[HN Gopher] Organic and regenerative agriculture are revitalizin...
___________________________________________________________________
Organic and regenerative agriculture are revitalizing rural Montana
economies
Author : DerekBickerton
Score : 426 points
Date : 2021-07-12 11:43 UTC (11 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (montanafreepress.org)
(TXT) w3m dump (montanafreepress.org)
| emilywolfe wrote:
| Emily Wolfe here, I'm the person who wrote this story. As I plan
| the second story in the series, which will be about new markets
| related to organic and regenerative, I'm curious to know a couple
| of things:
|
| -isn't this a tech/VC blog? How is it that so many of you are so
| interested in and knowledgeable about agriculture?
|
| -what about this story made you want to discuss it here?
|
| Looking forward to learning more!
| underdeserver wrote:
| It's not a blog, it's a user-submitted news story aggregator.
|
| And we the users are nerds, and while most of us work in
| software engineering, we're interested in everything and
| anything deep and tech/science related.
| Floegipoky wrote:
| Speaking in generalities but hackers love hard problems, and
| implementing a 21st century food system is the intersection of
| most of the biggest problems of our time- climate change,
| population growth, sustainable energy. The fact that the best
| solutions seem to involve decentralization, taking a big chunk
| out of the market cap of destructive megacorporations, and
| transferring power down the class hierarchy aligns closely with
| the hacker ethos as well.
| evv555 wrote:
| >isn't this a tech/VC blog? How is it that so many of you are
| so interested in and knowledgeable about agriculture?
|
| It's a moderated forum of scientists, engineers, and
| intellectuals. ycombinator was one of the original VC funders
| of reddit and decided to use the same idea for its VC
| community.
| naasking wrote:
| > It's a moderated forum of scientists, engineers, and
| intellectuals.
|
| There sure are a lot of stereotypes about tech enthusiasts.
| Hackers are interested in hacking nature too! ;-)
| te_chris wrote:
| Personally, I'm fascinated by the system aspect of regenerative
| (etc.) ag. A lot of what I do as a tech CTO is systems based,
| but realistically we're just mere amateurs compared to nature.
| Plus screens are boring.
| tagami wrote:
| We run astrobiology experiments aboard the ISS for students
| around the world. In addition to making life better here on
| Earth, regenerative Ag is critical for off-world
| sustainability.
| DubiousPusher wrote:
| I actually come here more for these kind of stories than the
| tech news. From the hacker news guidlines:
|
| What to Submit
|
| On-Topic: Anything that good hackers would find interesting.
| That includes more than hacking and startups. If you had to
| reduce it to a sentence, the answer might be: anything that
| gratifies one's intellectual curiosity.
| mkoubaa wrote:
| By the broadest definition this is in fact technology. I'm
| personally very interested in sustainable agriculture both from
| a technological standpoint and a community impact standpoint
| durkie wrote:
| Is there an economic argument to be made for increasing the
| amount of money spent in the local economy?
|
| I often hear it cited as a benefit in situations like this, and
| it has a certain feel-good quality to it, but instinctively it
| feels like it means people pay higher prices: if you're buying
| seed from the local seed & feed, it's almost certainly more
| expensive than if you buy it from XYZ megacorp.
| egypturnash wrote:
| Money given to a megacorp leaves the local economy, leaving the
| local area poorer, overall. Money given to your neighbors stays
| in the local economy.
|
| A well-off local economy supports more things than a poor one.
| Local seed & feed shops are a start, but think of every other
| business that might be part of a small town: grocery stores,
| bookshops, art galleries, clothing, musicians, movie theaters,
| children's party entertainers, furniture makers, car
| dealerships, repair shops... how many of these things used to
| be made locally, and are now made by people working under
| dubious conditions somewhere in Asia, then shipped across the
| world at a huge, but completely-ignored cost to the
| environment? How many local shops has Wal-Mart ruined by being
| large enough to cut predatory deals with suppliers that let
| them sell stuff below any sane price point? How much money left
| the entire US economy for Jeff Bezos' pockets during the
| pandemic?
|
| Keeping money in the local economy leads to better-off
| neighbors. Better-off neighbors are less likely to resort to
| criminal acts to feed your family; better-off neighbors are
| more likely to be able to help you out if something bad
| happens.
|
| The metaphor that comes easily to mind is water: each local
| economy is a pool, with the locals the fish swimming in it.
| Buying stuff from a megacorp may be cheaper in the short run,
| but every time you do that, the corporation is pumping a bit of
| the water out of your pond and putting a little of it in
| _their_ pond, far far away, and most of it in their giant
| storage tank even further away, where it sits, unused.
| Ultimately your pond dries up and either you leave for a larger
| pond that hasn 't been sucked dry by corporations, or you end
| up baking in the sun and dying.
| kickout wrote:
| I agree with most of your comments. I would like to add that
| a LARGE chunk of rural (truly rural) economic rely heavily on
| Big Ag and selling those products.
|
| From co-ops to seed dealers, chemical dealers, people to
| apply and plant these chemicals and seed. Equipment (Deere,
| Case)...if these people vanished, rural america would suffer
| GREATLY. Locall replacements for these jobs/companies is not
| clear to me.
| majormajor wrote:
| Beyond just the an outsourcing-style one? Where the local
| circulation is more important than the immediate sticker price?
| Giving your money to someone else local means they can purchase
| stuff from someone else local who then can purchase stuff from
| someone else local, etc... vs that money being out of the local
| economy entirely.
| jeffreyrogers wrote:
| Maybe not a strictly economic one, but probably a socioeconomic
| one: that keeping more money in local communities helps those
| communities to be better places to live.
|
| Whether that is true or not, I don't know. It's definitely true
| that corporate concentration has been increasing and that many
| of these communities are in decline.
| durkie wrote:
| There are definitely plenty of towns I've been to in rural
| America (north GA) that are clearly hollow shells of their
| former selves. And it's way more fun and interesting to be in
| a place that does have a thriving local economy. The
| socioeconomic benefits are clear. I'm just wondering if
| theres a way to frame it in economic terms, or if everything
| about resiliency, more local jobs, etc. are basically all
| "externalities".
| louis___ wrote:
| There is often an array of benefits.
|
| Following on your example, if you buy seed from the local seed
| & feed, you :
|
| - build resilience, for example if a global pandemic prevents
| far-reaching import-export
|
| - are less subject to geopolitics
|
| - money invested have a higher chance to stay in the local
| economy : the owner of the local seed & feed may buy its
| vegetables from you
|
| - create local jobs : this seed & feed owner may be able to
| create jobs for people
|
| - overall avoid the lock-in that you can have being tied to XYZ
| megacorp, for example if they now decide to only sell you seed
| that will grow with their newly branded feed
|
| - preserve local folklore : maybe there is a kind of seed that
| grows really well on your soil, but not so much in the others,
| so XYZ has decided to discontinue it because the market is too
| small to be profitable
| tastyfreeze wrote:
| If the seed is grown locally you can add "has adaptations to
| local environment" to that list.
| adrianN wrote:
| People might pay higher prices, but they also get better wages
| and the economy becomes more resilient against killing the
| whole area because the local economic network gets more edges.
| So there is a better chance to find a new job should your
| current job go away for some reason.
| samatman wrote:
| It's bang for buck, basically.
|
| Consider a single (physical) twenty dollar bill. If it enters a
| small town (remote worker for FAANG withdraws it out of an ATM)
| and then immediately leaves (from the Walmart till onto an
| armored truck to the local city center), that's $20 in economic
| activity.
|
| If it passes between five hands locally before it ends up on
| that truck, that's $100 of economic activity, five times as
| many opportunities for people to exchange what they have for
| what they want.
|
| _This is a toy model_ , there are a ton of things wrong with
| it, but it does illustrate a real point. In the six-hands
| scenario, more of the residents are offering goods and services
| to each other, in the two-hands scenario, everything is being
| provided to and by the larger economy. Less resilient, less
| locally-scaled, and it's easier to replace the small town with
| any other set of producer/consumers who offer lower prices or
| thinner wages.
| slumdev wrote:
| Please make this a hill that a large and vocal political group is
| willing to die on.
|
| There are ways to prevent the desertification of the United
| States, and they don't involve PhDs and lobbying.
| worik wrote:
| "In 2018 they went cold turkey on both pesticide and fertilizer,
| reducing their operational costs by $200,000 from the previous
| year, "
|
| I think that is going to be the property of this sort of
| agriculture that makes it really popular.
|
| Pity they cannot get carbon credits for the increase in top soil.
| Or can they?
| kaycebasques wrote:
| Has anyone here undergone a soil restoration project (big or
| small)? Did you happen to blog about the progress? There's so
| much I don't know, like how you even determine that your soil is
| degraded, or how you measure progress.
| gdubs wrote:
| My wife and I bought a farm in Oregon and we're in the process
| of doing exactly this. We don't have a blog yet - working on it
| - but we do have an instagram account if anyone's interested:
|
| http://instagram.com/cleryfarm/
|
| The previous owner had a soil test done, and through that we
| were able to assess how eroded it was (very). We switched the
| hay fields over to organic practices, but the biggest projects
| so far have been roughly 20 acres that we've put into
| conservation, including an oak woodland and an 'upland prairie'
| - both vanishing ecosystems in the state of Oregon.
