Why Farming Is Broken (And Always Has Been)
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- Опубліковано 26 вер 2017
- Thanks to the Land Institute for sponsoring this video! To learn more about their work, visit landinstitute.org/
To feed everyone in the future, we may need to disrupt 10,000 years of farming practices and turn agriculture into a closed system.
Thanks also to our supporters on / minuteearth
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To learn more, start your googling with these keywords:
Annual plant: living for a year or less, perpetuating itself by seed
Perennial plant: living for several years
Polyculture: the simultaneous cultivation or exploitation of several crops or kinds of animals
Natural systems agriculture: cropping systems based on processes found in nature
Agroforestry: land use management that combines the cultivation of trees/shrubs with crops/pasture to create more productive and sustainable land-use systems
Alley cropping: planting agricultural crops between rows of trees or shrubs
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If you liked this week’s video, you might also like:
Alley cropping: nac.unl.edu/documents/agrofor...
Agroforestry: www.fao.org/forestry/agrofores...
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Credits (and Twitter handles):
Script Writer: Alex Reich (@alexhreich)
Script Editor: Emily Elert (@eelert)
Video Illustrator: Jesse Agar
Video Director: Kate Yoshida (@KateYoshida)
Video Narrator: Kate Yoshida (@KateYoshida)
With Contributions From: Henry Reich, Ever Salazar, Peter Reich, David Goldenberg
Music by: Nathaniel Schroeder: / drschroeder
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References:
Baker, B. 2017. Can Modern Agriculture Be Sustainable? Perennial polyculture holds promise. BioScience, 67(4), 325-331. doi.org/10.1093/biosci/bix018
Crews, T. E. 2016. Closing the Gap between Grasslands and Grain Agriculture. Kan. JL & Pub. Pol'y, 26, 274. goo.gl/d7BGsb
Dawson, C. J., & Hilton, J. 2011. Fertiliser availability in a resource-limited world: Production and recycling of nitrogen and phosphorus. Food Policy, 36, S14-S22. goo.gl/8dMuP1
Famiglietti, J. S. 2014. The global groundwater crisis. Nature Climate Change, 4(11), 945-948. aquadoc.typepad.com/files/jfam...
Kantar, M. B. et al. 2016. Perennial grain and oilseed crops. Annual review of plant biology, 67, 703-729. www.annualreviews.org/doi/abs/...
Montgomery, D. R. (2007). Soil erosion and agricultural sustainability. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 104(33), 13268-13272. goo.gl/Si9E6g - Наука та технологія
As a farmer (of course I watch UA-cam while on my self driving tractor), I can confirm this is an accurate video.
Lots of people working on applying new and old solutions to some huge problems.
I'm making improvements as fast as I can justify the expense of crop failure when trying new things.
Save seed
The reduced yield from more sustainable crop systems would be viable if we were to end animal agriculture. "A meat-eater’s diet requires 17 times more land, 14 times more water and 10 times more energy than a vegetarian’s, according to research published by The American Journal of Clinical Nutrition. This is principally because we use a large proportion of the world’s land for growing crops to feed livestock, rather than humans. (Of the world’s approximately five billion hectares of agricultural land, 68% is used for livestock.)
This squeeze on resources is only set to intensify. In 50 years’ time, the UN predicts there will be 10.5 billion people on the planet (the current world population is around 7 billion). To feed us all, it says, we will need to grow food more sustainably. Dr Walt Willett, professor of medicine at Harvard University, says we could eliminate the worst cases of world hunger today with about 40 million tonnes of food - yet 760 million tonnes is fed to animals on farms every year." -BBC Good Food
Title- "What would happen if everyone went vegan?"
(By Paul Allen)
A fully plant based food system would also impact climate change enough to give mankind time to convert to renewable alternatives to fossil fuel.
@@someguy2135 you are pasting news headline nonsense written by think tanks that don't know anything about growing food. The best way to fertilize a crop is animal manure, and the most efficient way to deliver it is free range cattle. Plants and animals are symbolic. Farming systems that are a complete ecosystem are difficult in current economic conditions, but they are undeniably the best for food quality and also land use efficiency.
Also, I have found in the years since my original post, that with crop rotation and livestock integration, I can get good yields without fertilizer.
@@GradyHouger “it is difficult to get a man to understand something, when his salary depends on his not understanding it.” - Upton Sinclair.
@@GradyHouger Veganic farming needs neither manure nor artificial fertilizers. "Veganic agriculture, often described as farming that is free of synthetic and animal-based inputs, represents an alternative to chemical-based industrial agriculture and the prevailing alternative, organic agriculture, respectively. Despite the promise of veganic methods in diverse realms such as food safety, environmental sustainability, and animal liberation, it has a small literature base. This article draws primarily on interviews conducted in 2018 with 25 veganic farmers from 19 farms in the United States to establish some baseline empirical research on this farming community. Its qualitative perspectives illuminate farmer perceptions of and experiences with veganic growing, including definitions, knowledge acquisition, values, and challenges. Results highlight a lack of agreement about the meaning of veganic agriculture in terms of allowable inputs and scope. Participants have drawn on a wide array of veganic and non-veganic resources to ascend their veganic production learning curves, also relying on experimentation and trial-and-error. Their farming is motivated by a diversity of real and perceived benefits, most notably consistency with veganism, food safety advantages, and plant and soil health benefits. Veganic product sourcing and the dearth of veganic agriculture-specific resources present considerable challenges to farmers. The article briefly discusses possibilities for developing veganic agriculture in the United States, such as through a US-based certification system and farmers’ associations, based on considerations of the trajectory of the US organic farming movement and veganic developments in Europe. Finally, the article suggests the importance of expanded research into soil health and fertility in plant-based systems to support practicing and potential veganic farmers."-Full abstract as found on PubMed from the NIH
Title, etc-
Agric Human Values. 2021; 38(4): 1139-1159.
Published online 2021 Jun 7. doi: 10.1007/s10460-021-10225-x
PMCID: PMC8184056
PMID: 34121805
Veganic farming in the United States: farmer perceptions, motivations, and experiences
Mona Seymour and Alisha Utter"
What if we took farming, and pushed it somewhere else?
then the whole planet is fucked up
like, where ?
that's a very vague thing to say.
most fertile grounds are either already cemented over for parking space, or in use for farms/just nature reserves. seeing as i don't see us level our cities for farms anytime soon, are you suggesting we get rid of nature reserves?
These people don't get the joke 😂
It's from Spongebob!
That idea may just be crazy enough... TO GET US ALL KILLED!
(Also, they invented that already. It's called crop rotation.)
As a farmer most of what is in the video I agree with. I'm not sure how realistic perennial crops are. When the same crop is grown consistently on the same land year after year, Soil borne diseases become more prevalent like 'take all' which is a risk when the crop is taking the same nutrients out of the soil year after year.
