4 ms·

> That means that the limit for how much food we can get is due to the number of farmers, not the amount of acres I think a pretty serious limit would be that

> That means that the limit for how much food we can get is due to the number of farmers, not the amount of acres I think a pretty serious limit would be that most plants need space, you can only fit a limited number of a crop in an acre and after a certain (fairly low) point having more farmers would not help anything.

msandford 12y ago
Agreed, but industrial agribusiness is predicated on huge automation and the idea that one farmer can farm hundred or thousands of acres. That's an efficient use of labor, but not of acres. We might be getting to the point that land is more valuable than labor and thus it makes sense to spend more human effort per acre than in the past. Here are people in LA that grow a huge amount of food in their backyard, 1/10 of an acre: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NCmTJkZy0rM https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NCmTJkZy0rM Here's a guy in Canada that makes a legit living urban farming 1/3 of an acre: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TnCIlq0KPw0 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TnCIlq0KPw0 There are tons of additional examples on youtube of other people doing very similar things. The point, though, is that it's very intensive on a labor per acre basis. You can't do this kind of farming with big tractors over thousands of acres with just a few people, you need several people per acre for it to work. But it does work! Yes there is a limit eventually, but the point isn't as low as you think.
- joshuapants 12y ago
  The LA example is interesting, I'd be interested in seeing a more detailed breakdown of what exactly they grew because pounds of food aren't exactly fungible (a pound of lettuce has 77 calories, a pound of potatoes has ~350). From some back of the napkin math, it seems that current farming techniques yield about 50,000 pounds of potatoes per acre, so on the 1/10 acre scale in terms of vegetable matter they outpace the LA farm (though this will vary by crop. It might make more sense to compare calories per acre). I think you have a point, it's certainly worth looking into whether the gains from more labor-intensive farming are greater than the cost of labor when adopted en masse.
  - msandford 12y ago
    It might also make sense to look at it from a gallons of fuel per acre too. Even if you only break even in terms of production, if you can eliminate the reliance on diesel and all the compromises that must be made there might be substantial wins nonetheless. For example as farming gets more labor intensive you can do things like cut steps into a hill to stop erosion or to till and plant always perpendicular to the slope of the hill so that there aren't any easy channels for runoff to head downhill. I've read that in the US there are 9 calories of fuel in every 1 calorie of food delivered to the table. In other places around the world, it's more like 1 calorie of fuel to every 1 calorie of food. In other words, many places are turning fuel directly into food on a 1:1 basis. It takes us 9 times as much fuel to make food, which is pretty friggin awful. If you don't mind that he's an outspoken, right-wing, traditional Christian kinda guy Joel Salatin has some very interesting ideas about getting a lot of use out of land with very, very little fuel and not much feed input. Here's one video but there are tons more in the sidebar: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=13i1ZUovj6Y https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=13i1ZUovj6Y
dwiel 12y ago
I pulled some numbers from us government data 5 years ago or so and found that farms 10,000+ acres got around $300 revenue / acre, compared to 1-5 acre farms which got $30000 revenue / acre. Big farms have a better ROI. Invest $1M into large scale farms and you get more profit out than investing $1M into small scale farms. Large farms are more efficient with money and labor. Small farms are more efficient with space.
- GeneralMayhem 12y ago
  It's not obvious that dollar-value is a good proxy for food quantity. How much of that is explained by crop choice? Large farms grow grains, which are relatively cheap; fruits and specialty items require more individual care and by-hand harvesting, so they should correlate with smaller farms, and they sell for much more $/calorie.
  - dwiel 12y ago
    That is a good point, but 100x more expensive seems like it can't entirely be accounted for by more specialty crops. Most small farms in my area do most of their sales growing typical vegetables: tomatoes, peppers, lettuce, kale, cucumbers, etc. Wheat is, in bulk, $0.125/lb right now. At a farmers market, there are a few things that fetch $12.50/lb, but not too many. There are plenty which sell for $1-$2/lb. That does account for 10x of the cost difference though, thanks.
    - GeneralMayhem 12y ago
      Picking which price to use could easily vary another 10x either way. Is the government using local farmer's markets, retail at grocery stores across the country, or the price that retailers pay farmers? What does a "bulk" price mean for grains? Corn is at about 7 cents per pound, if you buy it a metric ton at a time on the commodity market. Not saying the result you got is necessarily wrong, but I'm very skeptical of economic comparisons that don't carefully control for these sorts of things.
pixl97 12y ago
That depends on the crop. Most tomato plants picked commercially are short plants that have a relatively low density per meter squared (at least where I lived at in the mid-west). Now when I grow my own plants I can grow them at much larger heights and in higher densities than can be effectively machine harvested. Plants that I grow myself have a much higher yield than the average field crop, but at the cost of much more intensive labor.
cplease 12y ago
> a certain (fairly low) point having more farmers would not help anything. Not help anything? Those farmers have to eat. After a certain low point you are in Nigeria.
- joshuapants 12y ago
  I'm not sure I understand the point you're trying to make. I said there would be diminishing returns on labor per acre. Having 100 people swarming an acre of crops is more likely to damage things than help them.
  - cplease 12y ago
    The point is it's not diminishing returns or "not helping", approaching some maximum efficiency, but rather it is negative returns. Even before you get to the point of squeezing out maximum yield, more farmers are going to eat up all the net yield they contribute and then some. Subsistence farming has not historically been a great lifestyle.
    - msandford 12y ago
      Right, but in the US the average farming ratio is 0.001 farmers per acre. Going to 0.03 farmers per acre is a 30x increase in "labor intensity" but may well be below negative returns.
      - cplease 12y ago
        That number doesn't count migrant workers, which would grossly inflate the US average. Also, the US average is not typical.