|
| Long term we're moving towards agroforestry practices, and
| thinking through the lens of carbon sequestration. In the short
| term, we've been heavily focused on brush removal, tree
| limbing, etc, for wildfire prevention and suppression.
| floren wrote:
| I'd really like to know more about your farm--specifics about
| acreage, crops, location, etc. There's contact info linked
| from my profile, or if you don't mind dropping your email
| here, I'd love to pick your brain!
| kaycebasques wrote:
| Thanks for sharing. I followed your account. Looks like
| you're creating an idyllic life!
| artificialLimbs wrote:
| My wife and I have been heavily influenced by Sepp Holzer,
| Elaine Ingham, Fukuoka Masanobu, and others in the
| permaculture/regen ag scene.
|
| We bought a plot of land here in Arkansas a year and a half ago
| and have been working it, and plan to continue doing so with
| the aim of creating a self sustaining food forest and garden,
| one outcome of which will necessarily require healthy and
| strong soil. The ground is rocky and the rain runs off fast. We
| have been planting trees, bringing in leaf mulch, and leaving
| the cut grass when we mow.
|
| There are a shockingly large number of techniques and things to
| know about this kind of work. Join some groups on Facebook or
| IRL, visit with farmers at your local farmers market, and
| search around and you will be able to get your hands on more
| info than you can handle.
| blacktriangle wrote:
| Not on my own, but I spent some time working on a farm that had
| been working on soil restoration for roughly a decade. As time
| went on they had expanded the restoration efforts to new
| fields, What was awesome though was that they had soil cuts at
| each field so you could visually see the difference the years
| were making as the topsoil layer kept getting deeper and
| deeper.
| [deleted]
| hahamrfunnyguy wrote:
| I am doing it on a small and unscientific scale. My soil is
| silty sand with a pretty neutral PH. I need to add quite a bit
| of organic material to get plants to thrive. In the past, I'd
| turn everything over with a shovel each year. This year I went
| to a no-till method for my annual crops putting down cardboard
| and woodchips as mulch. If a plant gives me an indication of a
| deficiency, I will address it. For example, sometimes my
| tomatoes need a little extra magnesium.
| 0xffff2 wrote:
| >For example, sometimes my tomatoes need a little extra
| magnesium.
|
| How do you go about determining this? I just built a 400 sq.
| ft. greenhouse this year, and aside from watching the plants
| get bigger each day, I'm not really sure how to tell if I'm
| "doing it right".
| tastyfreeze wrote:
| Get a shovel and dig a hole where there are some plants
| growing. You will see a darker layer (soil) on top of a lighter
| layer. The lighter layer is dirt (sand, silt, clay) without
| carbon in the form of life and carbohydrates. Progress is
| measured by the depth of the darker layer. The native prairie
| had a dark layer filled with roots 30 feet deep. To determine
| exactly how healthy your soil layer is you will need a
| microscope to survey the microbiota. If you dont have a
| microscope you can get an idea of how you are doing by
| observing how well the soil aggregates and is bound to roots.
| In healthy soil plants will have soil aggregates stuck to their
| roots that have to be manually removed. The aggregates are
| formed by glomalin produced by fungus and bacteria.
|
| The more life you see in the soil the healthier it is.
| Predatory arthropods are a really good indicator. If they are
| around that means there is food for them.
| kickout wrote:
| Things like soil organic carbon (SoC) are commonly used
| measures of progress. Also things like humic acid and other
| secondary measures of biological can be used. No two patches of
| 'good' soil are the same, so there is some intuition involved
|
| I try and blog a little bit about sustainable ag on
| thinkingagriculture.io as I work in ag research and am
| interested in how this meta evolves.
| mattwest wrote:
| To determine the quality of your soil, you can perform a soil
| test. In the US, you will most likely find your local
| university offering this service through their extension
| agency. It will probably cost around 30 dollars, and you will
| need to probe samples from different locations on the property.
| They will assess and give you results. Some of the metrics are:
| concentration of major nutrients, organic matter content, pH,
| and CEC (cation exchange capacity). You will also probably
| receive a list of recommendations.
| AmrMostafa wrote:
| In the US, your local National Resources Conservation Service
| office also provides this service. Costs $7 - $10.
|
| Source: https://www.nrcs.usda.gov/Internet/FSE_DOCUMENTS/stel
| prdb116...
| songzme wrote:
| There's a guy in Montana called Paul Wheaton who spent the last 6
| years building soil rich in organic matter using no chemicals
| (pesticides & biocides) in his 200 acre plot of land. There were
| giant hugelkultur beds 15 ft high it was a crazy sight. He
| believes that in a decade the soil will be so rich in organic
| matter with healthy microbial activity (with no chemical history)
| could produce food that cures cancer. I believe that in an
| environment where human body is not weakened by the constant
| bombardment of chemical compounds, it could heal itself from
| cancer.
|
| He has a bootcamp and I took 2 weeks off from work to try it out
| in January and I learned alot just by being there.
| https://wheaton-labs.com/bootcamp/
|
| After that experience I couldn't focus on work anymore so I quit
| my job (I have 2 years worth of savings) and now my days are
| spent trying to restore the soil in my backyard.
| dsaavy wrote:
| Very cool seeing someone else on HN take on restoring their
| backyard soil. I've been at it for two years in my quarter acre
| plot and the results are starting to show, so keep at it! Very
| interested in your bootcamp link so thanks for posting that.
|
| Personal tangent: The property I have was a typical Roundup
| maintained monoculture lawn without any insect diversity, bees,
| etc. Now it's teeming with all types of insects and different
| native species that have re-established themselves and I've
| been able to use about half of the property for fruit and
| vegetable production. It's awesome to see the progress that's
| possible even in such a short time.
| amanaplanacanal wrote:
| Just bought a house surrounded by mostly lawn. I'm starting
| by sheet mulching my lawn with cardboard covered by a thick
| layer of wood chips. Hopefully the underlayer will be ready
| for planting next spring. Going to fill in between the food
| plants with clover, sweet peas, and lupine for nitrogen
| fixing. I'm looking forward to the transformation.
| soperj wrote:
| what are you doing to your backyard soil?
| songzme wrote:
| The dirt in my backyard has been so neglected it has turned
| rocky.
|
| first and foremost, I'm covering the bare dirt from direct
| sunlight by covering it with a layer of cardboard (empty
| amazon shipment boxes).
|
| Next is some aerated compost tea to speed up the microbial
| activity and loosen the dirt and start the process of turning
| it into soil. Add some compost along the way
|
| I'm documenting the journey on this forum if you want to
| follow along: https://permies.com/t/164053/Gardening-
| Journey#1286751
| tastyfreeze wrote:
| I checked out your post on permies. Using a garden fork or
| broad fork to loosen the compacted soil will speed up your
| progress. If you see dandelions or other long tap root
| plants they are trying to do the job of loosening soil.
| But, they can only go so fast. Forking the ground then
| covering with compost and watering in will jump you a few
| years farther in succession.
| songzme wrote:
| Really cool tip thank you! Found a garden fork on
| craigslist and will be picking it up later this
| afternoon.
| refurb wrote:
| Food that cures cancer. And what is the scientific basis of
| that?
| songzme wrote:
| There's no scientific conclusion that says cancer cannot be
| cured through natural means. I'm not against someone trying
| and I hope he succeeds.
| blevin wrote:
| January in MT is no joke. Were the activities in that part of
| the year more on the theory end? Did you have to wait long
| between your reservation and getting a spot?
| songzme wrote:
| I registered in November and was able to get a spot for
| January. The winter was a really good time because there
| weren't there many people (because of weather) and I got to
| ask all the questions I wanted. We mainly worked on a
| greenhouse that keeps water from freezing in Montana winters
| using the earth's thermal energy and no electricity: https://
| www.kickstarter.com/projects/paulwheaton/greenhouse-...
| tastyfreeze wrote:
| I dont know about curing cancer but if he is using less
| chemicals than the risk of causing cancer is greatly reduced.
| Food from healthy soil is more nutritious which makes it more
| satiating but it isnt magic.
| mathgladiator wrote:
| There feels like a deep truth to the constant assault of man-
| hand compounds in relation to our health. I recently started
| fasting every other day, and I've noticed odd issues just
| clearing up on their own.
|
| I'd wager the down-votes related to the claims around curing
| cancer, but there is reason to pursue this. I'm self
| experimenting on myself and wife since the wife has an auto-
| immune issue (MS). She was on the anti-gluten train way before
| it was fashionable since there is an immediate cause and effect
| for her without celiacs.
|
| We really should question all of our practices and values.
| kaiju0 wrote:
| I think bodies are not meant to always be processing food. We
| are designed for downtime to process the backlog. The body
| would get to nagging issues if given opportunity to do so.
|
| I also think this has a lot to do with our cancer rates.