Also the genetics will gradually get worse so resitance to diseases, and grain quality depriciate
@@190nhtm How do genetics degrade in perennial plants?
@@190nhtm Did you pull these facts out of your butthole?
You need magnesium. How do you propose feeding yourself? Your family? Your nation? The poor?
That is why you do freaking crop rotation.
Fascinating video! As someone who grew up on a ranch, I definitely agree that we as a society need to find a more sustainable method of producing food for the world.
Casual user
The reduced yield from more sustainable crop systems would be viable if we were to end animal agriculture. "A meat-eater’s diet requires 17 times more land, 14 times more water and 10 times more energy than a vegetarian’s, according to research published by The American Journal of Clinical Nutrition. This is principally because we use a large proportion of the world’s land for growing crops to feed livestock, rather than humans. (Of the world’s approximately five billion hectares of agricultural land, 68% is used for livestock.)
This squeeze on resources is only set to intensify. In 50 years’ time, the UN predicts there will be 10.5 billion people on the planet (the current world population is around 7 billion). To feed us all, it says, we will need to grow food more sustainably. Dr Walt Willett, professor of medicine at Harvard University, says we could eliminate the worst cases of world hunger today with about 40 million tonnes of food - yet 760 million tonnes is fed to animals on farms every year." -BBC Good Food
Title- "What would happen if everyone went vegan?"
(By Paul Allen)
A fully plant based food system would also impact climate change enough to give mankind time to convert to renewable alternatives to fossil fuel.
Just wait for few patches it will be nerfed. But they might over buff the Fishing tho.
3m7llio and a secret buff to honey
3m7llio nah fishings going to be nerfed
At the rate the devs are going, fishing may end up getting removed altogether.
The developers is only thinking about making more money, they dont cara about farmers or grinders
Trying to sell my 01 runescape lobster certs. 1k plz
Interesting idea, but I'm under the impression that this massively complicates harvesting. Not an unsolvable problem by any means, but it is something that hasn't been done yet.
verdatum It won't be impossible, but will be more expensive. No single farmer can do this amd succeed, because it won't be profitable. It's always like that if the problem is decades in the future.
And there in lies the ultimate issue, cost. When food prices rise, it institutes a whole host of other issues. Food abundance is vital to so many other factors that it's not feasible to switch. I personally feel farming is certainly an issue we can kick down the road for at least another hundred years -- we've got far more important problems that need immediate solutions.
Regenerative Agriculture uses more human labour, true.
Looking at unemployment numbers, that should be a pretty good deal.
You get a sustainable, efficient and way more productive system, and "pay" for it by more people having jobs?
Sounds pretty good, considering those Jobs also involve a third of the year off, and constant movement, fresh air and good food, singlehandidly eliminating most diseases of excess, which are the biggest killer in todays western world.
Take a look at how much current agri workers/laborers get paid, and re-think the "having a job" idea. It may work elsewhere in the world, but it will NOT work here in the US, at least not any time soon. The pay is WAY too low to raise a family, and many of the legal immigrant workers (the ones willing to work for the low pay) are opting not to work in the US right now. I live in central California, and there is a significant labor shortage right now. (and most non-immigrants don't want to do it - it just doesn't pay well, and is VERY hard work for that low pay) That said, folks are working on automated harvesters (for things like strawberries) that can do the work of many of these laborers.
It's not that hard, and already being done on organic farms. The most common one I've seen is clover planted between crop rows. Clover is a nitrogen fixer (air + sunlight, as opposed from getting it from the ground), so free nitrogen ferts. It's a low plant so doesn't interfere with any harvesting. And like trees, supports insect life (like spiders, wasps etc.) that eat things like aphids etc., so less pesticide needed.
(Farmer) “Wait farming is broken” (Other farmer) “always has been”
It is very interesting to see how farming affects soils over the long term. I took a college course in soils a few years ago, and although tilling soil works well for crops in the short term, it denudes the land and makes it unusable in the future. Additions of phosphorous, nitrogen, and other chemicals for plant growth temporarily makes the land usable again, but these resources like you said are non-renewable. Hopefully modern farming practices can be improved before another dust-bowl level disaster occurs! Planting crops that supply nutrients along with the ones that deplete the soil is a step in the right direction (such as planting legumes that replenish nitrogen in the soil).
I've heard an awful lot about soil depletion making agricultural land unusable.
What I've never seen are examples of agricultural land that has become unusable?
@@jimcrozier3785 If the same crop is planted on the same land year after year (corn for example), that soil will become depleted in some nutrients. This depletion can be seen in decreasing yields in harvests over the years. Over time, yields will become low enough that the farmland is no longer profitable for that crop, hence unusable.
Farmers have had to deal with this for thousands of years, and many strategies have developed over that time span. Crop rotation, letting fields lie fallow, and using chemical fertilizers to boost soil nutrients are a few examples. However, not all farming methods are viable long term. Tilling of soil leads to wind erosion. Chemical fertilizers are a product of mining non-renewable resources and won't last forever.
There was a lot of unusable agricultural land during the Dust Bowl in the USA in the 1930s as well.
@@EarthScienceFun43 The dust bowl era had several mitigating factors the main one being a ten year long drought.
I've heard that slash and burn farming will give you very limited viable growing seasons due to nutrient deficiency in the soil.
What I haven't seen is agricultural land being abandoned.
@@jimcrozier3785 A lot of farmers are using chemical fertilizers to replenish the soil when it gets depleted. The problem is that this is a temporary fix with a non-renewable resource. It is still preferable to use that over abandoning the land which is why you don't see that happen as much.
Small farms also get abandoned all the time (they get out-competed by factory farming and large government/corporate subsidies), but that is another issue and isn't always soil related.
If you want a specific example of somebody that had to abandon their agricultural, I'm sure there are people in the industry that can provide an example.
What? Farmville is broken?
Get those developers to work!
how do you come up with these creative comments 😁
Lul
DAMMIT BEAT ME TO IT!
Nah just send an invite.
I might be wrong, but I think you mean Farmville, with 2 "L"s
We throw away about 50% of our entire food supply globally due to inefficiencies in the system of production and transport and because of simple wastefulness at the consumer level.
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Food_waste
Native americans did this from the get-go with their farming. They even taught Europeans how to do this.
They planted corn, alongside 2 other things. I think beans and squash? They all worked together really well.
i can't wait for massive industrial ocean farming with hydroponics.
@SysPowerTools nobody can wait, because we needed it 50 years ago.
Ive never seen hydroponics grow grain like soil does
@@pokeweed10k15 well of course not. hydroponics is still a developing technology. as more advances are made with it it wil become better at growing food.
@@cageybee7221 yea sounds like trying to use technology to solve problems caused by technology. Thats just what we need is massive hydroponics systems on top of asphalt
@@cageybee7221 where do you think they get those nutrients for hydroponics?