msandford 12y ago

Agreed, but industrial agribusiness is predicated on huge automation and the idea that one farmer can farm hundred or thousands of acres. That's an efficient use of labor, but not of acres. We might be getting to the point that land is more valuable than labor and thus it makes sense to spend more human effort per acre than in the past. Here are people in LA that grow a huge amount of food in their backyard, 1/10 of an acre: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NCmTJkZy0rM https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NCmTJkZy0rM Here's a guy in Canada that makes a legit living urban farming 1/3 of an acre: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TnCIlq0KPw0 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TnCIlq0KPw0 There are tons of additional examples on youtube of other people doing very similar things. The point, though, is that it's very intensive on a labor per acre basis. You can't do this kind of farming with big tractors over thousands of acres with just a few people, you need several people per acre for it to work. But it does work! Yes there is a limit eventually, but the point isn't as low as you think.

joshuapants 12y ago
The LA example is interesting, I'd be interested in seeing a more detailed breakdown of what exactly they grew because pounds of food aren't exactly fungible (a pound of lettuce has 77 calories, a pound of potatoes has ~350). From some back of the napkin math, it seems that current farming techniques yield about 50,000 pounds of potatoes per acre, so on the 1/10 acre scale in terms of vegetable matter they outpace the LA farm (though this will vary by crop. It might make more sense to compare calories per acre). I think you have a point, it's certainly worth looking into whether the gains from more labor-intensive farming are greater than the cost of labor when adopted en masse.
- msandford 12y ago
  It might also make sense to look at it from a gallons of fuel per acre too. Even if you only break even in terms of production, if you can eliminate the reliance on diesel and all the compromises that must be made there might be substantial wins nonetheless. For example as farming gets more labor intensive you can do things like cut steps into a hill to stop erosion or to till and plant always perpendicular to the slope of the hill so that there aren't any easy channels for runoff to head downhill. I've read that in the US there are 9 calories of fuel in every 1 calorie of food delivered to the table. In other places around the world, it's more like 1 calorie of fuel to every 1 calorie of food. In other words, many places are turning fuel directly into food on a 1:1 basis. It takes us 9 times as much fuel to make food, which is pretty friggin awful. If you don't mind that he's an outspoken, right-wing, traditional Christian kinda guy Joel Salatin has some very interesting ideas about getting a lot of use out of land with very, very little fuel and not much feed input. Here's one video but there are tons more in the sidebar: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=13i1ZUovj6Y https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=13i1ZUovj6Y

dwiel 12y ago

I pulled some numbers from us government data 5 years ago or so and found that farms 10,000+ acres got around $300 revenue / acre, compared to 1-5 acre farms which got $30000 revenue / acre. Big farms have a better ROI. Invest $1M into large scale farms and you get more profit out than investing $1M into small scale farms. Large farms are more efficient with money and labor. Small farms are more efficient with space.

GeneralMayhem 12y ago
It's not obvious that dollar-value is a good proxy for food quantity. How much of that is explained by crop choice? Large farms grow grains, which are relatively cheap; fruits and specialty items require more individual care and by-hand harvesting, so they should correlate with smaller farms, and they sell for much more $/calorie.
- dwiel 12y ago
  That is a good point, but 100x more expensive seems like it can't entirely be accounted for by more specialty crops. Most small farms in my area do most of their sales growing typical vegetables: tomatoes, peppers, lettuce, kale, cucumbers, etc. Wheat is, in bulk, $0.125/lb right now. At a farmers market, there are a few things that fetch $12.50/lb, but not too many. There are plenty which sell for $1-$2/lb. That does account for 10x of the cost difference though, thanks.
  - GeneralMayhem 12y ago
    Picking which price to use could easily vary another 10x either way. Is the government using local farmer's markets, retail at grocery stores across the country, or the price that retailers pay farmers? What does a "bulk" price mean for grains? Corn is at about 7 cents per pound, if you buy it a metric ton at a time on the commodity market. Not saying the result you got is necessarily wrong, but I'm very skeptical of economic comparisons that don't carefully control for these sorts of things.

pixl97 12y ago

That depends on the crop. Most tomato plants picked commercially are short plants that have a relatively low density per meter squared (at least where I lived at in the mid-west). Now when I grow my own plants I can grow them at much larger heights and in higher densities than can be effectively machine harvested. Plants that I grow myself have a much higher yield than the average field crop, but at the cost of much more intensive labor.

cplease 12y ago

> a certain (fairly low) point having more farmers would not help anything. Not help anything? Those farmers have to eat. After a certain low point you are in Nigeria.

joshuapants 12y ago
I'm not sure I understand the point you're trying to make. I said there would be diminishing returns on labor per acre. Having 100 people swarming an acre of crops is more likely to damage things than help them.
- cplease 12y ago
  The point is it's not diminishing returns or "not helping", approaching some maximum efficiency, but rather it is negative returns. Even before you get to the point of squeezing out maximum yield, more farmers are going to eat up all the net yield they contribute and then some. Subsistence farming has not historically been a great lifestyle.
  - msandford 12y ago
    Right, but in the US the average farming ratio is 0.001 farmers per acre. Going to 0.03 farmers per acre is a 30x increase in "labor intensity" but may well be below negative returns.
    - cplease 12y ago
      That number doesn't count migrant workers, which would grossly inflate the US average. Also, the US average is not typical.