| samatman wrote:
| I'd say that a less fraught way of putting this is that we
| have _adapted_ to feast-and-famine since that was the
| ancestral condition of the species.
|
| So I agree with you that, at least for me, eating less than
| I want to (or nothing) much of the time, and eating a lot
| occasionally, feels better than constantly feeding myself
| more calories (carbs especially!) than I need.
|
| But most people on this site, myself included, don't think
| we were 'designed' at all.
| songzme wrote:
| If you are still buying groceries from supermarkets, it is in
| your best interest to change that habit and buy organic only.
| Food co-ops usually tend to store organic only so they are great
| places to buy your groceries.
|
| Organic ensures that the soil where your food came from had no
| prohibited substances (most synthetic fertilizers and pesticides)
| applied for three years. Chances are, if you are buying food from
| supermarkets without the organic label, your food probably came
| from a farm that uses unhealthy synthetic fertilizers that may
| attribute to health issues later down the road.
|
| Unless you know your restaurant is cooking with organic food,
| they are probably not so it is best to eat out sparingly and
| learn to cook with your own delicious food with your organic
| ingredients.
|
| If you want to step up your game, you could also buy organic
| clothes (aka clothes that came from plants / animal) that came
| from soil without prohibited substances. Your body is covered
| most of the day so it's better to be on the healthier side.
|
| Obviously, the label "organic" doesn't mean you are getting the
| best because there is still alot of room for improvement. Organic
| still allows some form of pesticides and fertilizers and has next
| to nothing about the organic matter in your soil (which determine
| how nutritious your food would be).
|
| The article mentions regenerative organic certification, which
| addresses the shortcomings for organic labels. If we, as
| consumers, demand for the highest quality food, it turns out to
| be good for the soil and the long term health of the earth too!
|
| Hands down, if you have a space for your own garden or even pots
| at home, you could easily grow food that are more nutritious than
| any food you can find in a grocery store. Optimize for organic
| matter in your soil. The higher the organic matter, the more
| nutritious your food is. Most of the agricultural soil that grows
| food has about 3-6% organic matter, you can easily get it above
| 10% at home. So if you have time on your hands, you should try
| growing the food you eat most regularly at home.
| athms wrote:
| How did you make it through high school while failing in
| chemistry and biology?
|
| Organic is a scam for the natural is better crowd that occupies
| the human experience. A chemical is the same whether it is
| natural or synthetic. Plenty of natural substances are toxic.
| There is no difference in taste or nutrition between organic
| and non-organic, however GMO can be made more nutritious.
| songzme wrote:
| > How did you make it through high school while failing in
| chemistry and biology?
|
| I didn't fail either. Our school focused on the theoretical
| and we never had practical applications of the knowledge.
|
| > A chemical is the same whether it is natural or synthetic
|
| For me the difference is naturally occurring and moderated
| via biological process of organisms vs extracted and
| manufactured chemicals. For example, you wouldn't find large
| amounts of Chlorpyrifos (used in herbicides) naturally
| anywhere in the world. It was mass produced for use in
| agriculture.
|
| > GMO can be made more nutritious
|
| If you are measuring specifically for say, vitamin A, you can
| engineer a crop to have higher concentrations of vitamin A
| than any other crop out there. So yes you are correct.
| pbk1 wrote:
| Setting aside the environmental concerns (which are important,
| and indirectly health-adjacent), are there material health
| reasons to eat organic? This Mayo Clinic article [0] points to
| pretty minor improvements, would love if someone could point me
| to evidence substantiating OP's claim, or maybe which products
| in particular are materially healthier if produced organically.
|
| [0] https://www.mayoclinic.org/healthy-lifestyle/nutrition-
| and-h...
| songzme wrote:
| > This Mayo Clinic article [0] points to pretty minor
| improvements
|
| Seems like minor improvement in a meal, it doesn't measure
| the cumulative effects of these minor differences every meal,
| over several years.
| evtothedev wrote:
| If you're a UI/UX designer, and this area excites you, please
| drop me a line.
|
| We're tackling this exact problem at Yard Stick
| (https://www.useyardstick.com/) - developing a new way to measure
| soil carbon that is fast, accurate and affordable, with backing
| by ARPA-E and in collaboration with the Soil Health Institute.
|
| Later this week, I'm going to post a contract-to-hire position.
| In the meantime, email me at evan@useyardstick.com
| roldie wrote:
| I'm not sure how much time I could commit, but at the very
| least I could help spread the word.
|
| What kind of involvement are you looking for design-wise?
| evtothedev wrote:
| Ideally full time. As you might imagine, the space is
| technical & complicated, and I suspect that delivering
| elegant designs would require quite some time to get up to
| speed.
| zomdar wrote:
| Lol i love that his name is john wicks
| vicarrion wrote:
| At Indigo we're working on incentivizing farmers to adopt
| regenerative practices and get paid for sequestering carbon.
|
| There's a number of open positions, most with the option to be
| remote!
|
| https://www.indigoag.com/carbon
|
| https://www.indigoag.com/join-us
| pkaye wrote:
| Sounds like an interesting approach. I'm glad there are people
| working of these issues. When I read this article I was
| thinking something like this is needed to incentivize the
| farmers.
| lucas24 wrote:
| Your carbon site explains the "how it works" as essentially a
| reactive process, i.e. a farmer adopts regen practices and then
| gets paid for the results -- what about any proactive processes
| to help incentivize and facilitate farmers' transitions to
| regen ag?
|
| I ask because I've been researching regen ag for smallholder
| farms -- a few programs exist, primarily through microfinance,
| but I've yet to see any quality + accessible programs to
| accomplish this proactive approach tightly knit with carbon
| credit markets.
|
| An obvious difficulty with this approach is verifying the
| transition actually occurs and more carbon is sequestered, but
| it does seem to be an essential component if we want to move
| more farms to regenerative ag. Curious if you have any further
| thoughts on this space, I'd love to speak more about this.
|
| FWIW, I've been following Indigo and the regenerative ag space
| for a while and IA is doing some great work, so I don't mean to
| undermine the impact these programs already have.
| kickout wrote:
| Indigo and every other ag player. Space saturated quickly. Now
| people need to find ways to fund the 10-40 per acre benefits
| long-term...
| groby_b wrote:
| Would you mind elaborating what you meant with that comment?
| What are the "10-40 per acre benefits"?
| kickout wrote:
| Whoops. Meant to be 10-40 $$, USD per acre. That range
| seems to be the most common direct payment for farmers to
| adapt regenerative or sustainable practices on their farm.
| It depends where in the country and what method is used to
| determine payment (usually). It's a very, very new method
| but it basically means paying farmers--- that money has to
| come from somewhere as usually farmers pay companies
| akeck wrote:
| Gabe Brown's talk is my favorite introduction to regenerative ag:
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uUmIdq0D6-A
|
| He did a book on it: https://www.chelseagreen.com/product/dirt-
| to-soil/
|
| I also like Geoff Lawton's work on food forests:
|
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xgF9BU4uYMU
|
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hCJfSYZqZ0Y
| coldcode wrote:
| Like everything there are costs and benefits; sometimes people
| only focus on the benefits of "modern" practices and forget the
| costs associated with them, like stripping the soil, and the
| expense and side effects of chemicals. Finding a better approach
| means taking risks and trying new ideas. This applies to
| programming as well as growing food.
| kickout wrote:
| Correct, but the current economic incentive structure is set up
| for short term profits and nobody really cares about the soil
| quality (except perhaps farmers that own the ground they farm;
| which even then they are to survive long enough to adapt soil-
| healthy practices).
|
| Right now, farmers (corn/soy/wheat/cotton) are reward on
| quantity, so they need to increase production and keep costs
| down. Rightly or wrongly, the prevailing thought is to increase
| yields rather than cuts costs.
|
| There are news systems thinking approaches slowly gaining steam
| (as the original article is about), but the reality is these
| things are economically risky. This is why the government needs
| to divert agricultural subsidy money from its existing criteria
| to one that requires practices like cover cropping. Importantly
| the money is _already there_ , we just need to shift how its
| disbursed and start incentivizing more sustainable practices
|
| https://data.ers.usda.gov/reports.aspx?ID=17833
| driverdan wrote:
| > the expense and side effects of chemicals
|
| What does that mean? Everything is made of chemicals.
| samatman wrote:
| Yes, words are contextual and don't always mean the same
| things every time they're used.
|
| I had zero difficulty understanding the post you're replying
| to-- and neither did you. It doesn't even annoy me any more,
| probably because, as a chemist, I got it out of my system
| years ago.
|
| The time one of my second cousins responded to my telling her
| my major by making a face and saying "I don't _like_
| chemicals " does kind of stand out...
| amanaplanacanal wrote:
| From context I'd say they mean fertilizer, pesticides, and
| herbicides.
|
| Edit: you will probably find that many words have multiple
| meanings, and it is not hard to find words that have one
| specific technical meaning and a different one in colloquial
| usage. Organic is another common one.
| blueyes wrote:
| Montanan here:
|
| This is true. One of the regenerative crop types are pulses
| (lentils, chick peas), and MT produces a lot.
