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Monoculture, petrol, chemical agriculture is often produced in a centralized manner, which introduces inefficiencies (with environmental issues) in transport, f

Monoculture, petrol, chemical agriculture is often produced in a centralized manner, which introduces inefficiencies (with environmental issues) in transport, fertilization, pest control, etc. The current paradigm also requires large amounts of capital to purchase machinery, mined fertilizer, poisonous pesticides, GMOs where seeds can't be saved, etc. This cycle of dependence has caused many small farms to be in financial crisis. Also, don't forget that large scale factory farming is subsidized by the government. Without these subsidizations, large scale factory farming is not viable. Factory meat production follows the same pattern of monoculture, with disgusting & unhealthy results. The alternative is to decentralize food production. Small, organic, polyculture farms reduce or eliminate the need to transport food over long distances, import fertilizer, use pesticides. Decentralized food production also enables the farmer to be independent of having to purchase expensive inputs from large multinational corporations. Small farms are more humane and, similar to startups, freer to innovate.

kiba 11y ago
Large scale monoculture is a necessity to feed the world. What are you going to do with a tiny farm that cannot benefit from the economy of scale and agricultural tech?
- briantakita 11y ago
  Large scale monoculture is not necessary. It's not one tiny farm, it's many tiny farms owned by the people who live in that region. Many of the problems that are "solved" with technology don't exist in natural perennial polycultures. For example, pests. In a natural perennial polyculture, you have an ecosystem that naturally manages the pests (via predators). These organisms evolve with the pests. Tiny farms grow more food per acre than large monoculture farms. Agricultural tech creates problems of it's own & does not match the prowess of nature. Natural processes grow the food, not technology. Technology can help, however, it can also hinder, and it does in our current petrolchemical centralized paradigm. Look at the pollution, soil degregation, erosion, desertification, poverty, etc. Large scale monoculture ruined just about every ecosystem that it has been used on. For example, the American Plains used to have 10s of feet of rich topsoil built by natural processes over the years. It's now eroded due to runoff & mismanagement propagated by large scale monoculture. I can provide many other examples & problems, but I'll keep this post short. Large scale monoculture is a failed experiment & a blight on the planet. It's also only viable because of government subsidization. Our monoculture paradigm benefitted from, wasted, & toxified our natural inheritance in less than 100 years. So yes, monoculture is extremely efficient at creating a mess.
  - Turing_Machine 11y ago
    "Large scale monoculture is a failed experiment" That is simply not true. Crop yields continue to increase. By a lot. http://crops.missouri.edu/audit/images/CornYields_MO.jpg http://crops.missouri.edu/audit/images/CornYields_MO.jpg We no longer need to have 90% of the population working as stoop-labor agricultural peasants. Famine is essentially a thing of the past (it only happens in areas where the government is severely fucked up for one reason or another). Mechanized agriculture is the greatest success story in the history of the human race. If you really want to go back to the age of peasants and serfs, why don't you lead by example? Start by producing all of your own food using intensive hand cultivation. Then produce all of the food for 150 other people using intensive hand cultivation.
    - briantakita 11y ago
      > Crop yields continue to increase This is like judging someone's wealth by their ability to rapidly use a credit card. Monoculture has destroyed our ecosystems, caused rampant desertification, caused soil runoff, stip mined the less fortunate countries, polluted our water, increased pests overpopulation, increased disease, etc. > If you really want to go back to the age of peasants and serfs, why don't you lead by example? Dualistic solution-centric thinking is an issue with our times. It's time to think systemically. How can we improve existing systems? Which paradigms are appropriate to our entire context? Can we move toward an ethics driven paradigm, instead of a solution centric paradigm? There are many solutions to a problem, but some have maladaptive implications in a broader context not considered by myopic vision. Can we start to view the world with a broader context; beyond money & a certain strain of technological progress? Can we move beyond reductionistic metrics & take the entire situation into account? Also, is it so bad to have more farmers? Many natural farmers don't seem to think so. Is the hustle & bustle of city life with it's stress & unemployment a good life? Will the Pharmaceutical industry cure our Nature Deficit Disorder? What's left when you worked hard all of your life & it's your time to die? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nature_deficit_disorder https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nature_deficit_disorder While I don't own land (it's quite expensive in the current economic system), I do support local farmers & participate in local economies to a certain extend. I'd love to increase my participation because it's the responsible thing to do.
- Daishiman 11y ago
  Not really. Small-scale precision farming has yields much larger, but it is labor-intensive. All things considered, it's more sustainable.
  - Turing_Machine 11y ago
    How much of your food do you, personally, produce with labor-intensive farming techniques?
    - Daishiman 11y ago
      I work with people on that space. You can realistically supply, with proper irrigation techiques and soil nutrition, much more than enough to feed yourself with only a moderate investment in time.