The problem is...every company tries to get the most by spending the less. And this is quite the opposite :-(
Michael Fisher well they kinda have to, to make it go around. Ever seen a farmer in a ferrari?
mr Cow it's not the farmer who owns the land
Michael Fisher depends on which farmer you ask
Most of Farmers get their seeds from Monsanto, which are not interessted in perennial seeds and are even modifiing seeds so that the haversted "Product" can't be used to regrow/replant...
Cost by itself isn't an issue, but participation. If the price of potash spikes up, all farmers don't instantly go bust, the price of their products go up. Markets adjust to everything so it's not a cost issue per se. It is a competition one. Any farm that doesn't participate will get a price advantage, that's the problem. And why without rules/regs, yes business always goes to the lowest common denominator in the end. eg. If there were no pollution/dumping rules, a business would dump their waste as they would then have the cheapest product production. Then everyone else would have to follow suit to compete and everyone ends up dumping.
A problem does occur with globalization, as while you might get participation equal in a country with rules/regs, a problem between countries.
If one farms 'dirty' for lack of a better word, do you then tax their imports to even it up. That type of issue will come around for the US with pulling out of the climate accord.
Perennial grains is a really smart idea! Especially if after harvest the stubble can be grazed by animals to feed the animals and provide natural fertiliser to the crops ready for the next season's growth
Veganic farming uses composting and other methods to eliminate the need for manure or synthetic fertilizers. The reduced yield from more sustainable crop systems would be viable if we were to end animal agriculture. "A meat-eater’s diet requires 17 times more land, 14 times more water and 10 times more energy than a vegetarian’s, according to research published by The American Journal of Clinical Nutrition. This is principally because we use a large proportion of the world’s land for growing crops to feed livestock, rather than humans. (Of the world’s approximately five billion hectares of agricultural land, 68% is used for livestock.)
This squeeze on resources is only set to intensify. In 50 years’ time, the UN predicts there will be 10.5 billion people on the planet (the current world population is around 7 billion). To feed us all, it says, we will need to grow food more sustainably. Dr Walt Willett, professor of medicine at Harvard University, says we could eliminate the worst cases of world hunger today with about 40 million tonnes of food - yet 760 million tonnes is fed to animals on farms every year." -BBC Good Food
Title- "What would happen if everyone went vegan?"
(By Paul Allen)
A fully plant based food system would also impact climate change enough to give mankind time to convert to renewable alternatives to fossil fuel.
@@someguy2135 stop lying!
"Veganic farming" is 100% reliant on chemical fertilisers! These are the cause of nitrous oxide emissions that are so damaging to the environment/greenhouse gasses!
like for like, omnivore diets use the least land, with animals eating the waste, 84% of all livestock feed globally is inedible to humans, either crop waste or grasses grown on land incapable of supporting crop production. When land of a high enough quality to grow crops is used for livestock (which VERY rarely happens) it produces more calories via livestock than crops. Look up Amaranth yields, amaranth is a fodder crop that vegans have decided they want to eat directly, so both numbers are available, 40 tonnes of fodder per hectare per month when grown for leaves for livestock feed, 1 tonne of grain per 6 months when used as vegan food for direct eating, subject to the use of extensive pesticides & fertiliser, neither of which are needed when it's used to produce that 240 tonnes of livestock feed over the same period it takes to produce 1 tonne of food for a vegan to eat.
Most livestock doesn't feed on fodder crops though, it feeds on desert grasses, most livestock living in areas of the world that are too dry to grow crops, cause of how much less water livestock need compared to crops. Look up "Australian cattle station" if you want to see typical cattle land in the world. I'd love to know what vegan food you think you can grow on that land! & obviously more land is needed for livestock when it looks like that, not lush, irrigated, high rainfall cropland!
& you didn't even write that did you, just copy & pasted! You need to update your world population in your copy & paste don't you!
The "food" that goes to livestock is the food that rots, fails cosmetic standards or is found to have bugs in it & therefore fails human food standards! If you stop being so picky & agree to eat ugly food & bugs, that food can be fed to humans instead of livestock, but while it's failing human standards, it will go to livestock instead of landfill, cause that's the smart thing to do with it! 40% of fruit, 40% of vegetables, 30% of grain & 20% of meat & dairy produced in the world today are wasted! There's ample food available to stop all hunger related deaths, but food waste prevents it reaching starving people, animal agriculture has nothing at all to do with this, animal products are the lowest waste of all foods according to the UN's FAO, cause meat & animal products are easy to store, fresh vegetables are NOT! Meat can be dried, smoked, frozen, canned, salted etc etc & remain edible for years, lettuce can only be refrigerated for a week or so before it must be disposed of if not eaten in that time, 1-2 days if refrigeration is not available, no canning or jerky options for lettuce!
& properly managed livestock farming doesn't "give mankind time to convert to renewable alternatives", it actively sequesters carbon from the air into the ground, where that coal came from & as such, it actively reverses climate change, which is obviously vastly superior to just trying to buy time, which is useless, you still need to get carbon back out of the air to fix the problem! Properly managed grazing & mass bio-char are the only options currently available that can achieve that
@@someguy2135 & lets also be clear about something here, my comment was saying that perennial plants are a good idea, since they reduce the 10 tonnes of carbon lost into the air for every person fed for a year, ie 80 billion tonnes of carbon per year with current population levels & your response to that is to go on a vegan rant, instead of recognising that what I am saying is hugely important & changing your diet to include more perennial crops, so you can help reduce your environmental impact on the world! Don't need to have animals eating the waste for perennials to be far better than annuals do you! It's just that the grazing is 100% free feed to livestock, no additional crop production needed to feed them & so increase food produced per hectare as a result, but somehow that to you is reason for a vegan rant on how not feeding that waste to animals increases food production? Talk about brainwashed cult member!
@@someguy2135animals will always be able to use inputs that we cant whether it’s is grazing mountain slopes that can’t be farmed or consuming zooplankton and upcycling it into microorganisms (fish etc) that we can eat. The reality is that ecosystems depend on animal involvement. That doesn’t mean we can’t make changes or shouldn’t eat more plant protein but a vegan agriculture will always be wildly inefficient. You can’t just remove yourself from the chain of existence and pretend like you are an autonomous and closed system.
So many issues with this video and the ideas it proposes I could write a PhD thesis on it, but I will try to be brief and address the biggest ones.
our premise at 0:20 that farming is still basically the same as 10,000 years ago is very flawed. A couple of the main differences are crop rotation and no-tillage farming practices.
Also, one important consideration to make is that less than 2 percent of the United States' population is directly involved in agriculture, and this number is decreasing. Any changes to agriculture will have to make the entire process less labor intensive.
I agree that a few permaculturists tend to have an almost fallacious "appeal to nature" way of seeing the world, and the romantic thinking of manual labour being always better than automatization.