|
| https://www.ndsu.edu/pubweb/pulse-info/resources-pdf/Growing...
|
| The state often appears in stories about agriculture in
| precarious environments (See Jared Diamond's "Collapse" for one
| example.)
|
| Montana is largely a semi-arid desert, especially over the 2/3's
| of the state that are northern Great Plains. East of the
| continental divide, it gets about 10" of rain per year, which is
| about a quarter of the US average.
|
| And with climate change, it is more precarious. Temperatures have
| been unusually high this summer, and it's fire season now.
| Weather has become more volatile. (Cherry crops on the Flathead
| have been destroyed two of the last three years.)
| pacerwpg wrote:
| Interesting, I saw a map show chick peas as being a big crop in
| that region and thought it was surprising, just because it's
| not seen as a huge money crop.
| cushychicken wrote:
| _Cherry crops on the Flathead have been destroyed two of the
| last three years_
|
| Very sad. I grew up in Bozeman, and I loved Flathead cherry
| season.
| greenie_beans wrote:
| where would one go to read about the cherry crops on the
| flathead? (such a lovely area!)
| blueyes wrote:
| For news about the cherry harvests you could go to the Daily
| Interlake, a newspaper published in Kalispell, or the
| Flathead Beacon:
|
| https://dailyinterlake.com/news/2021/jul/03/growers-
| expect-e...
|
| https://flatheadbeacon.com/?s=cherry
| danans wrote:
| > Lentils (Lens culinaris Medik.) are produced on over 1.5
| million acres throughout the world. They are primarily used for
| domestic consumption in casseroles, salads, soups and stews.
| Lentils provide an excellent source of protein (20 to 35
| percent), but are limited in the sulphur-containing amino acids
| methionine and cystine. However, consumption of lentils with
| cereals provides a balanced diet high in fiber, protein and
| essential amino acids.
|
| > Lentils in the United States are primarily grown for export.
|
| Growing lentils is a great idea, but the developed and
| developing worlds' palates also need to also change course
| toward consuming less climate-damaging foods like meat and more
| lentils, chickpeas, and other pulses.
|
| Already today, pea protein is a major constituent of the newer
| more realistic meat-substitutes, which is a good trend, but if
| most lentils just end up being exported and used as some sort
| of livestock feed, it will make little differences to the
| climate and environmental issues we are experiencing.
| pdonis wrote:
| Has there been any work on meat substitutes using lentils or
| chickpeas?
| reedjosh wrote:
| From the article.
|
| > They also lease land to neighboring ranchers, whose grazing
| cattle aerate the soil with their hooves and add organic
| matter and nutrients via manure.
|
| Meat can and should be a part of regenerative ag.
|
| I recently visited a family friend's place/farm. A year ago,
| the soil was the typical cracked dry light tan clay ground
| that I have in my yard. It's quite typical in Oregon.
|
| This time, the soil was a dark color with tons of organic
| material and great water retention. This was entirely due to
| the grazing. They have goats and an alpaca. Ruminants are
| excellent for soil health, and the meat they produce is also
| great for human health.
| knuthsat wrote:
| There's really not that much meat in regenerative
| agriculture. Given the current per capita consumption of
| meat in kg, a regenerative ag operation could never
| accomplish that.
|
| Reducing to 4-30kg of meat per capita per year seems
| impossible.
|
| No one can even accomplish that with ruminants. That's why
| there's so much chicken everywhere, because accomplishing
| that with ruminants is near impossible, so chicken is
| advertised massively instead.
|
| A nitpick, there's no single food that is great for human
| health or bad for human health. Diet can contain various
| things and be healthy and it can also lack meat and be
| healthy.
| spoonjim wrote:
| Yes, meat is a good component of a healthy diet, but as
| with many things, Americans take the quantity about 10
| miles past the advisable point.
| EricE wrote:
| Yes - people dramatically underestimate the value of
| ruminants that can process plants that we can't.
| pacomerh wrote:
| I wish more people knew about this. It's amazing how
| little we know (as a whole) about what we eat
| TaylorAlexander wrote:
| I do work at a farm and around farms that use regenerative
| grazing. It works great.
|
| However as a vegan my hope is that we eventually let
| animals graze and simply do not kill and consume them. One
| could argue "the meat is there" but that meat is beings
| with a heart and a mind. When I see the grazing animals
| with their babies in toe, I think about how they will be
| separated and the pain the mothers will go through.
|
| We can take great care of our soil with regenerative
| grazing but that is quite apart from whether or not we need
| to treat those animals as mere property and eat them.
| matmatmatmat wrote:
| I'm a meat-eater (have been my whole life), but I've
| always been partial to this argument. This is why I'm
| looking forward to lab-grown meat and would pay a bit of
| a premium for it.
| TaylorAlexander wrote:
| Lab grown meat is promising, for sure.
|
| FWIW I am now in year three of veganism and it feels like
| I have made it past all the "teething" stages to the
| point where I am absolutely loving my vegan meals. It is
| rare for me these days to eat a meat or cheese substitute
| - more like the occasional junk food throwback than a
| normal meal. Lentils, tofu, potatoes, carrots, broccoli,
| brown rice, peanut sauce, lettuce, zucchini, and just
| some of the foods that bring me joy to eat.
|
| Hopefully you're already learning to make vegan meals but
| if anyone out there is on the fence I highly encourage
| you to learn how to make delicious vegan food. It's so
| tasty and you won't feel the guilt of eating meat.
| jeffreyrogers wrote:
| What is the best criticism of regenerative ag? Everything I see
| about it is so positive that it seems crazy everyone hasn't
| switched. Are there really no downsides and it's just
| institutional inertia/caution holding everyone back?
| louis___ wrote:
| It's more that it requires to leave the mainstream system,
| because the fertilizer and pesticides that destroyed your soil
| are the money-making machines of "Big Ag" corporations.
|
| Regenerative ag will not make you very rich either, so you have
| not much money to invest in lobbying activities, to go against
| the flow.
| saalweachter wrote:
| Honestly?
|
| My biggest concern about it is that half its advocates say
| crazy things. For instance, down-thread we got the line:
|
| "[Paul Wheaton] believes that in a decade the soil will be so
| rich in organic matter with healthy microbial activity (with no
| chemical history) could produce food that cures cancer. I
| believe that in an environment where human body is not weakened
| by the constant bombardment of chemical compounds, it could
| heal itself from cancer."
|
| I do my best to keep an open mind because, hey, a lot of bits
| and pieces sound plausible, but whenever I get to lines about
| cancer-curing food, I begin to doubt the truth, validity or
| factual nature of anything else that was said on the topic.
|
| Aside from that, the biggest question is always going to be
| "Does it scale to growing sufficient food for 10 billion
| people?" Maybe it does, maybe it doesn't, but whenever food
| comes up keep in mind that end game. If a particular
| agricultural system could produce food at lower energy costs,
| more sustainably, "better", but could only feed a billion
| people applied globally, it's only an acceptable solution in
| very particular moral frameworks.
| amanaplanacanal wrote:
| A person could totally be an expert on soil and sustainable
| agriculture and know nothing useful about medicine. In fact,
| that is what I would expect. Listen to the experts on their
| subject of expertise, and take the rest with a huge grain of
| salt.
| saalweachter wrote:
| The problem is deciding whether someone is actually an
| expect in a subject area where I'm _not_.
|
| People can say things that are patently absurd about one
| field while being an expert in another, but I also can't
| just be completely credulous in treating any assertion
| about any subject I do not understand as true. I don't
| really have much else to do but build out from a network of
| trust rooted in people who seem competent and clear-minded
| by whatever criteria I _can_ judge.
| samatman wrote:
| That's a reasonable response, but it's actually totally
| normal to have expertise in one domain and totally wacky
| ideas in another one.
|
| It's even possible to combine these things, although that's a
| dangerous game to play. Biodynamic agriculture is a great
| example of this, Rudolph Steiner's model of how agriculture
| (and scientific matters in general) is... heterodox... but
| biodynamic farms regularly produce good crops of quality
| food, and the practices cultivate healthy soil by any
| objective measure you would care for.
|
| I wouldn't go casually trying this with medicine, where
| practitioners are more likely to do the wrong thing for the
| wrong reasons, rather than the right thing for the wrong
| reasons.
| debacle wrote:
| Paul Wheaton is a grifter, petty tyrant, and mini Hubbard who
| has built a cult around himself.
|
| He bans anyone from the permaculture subreddit who disagrees
| with him, which is why there are multiple off-shoot
| subreddits, including one specifically dedicated to his
| malfeasance which broaches into criminality.
| [deleted]
| olivierlacan wrote:
| Found this interesting and surprisingly balanced point of
| view on the man from people who clearly denounce him and
| his behvior: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mP9GM-1YJCI
| beaconstudios wrote:
| This guy has control of the permaculture subreddit? That's
| awful. Permaculture is a great and important movement.
|
| Does anybody know why movements rooted in holism keep
| getting taken over by people like this? It seems like every
| movement that starts out by wanting to incorporate high-
| level perspectives ends up getting burdened with the
| crystal-spinners and magic-cancer-curers of the world.
