backyard? What if we funded robotics and technology for small agriculture instead of drones that kill Pakistani civilians and children? What is good about the conflation of money and value, to the point where money is lauded over health and freedom? Your premise seems to be that people have decided they want industrialized agriculture because farming "sucks." To you this seems to imply that therefore industrialized agriculture is good and that there are not alternatives. We will and should become more and more materialistic, inert, disconnected from family and nature, because what people want must be good. We are not being manipulated by world government systems that have their own benefit at heart. I reject this premise wholeheartedly.
penguindev 13y ago
Why should anything scale to feeding 7 billion? You realize we are at 7 billion now because of previous scientific food efforts, like hybridizing wheat / GMO / toxic insecticides? All science is doing is making the problem bigger and bigger. Stop subsidizing population growth.
- philwelch 13y ago
  So you recommend letting people starve to death.
  - penguindev 13y ago
    I recommend people respect our planet, animals, and each other, and live responsibly and sustainably with what we have been given and has proven to already work. I also recommend thinking critically, logically, and avoiding false dichotomies.
    - philwelch 13y ago
      There are 7 billion people alive today. If we can't produce enough food for them all, people will starve. There's nothing false about that dichotomy, only your evasion.
      - penguindev 13y ago
        So if the african, muslim countries, and india adopted a one child policy tomorrow like china did, how many people would starve? versus your proposal of continuing mad science and putting it in our bodies. We have 1 billion undernourished today (note that there were only 1 billion in the whole world in 1804). And most of the rest of us are getting diabetes due to massive sugar and starch intake, promised by science as being 'good for us'. We also have mercury in our fish, hormones in our cows, insecticides in our veggies, fracking chemicals in our groundwater to get natural gas to make synthetic fertilizer, chemicals fed to pigs to make them grow faster (in the US anyway, china doesn't even allow that crap to be sold)... So why exactly do some people still think malthus was wrong? How exactly can some people defend population growth? How exactly are you going to prove this shit is 'SAFE'? When scientists for 50 years haven't even been able to prove if animal fat is healthy for us or not? And we have been eating that for a million years? Do you understand 'First, Do No Harm?'

tomjen3 13y ago

Because some of us have heard about the conditions subsitense farmers (and that is really what you are talking about) lived under. Industrializations biggest contribution to mankinds improvement of life is to get us away from the farm. The farm you imagine will never and can never be. If we can't used modern farming methods then we have to work with hard back-breaking labor 14+ hours a day from childhood and until we die, likely around 60 years old. If you want to, keep your job but plant a garden and grow some food in it - then you will get the connection to nature that it appears some people need, without destroying your life.

wprl 13y ago
That's what I am doing, actually. As a beginner, I'm producing about 15% of my food now, eggs and vegetables, while also running a software business, and hanging about on HN. I live in a small city on about 1/4 acre. I expect to improve my yield quite a bit — three or four times in the next few seasons. I buy almost exclusively organic, local produce and meat. It's amazing how the savings begin to add up when you cook your own meals and buy in bulk when possible. Sure, not everyone will want to do all this, but I think it goes to show how many assumptions about the current food economy/infrastructure are not true and how much could change thinking creatively, and prioritizing health, the environment, self-determination, etc. over convenience of industrialized and junk/fast foods. Someone with mechanized equipment and a few acres could produce much more organic produce than I do in the same amount of time, and meat, cheese, and eggs. Enough to supply dozens or more families with food. And because internet access is available, they are not disconnected from the world and could even run a software business like I do (or be an artist, or accountant, or mechanic, or virtual assistant, chef, or any number of jobs). There are dozens more creative ways to reduce or eliminate our dependence on industrialized food. Technology should promote life, not seek to replace it. If you read all that, then thanks.
- tomjen3 13y ago
  Okay that is fair enough, I love people who try new things but I am somewhat tired of those who just want to recreate an idillyc past that never was.
- 13y ago

mistercow 13y ago

There are many reasons, but all the others become moot when you take into account that a return to traditional agriculture is economically impossible. It survives as a niche product, but it can't remotely compete on scale and price.