My bit was the misconceptions about the tree lines. They have nothing to do with ecosystems, and everything to do with preventing the dust bowl from returning.
@@theblackcatvieweraccount5402 Even without tree lines, dust bowl like scenarios are a thing of the past. Just a few years ago, much of the U.S. experienced a drought worse than the dust bowl, but modern farming practices prevented most of the soil from blowing.
I'm not so sure of that.
if we make agriculture more sustainable at the cost of making it a bit more labor intensive i think it's an improvement.
@@RELANDREL But who will do it? We are already suffering a labor shortage in at least some areas of agriculture. Also, the idea that our current methods are unsustainable is not completely true. Some areas are drastically affecting water table levels, but there are also many places that don't use irrigation at all. To paint all of agriculture with a single brush (as is the case with this video) is absolutely ignorant.
Hurray for agroforestry! It blew my mind when i learned about it because it's so simple yet so ingenious. It not only helps protect the earth it's on but it also allows the farmer to diversify his portfolio so a bad yield doesn't put him out of business.
This is why we need permaculture, which stands for permanent agricuture btw. I recommend Geoff Lawton's videos. They're really good. Also, what about hydroponics? Skip the middleman (soil) entirely. :)
Thanks, I thought permaculture was a culture of permas. Pretentious much.
Feynstein 100 that is how I started looking into permaculture. Geoff Lawton is a great introduction to anyone who is curious. I would also recommend growing your greens UA-cam channel as well. It is surprising how much food is grown in a small area.
Definitely agree, permaculture is the way to go.
Feynstein 100 we can't do any of those methods for a reason. Adding ecosystems to crops will also add more contaminants, such as pests and cross contamination. It also will spread soil nutrient unevenly after it decompose the leaves etc. The tree idea is good though.
no we don't need permaculture which is ideologic and unpractical af, we just need to have an agriculture of precision and conservation, we should re-use the phosphorus from human wastes too.
Making perennial crops will fix this how? Do people think this magically makes phos requiements go away?
You are correct, the only benefit I can see is slower soil degradation due to it not being plowed. It will still need fertilizer.
Apart of their sponsor that is searching for perennial crops and it's funding money for them: I can see how it could be useful, because there are grass species that produce a lot and you don't have to plant them every year, like buffel grass. If wheat can regrow every year and get huge roots like buffel grass that would make wheat farming a lot easier.
@@fenrirgg except thats just more hidden mining. Trust me when ever perennial crops are taken out of production the amount of phos deficency is almost beyond belief. The other things most grass species that produce we already use such as wheat corn and barley. The other spiecies dont have near the potential
@@rickfreeman7892 I expect them to make wheat regrow every year, not to adapt another grass for production. But yes, perennials need fertilizers too. They are just looking for business.
Unless there are farmers I'm not aware of chucking the phosphorous into fusion reactors or shooting it up into space, we also aren't going to "run out" of an element, either. Sure, it will be more expensive to extract it from the ocean, but it's not something we're just going to lose.
Farming is STILL in early access, ugh!
If game in Alfa for 10000 year, you probably have problem))
Your videos are so good at showing us how things can be done better and at the same time how bad things really are right now
I think the point of the video is agroforestal systems but it seems like they oversimplified it so much that it got farmers angry.
But its still a good video! Is important to plant these topics into the heads of the people to allow new generations to see the problem and work on it
Communizm
So damn true. I'm working on this problem myself. Thank you for puting it into words and a great video
That feel when you've spent most of your life on a farm and just laugh.
To fucking true
it seems really unpractical and unscalable. Is that your impression too? Or why do you laugh.
Doing that with fruit trees is quite easy. Doing it with grains would be hard. Best way for that, since we(I) have rice fields; is too plant trees on the border of our property.
@@ozonefreak2 It's unscalable and in my opinion impracticable for anything large. Our farming system works as well as it does because of scale. I'm from Canada and that just adds to it. It's a great idea for a small hobbyist though and I think it could have a niche there. I think once you get higher that 1000 acres it starts to fall off.
@@jameschristophercirujano6650 Yeah I've seen it done with fruit trees but a lot of fruit trees don't thrive where I'm from. A lot of farmers here removed the windbreaks because as much as they prevent erosion they slow down the drying of soil that's saturated with water.
The sponsor of this video is a company on agriculture development, I don't know about you, that seems a bit dodgy!
Edit: Some may be misunderstanding this, so;
1.) It was sort of a joke.
2.) Know that hypothetical feeling when a beer company sponsors a pro-beer medium?
MiguelPpM dodgy as fuck
So an agricultural company is sponsoring a video about ways to keep agriculture going forever, ensuring profits and food for everyone to eat? Oh my.
Well, you could also believe the videos sponsored by other companies who tell you everything is all right and we should continue exactly as before, if that fits your world view more conveniently.
Hans Hintermann
Okay…
+Brigman
An agricultural company is sponsoring a video on how to fix farming and the way is playing perennial crops which means less profit for the company. Of course it's dodgy!
You havent worked on a farm before have you?
Was about to say the same thing lol. This video is all kinds of wrong.
Im curious; leaborate
Im curious, please elaborate
@@darknessml6145 Well first off, yes the problems she pointed out are valid. But they are almost always and only due to poor management. no regulations, no crop cycles, no water regulations and those issues end up happening. But most modern farming in developed countries with correct laws and educations on farming not only prevent those problems but can be fixed and improved.
Being an ecologists and a farmer they really seem to being pushing an "impending doom" with this video for some reason.
@@darknessml6145 so with plants, each one is different. If you try to grow corn next to a treeline do you know what happens? You destroy a 30k piece of tractor equipment and you get a really bad crop rotation. Corn requires lots of water and a steady supply of nitrogen (fertilizer), minerals such as carbon in the soil as well as a weed free environment. Trees provide a canopy for birds and birds poop seeds as well as eat crops.
Aside from the tree issue we also have a problem with ground water usage. Nitrates from the soil get washed down into the earth and tilling the soil helps remix those nitrates back into the surface soil. If you allow the nitrates to sink they pollute the ground water making it unsafe for consumption. This same ground water bleeds off into aquifers that supply drinking water to cities. The heavier the pollution the more treatment it requires once it's filtered by the water company. High strength treatments usually require a higher grade of calcium and a high concentration of chlorine. Chlorine breaks down lead pipes and causes lead particles to enter the water system. Now you might be thinking "my pipes aren't made of lead so I'm safe!" But can you say the same thing about the 100's of miles of pipe that water goes through before it gets to your house?
Also that nitrate polluted water damages rivers, animal life, and also the entire ocean. It causes the pH level to swing back and forth as the water tries to equalize itself. This is why shore side coral life is dying at record levels.