| debacle wrote:
| Every system is corrupted by those willing to leverage
| the most from it.
| mathgladiator wrote:
| I've experienced this, and I've learned to search for the
| grains of truth. At core, the people doing this are highly
| disagreeable, and so they form their own opinions and go
| deep.
|
| I think going deep into crazy is natural, and the hard
| question is trying to balance that out with a deeper truth.
| At core, I think there is a deeper value in being the control
| group outside of the modern world.
|
| So, can food cure cancer? I don't know, but it may be worth
| looking into. Amish, for instance, have 40% less cancer. Is
| it the food? the air? the bacteria? the hard work? No Idea!
|
| Myself, I'm getting firmly on the fasting train. I eat every
| other day, and I feel great.
| rhacker wrote:
| It may not be that it cures cancer, but that it stops
| causing it. Food that is sourced without chemicals, or
| pesticides.
| Scoundreller wrote:
| While cancer is lower, their life expectancy is around the
| US average. US average lifespan isn't something to write
| home about.
| reedjosh wrote:
| Does that account for infant mortality?
|
| Life expectancy should really only be talked about in
| terms of expected lifespan of someone who's already made
| it to say 3 years old.
|
| Otherwise, we get a very distorted view of modern
| medicine's ability to stave off death. Modern medicine
| has really done well at reducing infant mortality though.
| lostlogin wrote:
| I agree, but you also distort things by excluding
| infants, but if that group are included in a separate
| statistic it would seem ok.
| relaxing wrote:
| The study of cancer among the Amish found lower incidence
| of only a subset of cancers, essentially the ones related
| to not drinking or smoking, sun exposure (wearing long
| clothes and big hats), and having few sexual partners.
|
| There's no mystery.
| inglor_cz wrote:
| AFAIK Amish people consume less alcohol and tobacco than
| the average American. Could this be a factor in their lower
| cancer rates?
|
| Also - who diagnoses Amish people for cancer? Can there be
| a higher "dark number" of undetected cancers among them
| than among the general population?
| ohsonice wrote:
| Look into Chris Newman at Sylvanaqua farms. Scale and social-
| economic accessibility are some of the big ones. He critiques a
| pattern of "circle citation" within the community.
| mathgladiator wrote:
| The key criticism is that it yields less, so it doesn't scale.
| Furthermore, it generally lacks uniformity, so you can't
| automate either.
| lostlogin wrote:
| American farms can be truely vast, so any statement on
| averages is swayed by this. The article says they are
| planting 4,500 acres this year. When you look up average US
| farm sizes it is hard to know what to compare it to as
| monocropping or single breed farming seem to be the standard.
| However you do it, the farm planting is a lot smaller than
| 4500 acres.
|
| They might not be farming at a scale big ag run at, but it's
| no small operation.
|
| The below link says "The midpoint acreage for U.S. cropland
| nearly doubled between 1982 and 2007, from 589 acres to
| 1,105."
|
| https://www.ers.usda.gov/webdocs/publications/45108/39359_er.
| ..
| tastyfreeze wrote:
| Crops can be integrated and still planted and harvested
| mechanically. Planting differing height crops or same height
| crops with different seed sizes you can still use machines
| and harvest multiple crops from the same time/land.
|
| Yield for some crops is actually more after the ~3 year
| transition period. However, for all crops quality is greatly
| improved. Better quality means you need to eat less to be
| satiated.
| nradov wrote:
| Better quality only helps if customers are willing to pay
| more. A lot of crops are sold through middlemen as
| undifferentiated commodities.
| tastyfreeze wrote:
| If there were a way to differentiate higher quality food
| in the store it doesn't need to cost more. People will
| prefer the higher quality produce and the low quality
| producers will need to adapt or die.
| aatharuv wrote:
| Customers do pay more for organic food and non-GMO food
| that's certified.
| kickout wrote:
| Would disagree with the automated comment. Most thing in
| regenerative ag are just as automated as conventional ag,
| unless you're thinking of something specific?
| mathgladiator wrote:
| I'm probably thinking along the lines of perma-culture and
| bio-mimicry where things are all mixed up in a more natural
| way. Essentially, you don't have giant machines since there
| are too many edge cases.
| chris_va wrote:
| No-till agriculture, as an example, usually requires different
| capital equipment for the farm.
|
| It's not a blocker, but financing the capital equipment takes
| some investment and risk. Farms are fairly dialed into their
| operations already, and getting people to change (especially
| when they need to pay money to do it) is a slow process.
| jdavis703 wrote:
| So then is it reasonable to conclude government subsidies for
| regenerative agriculture could increase adoption?
| lostlogin wrote:
| Would taxing poor practices be a better approach? Eg Excess
| water usage, runoff, water pollution, pesticide use, fuel
| use or some other metric?
|
| That way the cost of food would rise, but the cost of
| regenerative practices presumably wouldn't rise as much and
| would earn more.
| debacle wrote:
| One of the problems with no till is that the equipment, or
| at least some of it, hasn't been invented yet and could be
| considered 'cutting edge' in that manner.
| benboughton1 wrote:
| No till farming is widespread especially in Australia for
| decades. Nearly all dryland farms take this approach. It
| just means controlling fallow weeds without tillage,
| usually with herbicide. Then plant straight through the
| previous crop residue. This preserves moisture in the
| soil and the soil structure. Planters mostly do this
| fine. I'm not sure what has not yet been invented
| elsewhere.
| debacle wrote:
| How do they handle compaction? The biggest thing I have
| seen is work toward finding a way to introduce large
| equipment to a no till or RA farm.
| chris_va wrote:
| Yes, that does seem reasonable
| tastyfreeze wrote:
| It takes about 3 years for the soil to come back to life and it
| does take more management. During the transition period yields
| are reduced. Regenerative Ag also takes more farmers as a
| singer farmer can't manage as much land.
|
| It is crazy that everyone hasn't switched. It is more
| profitable but it is a leap of faith to switch and most ag
| extensions are still recommending high chem use. There are some
| hang ups with crop subsidies making it difficult to change
| also.
|
| But, the tide has changed as evidenced by this article. General
| Mills is pushing for 1 million regenerative farmed acres by
| 2030. The transition is happening but as with any paradigm
| shift it takes time to convince everybody that there is a
| better way.
|
| https://www.generalmills.com/en/Responsibility/Sustainabilit...
| kickout wrote:
| Replies to your questions are good. I'd say the yield downside
| is the most glaring. Farmers really can't afford a have a self-
| imposed 'bad' year while they try to adopt new practices.
| Bankers and lenders (which farmers rely on for operating loans
| might not even approve--IDK). It absolutely takes some trial
| and error as no 2 farms are the same. This also hurts testing
| things out in a smaller scale on your farm. You need to
| borrow/rent equipment or buy the equipment. But when you buy
| equipment without the scale, it basically adds overhead (with
| additional risk to the downside for yields).
|
| People don't like to admit it, but yields under current intense
| monoculture, fertilizer happy are best-case scenario. This is
| obvious and intended, we're squeezing as much yield as possible
| without care for long-term consequences. Those yields _might_
| not be achievable under regenerative practices (but they might
| be in certain farms). For some reason, we have this mindset
| where we can 't give up any yield, but in reality, if the
| economic models and government subsidies were redesigned, we
| absolutely could.
| asimpletune wrote:
| What if the measurement wasn't yield but total nutrition?
| kickout wrote:
| It _should_ be, but isn 't for many crops. Commodity crops
| are incentivized for quantity. Many fruits and vegetables
| are bred for storage and transportability, not nutritional
| value or taste.
|
| As i've said in other threads we have many misaligned
| incentives in agriculture that we're seeing play out. if
| you click my bio, I post blogs about these topics and more
| splistud wrote:
| Yield is an important measurement though. Nutrition is a
| fine metric, but some things grown in permaculture are not
| nutritive. They may grow nitrogen-fixers, shade plants,
| fodder, etc. These don't provide 'yield', but reduce
| outside inputs.
|
| The most important thing is to change how you think about
| yield. Yield/acre needs to take into account how much
| outside inputs are involved (trucked in fertilizers,
| mechanical inputs, etc).
|
| It's absolutely correct to measure how we're doing. It's
| tricky when the units of measurement are not the same. It's
| harder still where there are so many types of soil/climate
| conditions and so many types of output to measure. But we
| can't just ignore output if we want to improve or give
| prospective adopters some idea of risk (they are literally
| betting their farms on it afterall).
| black_puppydog wrote:
| "How to save a planet" just has an episode out on the same topic:
| https://gimletmedia.com/shows/howtosaveaplanet/76hmbge/soil-...
|
| I found it an interesting listen. Of course it's a fairly shallow
| entry into the topic, but that's what they are about after all;
| get you interested, give you pointers for more if you feel like
| it.
|
| Just too bad they'll go spotify-only and thus seize to be a
| podcast... I'll have to stop recommending (and listening...)
| mooreds wrote:
| > Just too bad they'll go spotify-only and thus seize to be a
| podcast... I'll have to stop recommending (and listening...)