kiba 11y ago

Large scale monoculture is a necessity to feed the world. What are you going to do with a tiny farm that cannot benefit from the economy of scale and agricultural tech?

briantakita 11y ago
Large scale monoculture is not necessary. It's not one tiny farm, it's many tiny farms owned by the people who live in that region. Many of the problems that are "solved" with technology don't exist in natural perennial polycultures. For example, pests. In a natural perennial polyculture, you have an ecosystem that naturally manages the pests (via predators). These organisms evolve with the pests. Tiny farms grow more food per acre than large monoculture farms. Agricultural tech creates problems of it's own & does not match the prowess of nature. Natural processes grow the food, not technology. Technology can help, however, it can also hinder, and it does in our current petrolchemical centralized paradigm. Look at the pollution, soil degregation, erosion, desertification, poverty, etc. Large scale monoculture ruined just about every ecosystem that it has been used on. For example, the American Plains used to have 10s of feet of rich topsoil built by natural processes over the years. It's now eroded due to runoff & mismanagement propagated by large scale monoculture. I can provide many other examples & problems, but I'll keep this post short. Large scale monoculture is a failed experiment & a blight on the planet. It's also only viable because of government subsidization. Our monoculture paradigm benefitted from, wasted, & toxified our natural inheritance in less than 100 years. So yes, monoculture is extremely efficient at creating a mess.
- Turing_Machine 11y ago
  "Large scale monoculture is a failed experiment" That is simply not true. Crop yields continue to increase. By a lot. http://crops.missouri.edu/audit/images/CornYields_MO.jpg http://crops.missouri.edu/audit/images/CornYields_MO.jpg We no longer need to have 90% of the population working as stoop-labor agricultural peasants. Famine is essentially a thing of the past (it only happens in areas where the government is severely fucked up for one reason or another). Mechanized agriculture is the greatest success story in the history of the human race. If you really want to go back to the age of peasants and serfs, why don't you lead by example? Start by producing all of your own food using intensive hand cultivation. Then produce all of the food for 150 other people using intensive hand cultivation.
  - briantakita 11y ago
    > Crop yields continue to increase This is like judging someone's wealth by their ability to rapidly use a credit card. Monoculture has destroyed our ecosystems, caused rampant desertification, caused soil runoff, stip mined the less fortunate countries, polluted our water, increased pests overpopulation, increased disease, etc. > If you really want to go back to the age of peasants and serfs, why don't you lead by example? Dualistic solution-centric thinking is an issue with our times. It's time to think systemically. How can we improve existing systems? Which paradigms are appropriate to our entire context? Can we move toward an ethics driven paradigm, instead of a solution centric paradigm? There are many solutions to a problem, but some have maladaptive implications in a broader context not considered by myopic vision. Can we start to view the world with a broader context; beyond money & a certain strain of technological progress? Can we move beyond reductionistic metrics & take the entire situation into account? Also, is it so bad to have more farmers? Many natural farmers don't seem to think so. Is the hustle & bustle of city life with it's stress & unemployment a good life? Will the Pharmaceutical industry cure our Nature Deficit Disorder? What's left when you worked hard all of your life & it's your time to die? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nature_deficit_disorder https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nature_deficit_disorder While I don't own land (it's quite expensive in the current economic system), I do support local farmers & participate in local economies to a certain extend. I'd love to increase my participation because it's the responsible thing to do.
Daishiman 11y ago
Not really. Small-scale precision farming has yields much larger, but it is labor-intensive. All things considered, it's more sustainable.
- Turing_Machine 11y ago
  How much of your food do you, personally, produce with labor-intensive farming techniques?
  - Daishiman 11y ago
    I work with people on that space. You can realistically supply, with proper irrigation techiques and soil nutrition, much more than enough to feed yourself with only a moderate investment in time.