3 ms·
I think this point is moot. Degradation of soil - or specifically - the ability of topsoil to retain enough nutrients to support agriculture - is not the prima
by nikhilsoman 12y ago
I think this point is moot.
Degradation of soil - or specifically - the ability of topsoil to retain enough nutrients to support agriculture - is not the primary problem we are facing today.
The key issues are -
#1 Reclamation of fertile land for housing the burgeoning population is the largest reason for declining food production - which in turn leads to the increasing use of chemical fertilizers for enhanced yield from the same or reduced available land.
#2 The % of population engaged in agriculture as compared to pure consumers of agricultural produce.
This is perhaps what msandford meant. The net number of agricultural workers 'producers' is rapidly declining due to higher yield 'jobs' off farm. This impacts output/acre significantly.
However the ceiling for human resource in farming is pretty low. Perhaps we need to look at a metric like Man month/unit of produce.
The need of the hour is to change the basic value chain. Consumers have no stake in (and dont care about) the production or the land itself.
Farmers are being marginalized by increasing land prices/roi on selling farmland for other purposes.
Landowners/Bulk Consumers are driven by volumes - not necessarily by sustainability. This is like strip mining.
Perhaps a new platform is required to realign the value chain.
The above is particularly true for India - which will also be one of the hardest hit - earliest.
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- throwaway48303 12y ago> The % of population engaged in agriculture as compared to pure consumers of agricultural produce. This is perhaps what msandford meant. The net number of agricultural workers 'producers' is rapidly declining due to higher yield 'jobs' off farm. This impacts output/acre significantly. That has not been the case. Yields have improved in lock-step with the decrease of farmers. This is largely due to improvements in farming equipment, better hybrids, transgenic traits and other technological improvements.
- briantakita 12y ago> Degradation of soil - or specifically - the ability of topsoil to retain enough nutrients to support agriculture - is not the primary problem we are facing today. I agree. The biggest problem is our culture taking an overly simplistic reductionistic approach to create solutions (aka the silver bullet). There are a number of issues that all need to be addressed. That being said, Degradation of soil is a major issue that needs to be addressed; if it's not addressed, we will have compounding issues. Note that 12 million hecacres of arable land is lost every year from desertification, caused by soil degradation. http://www.un.org/en/events/desertificationday/background.shtml http://www.un.org/en/events/desertificationday/background.sh...