|
| Yes, that bums me out too. It must make economic sense (for
| both parties; presumably the data in the app and exclusive
| content is a win for Spotify), but it's a real bummer that they
| are moving from a format that lets me, the listener, control
| how I want to listen, to a format that requires me to download
| an app. Not gonna happen, but companies will always try to
| build walled gardens.
| _huayra_ wrote:
| I don't know why they just don't use something like Acast
| which will take care of distribution (or maybe others I don't
| know of).
|
| The worst part of it is that Spotify's android app is buggy.
| Actually, that's an understatement: it's garbage. I shouldn't
| have it hang waiting for network connection just to navigate
| the offline portions of the app (e.g. downloaded podcasts).
| Anyone who writes a simple "music player" android app in a
| weekend or two could handle that case far better.
| kilovoltaire wrote:
| I assume any Spotify-only podcast is because Spotify is
| paying them to be exclusive?
| topkai22 wrote:
| Spotify bought Gimlet (the podcast company) a few years
| back, so they presumably owned the rights to begin with.
| mooreds wrote:
| Ah, TIL.
|
| More here if you want to learn about the reasons why:
| https://www.vox.com/2019/2/7/18214941/alex-blumberg-matt-
| lie...
| jazzyjackson wrote:
| Don't feel left out, the iOS app is also garbage and
| doesn't even manage to pause during a phone call.
| jazzyjackson wrote:
| a gentle fyi: s/seize/cease
| black_puppydog wrote:
| ah, darn... thanks :)
| Floegipoky wrote:
| I'm glad to see formerly conventional farmers adopting no-till
| and other regenerative practices, but it's crazy to me that
| they're still trying to plant hundreds of hectares in monocrop.
| Baby steps, I guess. Maybe there's just no other way to make the
| economics work with so little rainfall?
| datavirtue wrote:
| I just got back from touring Oregon and Washington and I got to
| see a lot of fascinating agriculture. Primarily hazelnut trees
| along with some berries other speciality crops and "hay."
|
| The nut tree farmers need some help. They are spraying water
| scattershot to soak the ground. What's more is that they have the
| ground prepared as perfectly flat bare soil--I presume to make
| automated harvesting possible.
|
| It looks like a lot of resources are allocated to this rather
| imprecise method of irrigation and as the droughts and heat
| persist I could see this failing to scale. It doesn't look like
| it scales very well even in good times.
|
| I was wondering, given the very organized situation of the trees
| and ground, why are they not using direct or site-based (drip?)
| irrigation? It would definitely change the watering process from
| one of rolling and unrolling irrigation line and towing of
| sprinklers (water canons?) to one where you would automate water
| delivery via a network of lines with computers and have workers
| monitor and repair lines as needed.
| amanaplanacanal wrote:
| I believe they keep bare soil under hazelnuts because they
| harvest by collecting the fallen nuts.
| mastax wrote:
| Drip irrigation works best when delivering water directly to
| the roots of small annual plants. Trees have large root
| systems, and are planted closely enough that you need to water
| the entire ground. Perhaps a network of smaller sprayers below
| the leaf canopy would reduce evaporative losses.
| cjrp wrote:
| I wonder if there's any benefit to water hitting the leaves
| on the way down to the soil, i.e. cleaning the leaves. I know
| indoor plants require cleaning, but perhaps that's
| specifically because they're indoors.
| kickout wrote:
| Indoor plants require cleaning? Any links to that? first
| i've heard or seen that statement. I can't imagine ANY
| justification for literally cleaning a plant that just
| happens to be grown indoors...?
| tastyfreeze wrote:
| Dust on the leaves blocks light. Yes, you must clean your
| indoor plants. Outdoor plants get rained on. You can do
| the same for indoor plants by giving them a rinse
| occasionally.
| hammock wrote:
| Depends. In many cases that's something to avoid, e.g.
| moisture can promote the growth of undesirable molds or
| other pathogens, or wash off pesticides that you wanted to
| stay.
| NoSorryCannot wrote:
| There are rarely any good reasons to wet the top of a plant
| and several downsides.
|
| Dust generally isn't an issue for outdoor plants,
| especially not in Washington or Oregon, and especially not
| for deciduous trees.
| kickout wrote:
| There does exist sub-surface irrigation setups. They aren't
| popular, but obviously would deliver water closer to the
| roots of tree. Note: I haven't ever seen a tree farm with
| sub-surface irrigation, only annual fruits/vegetables/crops
|
| https://extension.colostate.edu/topic-
| areas/agriculture/subs...
| zachware wrote:
| Organic and regenerative ag are built on the assumption that
| crops must be grown in open air soil. The reality is that crops
| _can_ be grown in open air soil and, if they are, regenerative ag
| in particular is significantly better for soil longevity.
|
| That said it is not necessarily better to produce all crops in
| low density, high volatility, season dependent environments. Some
| material % of crops can move to more intelligent indoor settings
| where yields are higher, weather isn't a factor, and production
| yields can be scheduled without risk of weather impact. I'm
| actually a partner in one of these high volume operations in
| Montana (randomly). Uses less water, has zero soil impact,
| requires little to no chemical agents and is predictable.
|
| What I hope will continue is crops that are capable of producing
| profitable and predictable yields in indoor environments will
| move more and more in that direction. This could serve to reduce
| soil stress and leave soil for crops that need more space (e.g.
| tubers) and livestock to aid in improving soil longevity.
|
| Note this is not a plug for vertical farming. That's an entirely
| different mirage of financial engineering.
| lwb wrote:
| Interested in links or books on this if you know any good ones.
| Don't you still have to use soil?
| Scoundreller wrote:
| Probably hydroponics? Soil is adds more variables and can be
| a home to pests/microbes.
| pcmaffey wrote:
| Hydro grown plants are often more susceptible to pests and
| problems because they lack the natural fortifications
| provided by soil. Large scale living soil can still be done
| indoors though.
| rrrrrrrrrrrryan wrote:
| City boy here with no knowledge of farming.
|
| When you say "indoor" are you describing large greenhouses? Or
| growing crops using artificial light?
| zachware wrote:
| I'm generally referring to float pond greenhouses though some
| variants are emerging that use artificial light in a vertical
| setting for the germination stage where loss rates are high
| and you can get extremely high density. The types of density
| you can't get in the overfunded vertical pipe dreams in VC.
|
| So that when you hit the float pond for a 12-16 grow cycle,
| there's marginal loss.
| kickout wrote:
| Sweet, there is only approximately 300 _million_ acres of
| cropland in the United States alone.
|
| Sun == free, rain == free
|
| How does indoor ag plan on scaling up for anything other than
| super high margin vegetables and spices when their competitor
| (outdoor ag) has no cost associated with sun or rain? Not even
| to mention soil.
|
| edit: I like indoor/vertical ag a lot (when applied correctly)
| When people try to propose producing things that have no chance
| of succeeding in our current Kardashev scale, it makes me think
| they are arguing in bad faith or with a fundamental lack of
| understanding of the problems faced in food production.
| thehappypm wrote:
| Sure, sun and rain are free, but the costs for outdoor
| farming are huge too. Irrigation, pesticides, fencing,
| harvesting equipment, anti-weed chemicals. Then your yields
| are super volatile -- weather can be bad, you can just get
| unlucky, you can have weeds/bugs/mice eating into your
| yields. Then you need to get your crops all the way from
| Montana to big markets hundreds or thousands of miles away.
|
| Indoor farming sure does require an input of energy and a
| high up-front cost, but you can get extremely high yields
| reliably, and you can dramatically reduce transportation and
| chemical costs, plus reduced water costs often.
| kickout wrote:
| Those costs are known, and outside of California and
| Nebraska, almost no crops are irrigated.
|
| As far as transporting crops to markets? That's actually a
| success story. Rail hauls most of the crops from Montana to
| the PNW (if exporting to China). Rail is dirt cheap and
| efficient, as any true HN reader will know. :)
| samstave wrote:
| Vertical is the future.
|
| Imagine all the kick in the mid 2000s for "vertical living
| walls" as all the rage in large scale office complexes.
|
| Imagine that if instead they put vertical gardens in every
| high-rise and the farming of the veggies was a part of the
| HOA and the veggies were just included in the cost of the
| living in the home - and you could opt-out and give the
| veggies to the homeless/shelters/churches/etc...
|
| Now imagine if the US was like Singapore, where the setbacks
| in dense urban environs is massive enough to manage handling
| a ton of eatable growth between all buildings.
|
| There are three things that should be required for every
| single building going up (aside from structural sound-ness)
|
| 1. Parking underground for 3 levels
|
| 2. Vertical EATABLE gardens
|
| 3. A network of 'non=potable' water supplies (water you can
| get from a grey-water system run through the entire building
| to feed the plants in the vertical gardens.)