Instead of trying to reinvent the wheel for farmers I'd say it's better to educate each generation as we continue to grow. This way farmers can learn more efficient ways to continue farming and spend less on un-needed fertilizer for their crop rotation.
Yeah, farm simulator is full of bugs and glitches
That's why everyone should take care of their own food. Raise animals and farm yourself. That means getting out of cities. Which also leads to less depressed people.
Faming is verry demanding in phisical strength. You might think, the tractor does everything, try attaching the machinery and the hydrolic hoses, you need more than avarage strength to do that
The problem I see here is that implementing perennial crops would decrease efficency on the short term and thus, decreasing profits, so big agricultural companies won't allow this type of implementation until the effects of not having to repeat the farming cycle translates to money efficency :/
CRISP and gene editing is our best shot in the near future, but first we have to fight the medieval mindset of the average person who still believes (because they are being told) that GMOs are bad.
This is true, at best you'll still need more complicated/advanced & expensive machinery to pick out the crops you want, but to get it started and spreading they can just put a "Perennial Crop" sticker with a nice picture on produce like Organic or Free Range and markup the price to cover the machinery costs, people that can afford it will start buying it, there will be progress, it will get cheaper the machines better and better, becoming affordable for more and more people and over time probably becoming more efficient than current farming.
OPEN SOURCE GMO!!!
the issue i see with gene editing isnt the editing itself but the patents, and the strategy of companies like monsanto. as long as we dont open-source it i'm afraid that gene editing in even larger scale will make the situation worse by just raising monsantos profit margin while also killing all small-to-medium farming companies in favour of monsanto-owned ones
+flog353 The problem is that without allowing the standard protections of patents and the like, big companies have no reason to put in the R&D to produce these GMOs in the first place, meaning you're reliant on people funding it publicly.
Not to mention, lower farm productivity increases the risk of famine
It sounds great, but inefficient. It would be hard to convince people to reduce yield for the sake of future generations. I think that is already the main problem now.
if it becomes less productive then food cost more (which is bad)
There's nothing to suggest this will lower yield! Australia in particular is already doing "pasture cropping" of sowing annual crops over the top of perennials in their dormant season & doubling yields as a result
@Садоводство I already did, "pasture cropping". You can find the peer reviewed, scientific papers on it from the same people who invented the wifi you are currently using, as well as the polymer banknotes you are using if you live in an advanced country, extended wear contact lenses etc etc etc, ie the CSIRO, a HIGHLY reputable government research facility. They took the claims made about this from the wet, clay soils of eastern Australia & recruited farmers with no connection to the original, who were farming in the near total sand soils in the west of Australia, to trial the process under scientifically controlled conditions & published the results, after also running additional, smaller scale trials in a range of soils & weather conditions
It's Australian, so about substance, not impressive names for unimpressive products. Whether it's the "snowy mountains" or "hot chips" & "packet chips", Aussies keep the names what they are, they don't try to alter them to be something impressive sounding. It's pasture, that gets crops grown & harvested in it, so it's called "pasture cropping" & it's scientifically proven highly effective in a lot of very harsh Australian conditions (mostly conditions where crops normally fail because conditions are too harsh to grow them)
@Садоводство when I say doubling yield, I mean there's a grass crop as well as grain crop, not suggesting the grain crop will double! Yes it will take a hit in some settings, but overall productivity of the field over a year, in many situations can be much higher. In particular, it's well suited to areas with no irrigation, where grain crops regularly fail. This is a really common situation in Australia, where farmers plant, hoping to get a yield, but knowing that they will only do so every few years at best & the rest of the time, they're growing, expecting it to be just cattle feed after drought causes no chance of grain maturing. In that setting in particular, pasture cropping really comes into it's own, cause if the rains don't come & the crop doesn't germinate, or germinates & dies, instead of a bare paddock that will erode for the next year, the native perennial grasses will still grow when they come out of dormancy & their roots are still there preventing (or at least reducing) erosion until then, therefore giving pasture that year, instead of nothing & also increasing yield in future years, due to the lack of carbon loss to erosion
Depends on how you view "yield" I guess, but pasture cropping can certainly be far more profitable to the farmer
I also don't agree that perennial grains are a "scam" they are simply a different grain type, or in some settings, the same grain with different management methods, how can that be a scam? It's not like GM grains, that in many cases are a total scam. There's no trademarks or limits on growing perennial grains, no scam
You should check the "milpa" agriculture system and make videos about it. It is the central México tradicional planting and has a lot to do with planting together different plants for optimal production.
J'utilise ces vidéos pour améliorer ma compréhension orale en Anglais, elles sont très bien faites ! Beaux dessins, jolie voix, sujets passionnants. Congrats !
That sheep took a mondo duke on that crop
www.GPcarAudio.com I laughed more then I would like to admit when I saw the sheep doodoo.
WHY CANT Y0U DAYM HUMANS JUST ST0P REPR0DUCING! WE ALREADY HAVE ALL THE [BEEP]ING CARB0N DI0XYDY WE N33D
www.GPcarAudio.com lol
Not as big as the Moose’s
Chloroplast Nuclear genocide?
Just dab on them haters and farming will be fixed
dilux What if the haters dab back?
Waia kierk
bad day?
what if they are Logansters? Then we are trapped!
*Dabs*.......It didn’t work
Hi minute earth, this reminded me of a farming technique called aquaponics, which uses 95% less water than conventional farming. It would be really cool I'd you guys did a video on that
Simple crop rotation (which has been practiced for millennia) solves a lot of the nutrient problems brought up in this video. Good rotational crops for the grains we currently over-produce (corn, wheat, etc) include mustard, hemp, and peas. The big problem is that many subsidies, quotas, and GMO contracts encourage long-term monocropping. Growing a variety of crops together in an effort to encourage biodiversity (and thus encourage soil strength, and nutrient preservation) is good too. Considering how long it takes for most trees to grow, is this interspersed plan compatible with rotational cropping? Or, does this various mixture negate the need for rotational cropping?
Sounds like perinnial poly-permaculture to me!
The informational part of this video ends at 2:19, it's only at 2:25 when a different guy finally announces this is a sponsored video. I am betting a lot of people paused and left the video before that point. That means a lot of people saw you endorse their product without realizing they were seeing an ad. I don't appreciate that, and I don't think the FTC would either. They don't specifically disallow disclosing at the end, but they don't like it.
I will quote from the FTC website ( goo.gl/QBvPVf ) "[Q:] [...] When in the review should I make the disclosure? Is it ok if it’s at the end?
[A:] It’s more likely that a disclosure at the end of the video will be missed, especially if someone doesn’t watch the whole thing. [...]"
In other parts it also states that the proximity of the disclosure to the content is an important consideration.
Also, for people who'll say "it's in the description", in the same link the FTC clearly states that that's not enough (though it's certainly not a bad addition).
Now here is the thing, I know you didn't do it for any nefarious purpose, so could you please just after the "This is Kate from MinuteEarth" add "and this video is sponsored by the Land Institute" or better yet "and this is a paid promotion by the Land Institute" because it is. Okay, thanks.
John Doe, Thanks. I actually expected to be chastised for this.
Huntracony The difference between you and many others is that you explicitly say what your problem with the video is _and why you think that it is a problem_.
you forgot to mention about 33% of our farms produces food for our food. (livestock)
and how much of our 67% of crops we waste from spoilage. (not harvested, left in the field, at stores, and at home.)
or how much is rejected before hitting markets.
farming isn't broken as much as people are.
Great comment, the most important "R" is not "recycle", It is "reduce"
A few simple (but expensive) solutions:
1.) Place a layer of gravel under the top soil with perforated tubing to promote drainage, then direct that tubing into underground rainwater collection systems. Regardless of if it is raining or being watered, the unused water will be returned. This should result in a net positive of water in areas with average annual rainfall.
2.) Process the water that would otherwise runoff to extract from it the fertilizers. Really, in addition to harming ecosystems, we are wasting a vital resource. An inexpensive way to approach this is to combine with fisheries like Tilapia, but focus on waste plant material as the primary fee alongwith an algae or cyanobacteria based feed. Wasted fertilizer goes into the fishery, where the excess feeds algae and cyanobacteria and then the waste from the connected fishery then gets pumped back into the farm as naturally fertilized irrigation.
A larger issue is depletion of trace minerals from the soil, which will likewise require using additives like evaporated seawater or azomite powder.
The perennial approach is also a good solution, although it's more likely that vertical farming factories will take the place of the traditional farm for anything other than large tree based crops.
Damn the developers need to fix the farming feature
i'd like to see some proper numbers on this plan. it sound highly utopic. their a fundamental issue with relying on nature, its not designed to sustain the population densities we have today.
i'm personally more a believer of vertical farming.
verticle farming isn't realistic for crops! There's no fertiliser source available for the scale needed. creating more animal manure & integrating better into farming is what's really needed for long term. Have a look at holistic grazing to see a simple way to add 5 billion hectares of farmland to the world's resourses without removing anything from nature & then look into that system more & some options of how it can be integrated into crop fields as well should start to become apparent if you really think about the whole concept (this system has potential to mix in with that too - if they're smart & understand the needs while developing it)
vertical farming doesn't accomplish much of anything. You paid for tons of concrete to build it, so your price per acre is sky high, then you still only get ONE acre of sunlight anyway, and rain, so you need to pay crazy high amounts to pipe in water and run electric lights, far more $$$ than in horizontal farming. And ... why? No particularly huge benefits for this huge investment, outside of a few specialty crops that make sense to grow hydroponically to allow things like luxury access to berries in the winter, etc. Even those can just be grown horizontally hydroponically anyway without all the concrete. Especially since they can utilize land with poor soil since you're using hydroponics anyway. For major staple crops, it's very wasteful.
You don't even gain more land by going vertical, because you have to take the topsoil from some horizontal area and truck it in to build vertically, so you're still limited by the amount of horizontal fertile land anyway.
@@lilaclizard4504 Humans make fertilizer every time they go to the toilet.
@@egoist920 yes, if you're going to pipe urine into the hydroponic systems & integrate the plumbing so urine is diverted to the system, that would work fine, but most people refuse to even consider using that! There's also the issue of medications that needs to be addressed, especially birth control pills & other hormone related medicines & what impact they would ahve on food produced. Doable if we desired it though - at least for crops like lettuce, it's still not viable for grains etc that need massive spaces & produce massive amounts of waste
@@lilaclizard4504 We're already using human excrements as fertilizer, though. In fact, we have been using them as fertilizer for thousands of years. We just call them "biosolids" now, instead of "night soil".
This is called dialectics and I agree, it's an excellent form of farming. Sadly, it will not happen if we expect to get this past congress or through normal processes. We have to force companies to do this, even if it's not profitable immediately. These regulations must be forced upon society before it's too late. But people don't want to contend with the consequences of what that will mean on society.
Hi, I am a farmer and I just wanted to say that farmers are working on this. There are some farmers that are not changing but many, especially young farmers, are coming up with ways to solve many of these problems. I do not think perennial crops for grain production is the answer. I do believe cover crops and inter seeded cover crop in between annual cash crops like corn and sunflowers are the future. Thanks for the interest in this. I suggest watching any of Gabe Brown's videos on his system if you are interested in what is currently being done. Thanks
What about hydroponic farming? Is that viable?
As part of the solution, yeah. Probably only a small part.
You mean like in vertical farming?
+ausnurten
There are other indoor, soil-less methods for growing corns besides hydroponics.. Virtually every single plant can be cultivated in the style of vertical farming.
The problem with vertical farming despite how productive it is of course is the cost
It is and it isn't. It only works by adding fertilizer, and as the video mentions, fertilizer is made from limited resources. To make it truly sustainable, we would need to alter our chemical processes such that we obtain water-soluble fertilizer from human-waste. If needed, we can pull all the nitrogen we need out of the atmosphere, but phosphorus is a little trickier.
+verdatum
In theory we could recycle the minerals needed from both farm and human waste and process those into fertilizers ... but those present other technological challenge that we still yet to solve.
No worries, we will find new solutions, if needed. Probably even earlier.
Everything is a cycle on earth, except for the things we sent to space... Water is a good example, where should It go after it was used?
DW
elijah mikle There is no shortage of resources. It’s just that many resources are mainly ignored.
Also, like most things, these issues can also be helped by having less people to require so much food.
Yes. It would be better.
But try explaining to farmer who will have to do more work.
Of course they are going to oppose to making their job slightly more difficult.
ÈRPÉKA how do they do more work?
Should be called MinuteResearch since that's about how much time spent on both research and thinking the issues over.
I think vertical farming will be the future
[insert the Netherlands here]
Netherlands
Rahime ozsoy seems like they’re 20 years ahead of the rest of the world and about 50 ahead of the US
Well, what do you know. An sponsor ad that makes sense and is actually interesting.
There is a reason farmers cycle crops instead of leaving the same crops there, one crop depletes nutrients it needs while the other replenishes it. Also many times farmers leave the stalks in fields to help replenish nutrients, otherwise they spread manure to do the same thing. Of course you can also spread nitrogen if that starts to get low, so the nutrient thing isn't much of a problem.
There is also no till which involves no tilling.
But if you plant crops like legumes they take nitrogen from air and give it to Earth which reduce greenhouse gases
Really great to see another good video on sustainable and regenerative permaculture practices being promoted!
1:11 It's Geordi La Forge and Seven of Nine!!
Happy that some commenter are farmers, this video is reaching the right audience.
I've learned over the years that the best solution to a problem lies somewhere in between.