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grey_water
| orasis wrote:
| If you've ever tried hydroponic, you quickly realize that
| soil is amazing technology. Indoor ag is yet another utopian
| fantasy.
| worik wrote:
| Plenty of people are proving that wrong, with certain
| crops.
|
| I visited with some friends a couple of years ago who had
| leased a paddock to a pair of humans who used it to build a
| hydroponic green house.
|
| They produced leafy greens for the local restaurant market
| and in the first part year had more cash flow than the
| whole farm around them.
|
| They were working very hard but were poised to make a lot
| of money.
|
| They were using the sun for energy input - I fail to see
| how indoor agriculture under lights can be profitable
| except for the most valuable of crops
| i_am_proteus wrote:
| It seems like vertical and hydroponics are great for
| leafy green cash crops and spices, but don't work well to
| produce cereals, soy, or pulses, which are materially
| where all of the calories come from.
| zachware wrote:
| I actually agree with you. It's purely a math problem. Where
| can predictable yield be profitable (including loss
| calculations) and where can it not.
|
| Vertical as it is today is an excellent nursery solution to
| feed growable plants into float ponds with little to no loss.
| As an independent production method, vertical isn't
| mathematically sustainable.
|
| 40% of fresh food is lost before it makes it to the end user
| (USDA data). The loss comes from a combo of unpredictable
| weather, timing issues where market prices dip below
| production costs at harvest time, and supply chain issues.
|
| So it's a complicated math problem but it's important to
| consider in the suite of food security tools we look to.
|
| Absent regen, we're likely to decimate soils over
| generations. If we flip totally to regen, we won't have
| enough land.
|
| So a host of solutions is required.
| kickout wrote:
| Fair comments.
|
| I'm mulling whether we have enough land (at 100% regen
| practices). I almost think we do.
|
| From a system-level, we're over saturated because of
| ethanol and other things that realistically could disappear
| and society would be better off. Just need to recalibrate
| our acres a bit
| zachware wrote:
| I don't know the number but I suspect some material % of
| corn production could go away if we stopped subsidizing
| that industry for insane things like making gasoline for
| electoral reasons. :-)
| snark42 wrote:
| I think a material % would go away if we stopped feeding
| it to cows as well, a la regenerative ag.
| neuromancer2701 wrote:
| make all the corn fields back into grasslands that they
| were and the cows will help rebuild the soil.
| kbenson wrote:
| Should we be worried about how many more ruminants this
| would require, and their impact on the climate? I just
| saw some estimates of 90 million acres used to grow corn
| in the U.S., and a cow calf pair needs 1.5-2 acres to
| feed itself. I know we probably wouldn't maximize cows to
| the area for the type of growing we're talking about, but
| that's 45 million cows (with calfs) at the low end if we
| were, and I'm seeing reports we currently have ~95
| million head of cattle in the U.S.
|
| Those are all napkin numbers, or poorly sourced, and
| worst case, but I would love to see some good numbers on
| what it means to the climate to have a _lot_ more
| ruminants in the farming process. (If much of current
| beef cattle production was moved to be dispersed along
| these lands, that seems like it might be a good idea for
| all involved though).
| kickout wrote:
| its about 33% of acres of corn that go to
| ethanol.....this should go away even before electric cars
| MAKE them go away
| devonbleak wrote:
| By providing predictability/consistency/efficiency. Yes you
| end up paying for things that are otherwise free, but those
| free versions are at the mercy of nature and nature isn't
| exactly getting more predictable/consistent. You can also
| create highly efficient watering systems where evaporation is
| nearly nonexistent and nutrients are easily distributed
| meaning you're making way better use of that water. And let's
| be honest - if you're working with 10" of rain per year
| you're not just relying on the free rain anyway. California's
| central valley is also a prime candidate for this sort of
| thing as they're pumping water out of the ground so fast it's
| sinking and the underground aquifers are getting destroyed
| meaning the groundwater can't replenish and they're unable to
| capture as much snowmelt. That's in addition to importing
| water from other regions that are on the brink of not being
| able to sustain those exports. Water's already expensive and
| about to get more expensive.
|
| And that's not even taking into consideration the higher
| density you can get indoors vs outdoors - the amount of land
| that is cleared for ag around the globe is staggering.
| Getting an order of magnitude more output from the same
| amount of land, but having to pay for water and light, is
| likely to make business sense and be better overall for the
| environment.
|
| Do the actual economics work out right this second? Maybe
| not. Will they in the not so distant future? I'd bet on it.
| kickout wrote:
| I'd say that future is far more distant than you're willing
| to entertain.
|
| California's central valley is a primer candidate not so
| much because of geographic concerns, but economic ones.
| Almost everything grown in the Valley is high margin. Those
| indoor ag systems need to get their water from _somewhere_
| so if if aquifiers and fresh waters supplies are dwindling,
| that will affect indoor ag too.
|
| Growing stuff indoors, at _any_ scale has proven harder
| than people thought. My experiences have mostly revolved
| around pests being more present in indoor setups (thrips,
| white flies) and you end up spraying more pesticides
| indoors than you would outdoors. Indoor systems are
| susceptible to the same climate variability as outdoor
| systems. A storm knocks out power for an extended period
| will kill an indoor crop too, or the storm itself may
| destroy the building.
|
| I'm pro indoor ag. It needs more investment, but it needs
| the _right_ investment, not this pie-in-the-sky mindset
| that we shouldn 't grow anything outdoors and indoor ag
| will save us all.
| [deleted]
| [deleted]
| samstave wrote:
| >>*What I hope will continue is crops that are capable of
| producing profitable and predictable yields in indoor
| environments will move more and more in that direction. a*
|
| WTF - I hope ZERO of this happens... Don't attempt to think
| that youre smarter than ~5BILLION years of earths bio/eco
| balance until we were weaponized by fungi...
|
| We dont need "higher yields" -- we need more efficient
| consumption and distribution...
| azernik wrote:
| Predictable yields at controllable times _are_ how you get
| efficient consumption and distribution.
| whatshisface wrote:
| Bad old farming: put plants in sun
|
| Good new farming: put solar panels in sun, connect lightbulbs
| to solar panels, put plants under lights.
|
| (Although it's not totally as daft as I make it sound, because
| it's theoretically possible to do frequency conversion in a way
| that makes all the energy of sunlight available to plants
| instead of everything but green.)
| shawn-butler wrote:
| That equation doesn't balance out.
| whatshisface wrote:
| The physical limit to frequency conversion efficiency,
| whatever it is, is much higher than the efficiency of
| today's cost-effective solar panels plus cost-effective
| purple LEDs. So it may happen some day.
| jasonlaramburu wrote:
| What criteria (crop type, geography, etc) are required for the
| benefits you outline of indoor ag to outweigh the energy cost
| of artificial lighting?
| throwaway0a5e wrote:
| > What criteria (crop type, geography, etc) are required for
| the benefits you outline of indoor ag to outweigh the energy
| cost of artificial lighting?
|
| Massive amounts of government regulation that inflates the
| price.
|
| I.e. just weed so far.
| kickout wrote:
| It's mostly high margin vegetables and spices. Look up gotham
| greens for a successul and properly done indoor ag startup.
|
| Generally tomatoes and maybe peppers have enough margin and
| volume to be justify indoor settings.
|
| Things like nuts are a no-go or any sort of
| wheat/cotton/maize/soybean operation (even specialty
| applications like edamame have severe uphill battles to
| profitability)
| zachware wrote:
| You are 100% right on the grains.
| iorek_dev wrote:
| For those who are interested in the topic of soil reconstruction
| and balance in nature, some more sources:
|
| Documentary on the Loess plateau in China:
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bjLV_aVRUmQ
|
| Talk on the Caledonian Forest:
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nAGHUkby2Is
|
| Talk on using the "herd effect" in Africa:
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q7pI7IYaJLI
|
| A talk presenting a realistic view on soil reconstruction, what
| IMO is the best argument to convince farmers:
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uUmIdq0D6-A
| tagami wrote:
| Thank you for the added resource links
| tastyfreeze wrote:
| That Gabe Brown video convinced me a couple years ago. I agree,
| it is the most convincing soil health video and I share it
| every chance I get.
| stevespang wrote:
| Most apparent was the $200,000 in annual costs one of the farming
| operations saved by dumping the agro-chemical suppliers
| herbicides and pesticides.
| gruez wrote:
| Presumably these expenses have benefits, otherwise companies
| wouldn't be using them? It's like saying a company saved $200k
| by dumping their computers... so they can do everything on
| paper.
| duckmysick wrote:
| It's more like saving $200k by switching from Heroku to a
| dedicated infrastructure.
| gruez wrote:
| ...which depends on how much a devops engineer costs. All-
| in compensation can easily exceed that.
| CuriouslyC wrote:
| Most agricultural chemical products are profitable in the way
| a loan is profitable. You get higher yields now, but you're
| disrupting the environment and making it more vulnerable to
| pests, drought and erosion in the long run. As these problems
| start to become apparent, your only solution to maintain
| yields is to use more and more products, until the land is so
| marginal it collapses.
| gruez wrote:
| >until the land is so marginal it collapses.
|
| Where has this happened?
| tastyfreeze wrote:
| Dave Montgomery posits that soil degradation has
| determined the lifespan of past civilizations. At the
| rate that plowing erodes soil it takes about 1000 years
| to deplete the resource to the point of desertification.