The idea of farming in harmony with nature has been used by Masanobu Fukuoka in the 1940s, as described in the book " the one-straw revolution". I highly recommend it for anyone interested in Eastern Philosophy and agriculture.
The method looks so slow to harvast that people would starve form a lack of food. You'd quadrupled the time it takes a machine to harvast, increasing fuel consumption. Interesting to know about the issue but the solution is a hippy one.
The idea isn't for machines to harvest, but people, on collective farms where a large percentage of the populace is directly involved in food production. See, "Soviet agriculture, 1930s".
I partly agree that nowadays cannot be used to change all farming systems (specially difficult to apply to cereals), but permaculture farming works and even improves productivity if it is well done.
Interesting concept for a solution; however and with all do respect, the problem isn’t that there’s too many people too feed, just that our system arbitrarily exploits and distributes resources.
These people should be greatful that great people like these farmers are putting the food on your plate
Why they're just doing a job like anyone else. What have they done to be grateful for?
1:12 Is that Jordi and Seven of Nine?
I hope vertical farming takes off!
Because in vertical farming, the plants grow without nutrients/water?
That. Its nonsense, inefficient and not at all helpful.
GlobalGaming101 I think we should do what the Israelis are doing, and use drip farming, not only will it save water, but we can take the water that's not being used that leaves the soil and put it back in the process
if you have free electricity. Vertical farming would work. it is too expensive now and always will be
It has it's place, BUT ONLY if it's used properly, which means recognising it's limits! Way too many people think it's "the fix" & that will make it useless! It has a place to play in low light & nutrient needing plants that are desired in daily harvested small quantities in inner cities
One thing to note, the early pre-Columbian inhabitants of modern Peru and Bolivia actually did practice some degree of perennial agriculture, due to their primary crop being potatoes, a perennial plant that takes a lot of effort to fully harvest. It's easier and more efficient to leave some in the ground and let them grow a new plant need year than it is to fully harvest and replant, either from seed or from the eyes. Until modern mechanical harvesting methods at least.
For all the people mentioning hydroponics as a solution: It doesn't solve the problem that nutrients aren't being recycled.
> Video says 'includes paid promotion'
> Is nothing but paid promotion
> ??????
> Profit?
good video, but one ressource you forgot is land area, low yield production needs more land and this is most harmfull to the enviroment... alternative farming methods must still have a high yield if we want the amazonas to survive the billions of people on this planet
Permaculture creates vastly superior yields.
As a bio major and agriculture minor this shit blew my mind. Wat a smart and innovative way to recycle nature by introducing natural elements. I will own a farm and I will implement this.
I'm very glad that someone understands that Genetic Modification is not harmful; it's a tool with great potential
They should really do more research and talk to more actual farmers and not the internet. Farmers are already doing things to help all of these problems. That's why they are farmers and minute earth makes youtube videos... For an educational channel I constantly feel they are pushing another agenda then just educating..
A good chunk of my family are farmers. GPS tracking of the fields, I believe, has been the single greatest thing they feel they have implemented.
Tracks the field on a square yard-by-yard basis and if the fertilizer added to that area was greater than the eventual crop produced (analyzes ROI in real time during harvest), then in subsequent years the planter and the fertilizer automatically shut off when they drive through those areas and they don't plant them for a year or two until the soil can recover.
Less fertilizer used. Less seed used. Parts of the fields that need to "grow wild" and recuperate for a year or two get the chance to.
The instant you said "agenda" your comment became illegitimate.
+John Doe
It's an uncommon word unless adopted from someone. The fact he's using it means he picked it up from the various morons who use it.
Your username is accurate.
MindlessDude not really. My grandparents are moving away from their farm that they've been on for generations due to water depletion
Hi, I have a question, uhm, how can the earth keep sustaining the amount of people when we are everywhere
Because energy is constantly added to the Earth from the sun. Also, we aren't really everywhere, it just feels like it. There are roughly one million ants on earth for every single human.
I love that NPK is written on the fertilizer sack.
The problem with growing perennial crops as of now is the urgency to harvest in huge bulks, large scale harvesting machines came along, hence wiping out all vegetation on its way, and replanting becomes an unavoidable process. Small scale farming (like personal backyard gardens) is the only solution to combat this.
less babies = less mouths to feed = less agricultural degradation/deterioration
yes and plz start with your never born babies ... gosh .. "solve" a "problem" by volutnary extinction .. people with this mindset REALY shouldn't get offspring ...
Farming? Sorry farming broke. Understandable, have a great day.
Nathanpp "
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Subhash Palekar is doing great work in rediscovering wisdom driven farming. you may want to know more about his work.
The key to more efficient and environmentally-friendly farming is (and always has been) technology.
There is a misconception among non-farmers that 'organic' farming has less of an environmental impact, when the opposite is true. The ability to get amazing yields using less land, less equipment, and less diesel is why technology is so important to agriculture, especially sustainable agriculture.
When people rally against safe and proven agricultural technology such as GMO's, they aren't just trying to make agriculture less efficient; they are inadvertently making it harder to feed the world and save the environment.
this is why i stopped playing ...
its just too buggy at the moment
Isn't the whole point of agriculture that you separate out different crops so you can harvest them efficiently. Key word being 'efficiently'. If you want grow a forest ecosystem to harvest, don't bother, they already exist, they are called forests. Go farm them.
Yeah this is basically a bunch of techies inventing maple syrup.
Most of the issue is simply the high reliance on cereal grains (corn, wheat, barley, rice, what have you) worldwide, with such a small portion of farmable land dedicated to their production. That said everything you dump onto the ground soaks up and stays there unless removed by mechanical means (erosion and crop harvesting) at which point the resources are just relocated (sewers in most cases) . In short food production is not in jeopardy, profitability is, and that translates to less money from agriculture to allocate to corporate bloat. But if we catostrophize enough Washington will surely send subsidies for alternative farming methods, regardless of how little sense they make.
We are already overpopulated, just imagine just how many more people we will have to feed in the next 100 years.
There's another solution: Reduce the world population - so I guess you're free to go, Kim Jong-un?!?!?!
what are future human going to do? BIRTH CONTROL
I wish we had more local farms using sustainable agriculture, like permaculture. With commercial agriculture and fishing, so much food is wasted, land destroyed, resources depleted, taste and nutrition diminished, all for greed.
In Brazil there até some initiatives in developing this kind of agricultural forestry, for reference take a look in the work of Ernst Götsch (syntropic agriculture) and in the work of Ana Maria Primavesi.
Sure when you harvest a crop when its mixed with other crap you don't deplete anything. And phosphorus/kalium will come out of nowhere damn this shit is stupid. No mention about nutrient losses in human waste etc. Nope always blame the farmers for everything gosh.
No, we're sending it into the oceans, where we functionally can't get it back.
was this an ad?