|
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sQACN-XiqHU
| kickout wrote:
| Probably referring to dust bowl era land like Oklahoma. I
| don't like the word collapse, but I'm guessing there are
| implying that the ground is x% less productive for crop
| production or grazing).
|
| The risk of land collapsing is probably greatest West of
| the Missouri river where historic rainfall is less and
| historic topsoil is less (Dakotas, Nebraska, Colorado,
| Kansas, etc).
| gruez wrote:
| >Probably referring to dust bowl era land like Oklahoma.
|
| But in that case the use of chemical seems to be
| unrelated?
|
| >severe drought and a failure to apply dryland farming
| methods to prevent the aeolian processes (wind erosion)
| caused the [dust bowl] phenomenon
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dust_Bowl
| kickout wrote:
| Maybe not what they are referring too, but you can
| absolutely 'brick' land by over applying chemicals
| ('salting the earth'). There is a continuum depending on
| which chemical and how 'bricked' you make it.
| CuriouslyC wrote:
| Overuse of fertilizers can cause chemical burn which
| damages the soil ecology. In combination with tilling it
| will gradually destroy the soil quality.
|
| Pesticides destroy insect diversity, including predatory
| insects that keep pests in check. This is particularly
| problematic because pest populations tend to recover more
| quickly than predator populations, so if you stop
| spraying the problem comes back worse. Pesticides can
| also harm bird and amphibian populations, which play a
| role in pest control.
| hanniabu wrote:
| I think I read that many farmers are required to use them by
| contract. If that's the case then a lot of farmers don't have
| that luxury.
| stonemetal12 wrote:
| That just moves the thought back a step. Why would they sign
| a contract to pay $200k to use those chemicals? They wouldn't
| if there weren't any benefits to it.
| foobarian wrote:
| I think when a producer is doing things at scale and is on
| the hook for millions of tons of wheat the industrial
| approaches involving chemicals are probably the only way
| unfortunately.
| kickout wrote:
| No, just no. This is 100% false. You are not required to use
| ANY chemical on ANY crop in the united states. It's it 100% a
| voluntary decision. Why so many people make the decision to
| use these chemicals is another discussion.
|
| Chemicals like roundup where _so effective_ they changed
| agriculture production in unforeseen ways (like we lost
| institutional knowledge on how to successfully grow crops
| without them). The fact that mother nature is rendering all
| chemicals (glyposate, glufosinate, dicamba, 2,4-d)
| ineffective is predictable. Mother nature also had the
| mechanisms to combat these chemicals, but it happened quicker
| than most people thought.
|
| We also didn't have 2nd and 3rd generation tools (re: not
| chemicals) ready to go when the chemicals failed. So we're
| stuck on treadmill.
|
| There are solutions though...
| jbotz wrote:
| > Chemicals like roundup where so effective they changed
| agriculture production in unforeseen ways
|
| And some of those changes were significant positives not
| only for agricultural productivity, but also for the
| environment. The biggest of these is the reduced or
| eliminated tillage... tilling the soil several times a year
| with heavy machinery was the biggest contributor to soil
| degradation and even outright soil loss.
|
| First, after tilling, some of the soil literally blows away
| with the wind. Second, organic residue in freshly tilled
| soil decomposes rapidly to CO2 and Methane, versus healthy
| untilled soil where a significant portion of it would
| decompose to long-term stable humic and vulvic
| substances... so we have a double negative where we're
| increasing the global warming contribution and decreasing
| the capacity of the soil for retaining nutrients.
|
| I've dabbled in farming, and I'm no fan of glyphosate, and
| certainly not of Monsanto, but I think it's important to
| point this out because certain knee-jerk reactions, like
| "ban glyphosate" by themselves are only likely to make
| things worse. If you ban glyphosate for example, one of two
| things is likely to happen... 1) it will be replaced by
| even worse chemicals, or 2) people go back to frequent
| tilling. There are no quick fixes to industrial
| agriculture, the only solution is to move toward highly
| integrated regenerative approaches, and these are by their
| nature much more complex and labor intensive. It's great
| that there are more and more people doing that, but big ag
| keeps them operating at the margins of our food supply.
| kickout wrote:
| The number is high, but farming in generally is a high risk
| bet.
|
| I often say to people, I need to spend (i.e risk) $100,000 for
| the _chance_ to make $20,000-$30,000 _if_ everything goes
| correctly. One major event and you just lost 100K. Scale up or
| down depending on the size of the farm.
| CuriouslyC wrote:
| Sustainable farming is a terrible business as long as giant
| unsustainable factory farms are a thing. If you want to make
| money farming, you need to either go the vertical integration
| or agro-tourism route.
| kickout wrote:
| Agro-tourism :)
|
| This is a _very_ underdeveloped space. The prairie
| ecosystem is all but extinct. Reviving it and getting
| tourist to come will be a real thing I believe.
| artificialLimbs wrote:
| I've got several friends and there are a host of others who
| disagree and whose works completely disprove your point. A
| search should easily turn up plenty of results so I'm not
| taking time to look up sources on this one.
| jlkuester7 wrote:
| * Citation needed
|
| Not trying to refute what you are saying because I honestly
| don't know, but this seems to contradict the original
| article. Of course sustainable/organic farming is going to
| struggle to compete in the normal international commodities
| market, but in the article it mentioned that organic grain
| could be sold directly for 2-3x the base commodity price.
| Seems like that kind of progressive price scale might make
| it not such a "terrible business".
| CuriouslyC wrote:
| The problem there is that farmers must do a lot of
| marketing to achieve that 2-3x multiple of commodity
| prices, so even if you're nominally more profitable, the
| additional time investment isn't really worth it,
| compared with taking your crops to a co-packager to get a
| 10-20x mark up.
| mastax wrote:
| Is crop insurance not effective at mitigating this risk?
| kickout wrote:
| Yes it is. I don't mean to ignore that. Not everyone gets
| it and its not 100% coverage (usually 50-85% in my
| experience).
|
| I would argue the pendulum has swung too far with crop
| insurance. There are acres that have no business being in
| production and rely on federally subsidized crop insurance
| programs. Needs to be re-thought IMO
| BobbyJo wrote:
| Is there no way for small farmers to band together for some
| sort of risk pooling?
| kickout wrote:
| Yes, farmers have banded together and make large purchases
| and grain sales. These are known as 'co-ops' in the US. The
| _idea_ of them is great.
|
| There is a WIDE variance on the quality of co-ops. Some are
| great and well-run and provide the intended benefits to
| farmers. Others would make the mafia looks less corrupt
| (seriously, the CEOs of some co-ops make 500k+ salaries).
| mgerdts wrote:
| It seems that banding together on grain sales cuts both
| ways. I gather that selling to (or is it through?) the
| co-op gets you access to the commodity markets, which
| generally makes selling your goods easy. However, when
| you are buying seed for the next year's crop, you have no
| guarantee that the market price when you sell it will
| cover your costs. At least that's part of what I get
| from:
|
| > Between cash and cover crops, Wicks and Givens are
| planting about 4,500 acres this year. Some of that land
| is leased from Wicks' mother, who retired in 2019, and
| the rest they lease from neighbors. They've contracted
| most of the barley to Anheuser-Busch, though they'll sell
| some to nearby Hutterite colonies for chicken feed.
| They're also growing lentils, chickpeas, Kamut and
| Einkorn for smaller mills including Timeless Seeds and
| Montana Flour and Grain, both based in Montana.
|
| > Their yields are smaller than their conventional ones
| were, but Wicks said it's worth it. Previously, they were
| at the mercy of international commodity markets, as well
| as ever-increasing seed, chemical and fertilizer prices.
| Organic producers often have more leverage, because they
| usually grow a diverse range of crops and sell directly
| to processors. Plus, many Montana organic grain and pulse
| growers forward-contract their crops, meaning they lock
| in a per bushel price before even planting. Wicks and
| Givens often sell their organic crops for two to three
| times the price of conventionally grown ones.
|
| A similar, likely smaller scale, tale is told in
| TasteMakers[1]. In this episode I think it was the beef
| supplier that said that he couldn't count on the
| commodity price of beef, but by contracting with the
| local artisan butcher prices were set for the year. Who
| knows what percent of his herd goes to that butcher.
|
| 1. https://www.pbs.org/video/preserved-ytoqzs/
| kickout wrote:
| Yes, this is the path for many small players. We had a
| craft beer revolution, and there is a 'craft _beef_ '
| revolution slowly happening.
|
| How well can this model scale remains to be seen. Also,
| do not underestimate the meat cartels. They have deep
| pockets (and the cutthroat executives) and can go to the
| mattress far longer than small-time players.
| metalliqaz wrote:
| On this topic, I would suggest reading _Animal, Vegetable, Junk:
| A History of Food, from Sustainable to Suicidal_ [1]. It 's a
| great book on an issue that everyone should understand.
|
| [1] https://www.amazon.com/Animal-Vegetable-Junk-Sustainable-
| Sui...
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