Ivan Martinson nu
This proposed solution can be expensive, unreliable, and hard to distinguish between land used for agriculture and land kept for preserve. It’s total chaos
Milpa farming! This was an agriculture technique in Mesoamerica following 2000BCE. I just learned about this ;)
Alow me to add a different point of view to this topic as a persone who does farming in an are that is not using all the new tehnology due to lack of monie ( pardon my spelling):
What is sugested in this video, mainly the combination of plants that we want to have and other plants that will help them sustain over years and not need to be planted again, is a bit not thought true by people who don't know the way whole world is farming, not just "extremly" developed countries.
The biggest problem, to me at least, is getting rid of all the things you don't need with actual part of plant that you want. For example right now its corn season and the biggest problem is that there is only one combine/harvester for whole village to work with and it gets broken all the time, with that in mind everyone just wants to finish their part as quicly as they can and with that there is a lot of waste coming into combine/harvester. With that people would spend a lot of time seperating everything so they need to take few days of a job they have in order to at least get it a bit cleaner for drying.
If we add all of those other plants near it will mess up the sistem so badly that 90% of people would quit and this will become one of those big farms where one family has all of the land and can aford machines that can potentionaly sort out everything prety good and other people would need to find jobs that can pay more witch will make them leave the country and make the ecomony even worse.
I don't know much about agriculture but I'll say it anyway?
Isn't this system going to be horribly inefficient? I mean different crops different types... No harvest so what are we going to pluck the crops like we pluck coffee beans? This sounds silly to me. Can someone plz explain ?
You're right in that we will grow less per harvest, but the point of growing food sustainably is not to maximize food gathered per harvest, but to preserve a farm's ability to produce food in the long run. There's still harvesting, but it won't be rows and rows of corn.
The real problem here is the fact that people always want to pay less for their food, leading to pressure on producers to lower production costs which ultimately leads to a disregard for the impact on the environment by the farmers, as their profit margins are so small many find it difficult to make ends meet leaving no resources available to sustainable practices, which tend to be comparatively expensive.
Why world is failing in farming because we think farming means only crops but it’s actually animals and crops interconnected
Farming machine 🅱️roke
Incomprehensible
Understand🅱le have a good day
Unacceptable have a 🅱️ad day
This video is nonsense. Theres nothing new about ecological agriculture. It is also performed in a industrial manner. There is no dooming problem to be solved.
flobbie I agree. They claim farming hasn’t changed in 10,000 years but then they claim there is a new innovative idea out there and that new innovative idea is to do what was basically done in early stages of agriculture.
I can understand the concern with long term harm for short term gains, but they dramatize the issue way too much.
@@jjbpenguin Ecological agriculture is not new. It is well understood. And there are heavily industrialized agricultural companies specialized on organic farming. There are eco-seals for food and other agricultural products. There are lots of people in the world only buying ecological products. If you want to support this, just buy eco-products. I don't understand how the creators of the video get the idea that there is something new about it. Don't be fooled.
@@flobbie87 We are improving, that is true.
Still, the most important crops (cereals) tend to be made by non-organic "erosive farming": soils so overused that they only maintain its productivity because they are feeded as hell by fertilizers, and sadly non-renewable and geologically scarce fertilizers (at least if they were abundant and/or renewable, It would be a fragile but sustanaible system)
Many places here in Germany also have the problem of monocultures. Near my uncle's place in Brandenburg there is almost only Corn, Year after Year, aft Year. It's because they have many Bio Gas plants, so they use Corn to make Biomass.
My dad is a farmer and said that you have to change the type of crop on the field every one to three years.
It is surprising. Since linien is a good plant to enrich soil and it is also a good fibre for clothes
We don't have a 10,000 year approach to farming.
We didn't use machines before a couple hundred years ago and we didn't use synthetic chemicals until the 20th century.
Not to mention that thousands of years ago it was quite common to use animal waste on the fields and rely solely on rain to water the crops, just like nature.
Farming isn't broken it's the people that grow your food that are broke they can't get the income to buy the fancy equipment because crop prices are low so if we're going to fix the system raise the crop prices and lower equipment and product costs
even easier, start by removing "cosmetic standards" so farmers can get paid for their entire crop, instead of having to plow 40% of more back into the earth because it's slightly wrong in size or shape so the middle men refuse to pay for it
where the hell is this system implemented
In all developed world countries :( Haven't you ever noticed that every carrot in a supermarket is completely straight? That you never see carrots with 2 "legs"? That they never have bends in the middle? parsnips are apparently one of the worst on needing to be EXACTLY the right top & bottom width & correct length or they're rejected, apples that are green on one side & red on the other or have a sunspot causing discolouring on them etc etc.
The middle men don't demand they be plowed back into the ground, they simply say they won't buy them, so plowing back into the ground to return the nutrients to the soil is often the farmers best option (unless they can sell them to be canned or processed, those don't need to meet cosmetic standards, but there's a LOT of produce wanting to be considered for canning etc I can't find the video I originally saw about this, showing the tonnes & tonnes & tonnes of food being plowed into the ground (was within a UK doco by one of their well known people) but here's a few sample videos on the issue, or just google or youtube search "cosmetic food waste/standards etc" & you'll see a tonne of info on it
ua-cam.com/video/gjl6js1_hkQ/v-deo.html
ua-cam.com/video/ZYlQGs0fbr4/v-deo.html
ua-cam.com/video/sYSCSuN7FpI/v-deo.html
You can't just "raise prices" (or profits, which is more common). If you subsidize the farms (raising profits), then consumers end up paying at least as much anyway, in taxes instead of produce prices. And now with extra wastefulness, since the same dollars have to go through the tax system and so on, with a lot of extra middlemen that take cuts along the way. You've ended up solving nothing, and in fact making it somewhat worse. In the meantime, the farmers are encouraged to innovate and compete less, because more % of their income is just given to them by the government without effort.
Subsidies and taxes work well for externalities, like war, roads, lighthouses, future tech research that needs to be developed sooner than it otherwise would be (though if o you need to subsidize the research itself, not hope it gets done). They're pretty much never good when used for just day-to-day maintenance of a non-externality part of an industry.
You don't need fancy equipment, and you don't need to buy fertilizers, pesticides, etc. using Permaculture. You'll save money using Permaculture techniques, and the yields will be much higher. Crop prices are actually higher for organically grown produce and pasture-raised animals, but that cost to the consumer can be subsidized by the government if they so choose.
Why should i care about someone in 2300? Also we have been using the same legs for hundreds of years but you’re not saying we should change that
Hydroponics and aquaculture may well be our future. Early adopters have shown that the yields per acre skyrocket when those technologies are used, and the variety of foods do as well. Several early adopters have turned buildings like old warehouses into urban farms rather efficiently.
I read my family is broken... :,(
>tfw it is