> The single most sane way to change agriculture for the better is to eat much less beef. hands down. simple as that.
I think addressing the issue of not having to succumb to the model that ensures 1/3 of all food produced is lost would do FAR more than that, recapturing the losses and creating alternative processes to create more efficient supply chains would ensure we could curtail so many more problems.
I say this as a person who has actually farmed, worked professionally in culinary (including vegetarian and vegan cuisine) and has a background in Logistics/Supply Chain for Auto-Multinational Corps.
So, if you think Conventional (chemical) Ag Grain/Vegetable monocrops (which is what most people eat) are really that much better for the Environment/Humans than a sustainable (ideally Biodynamic) Livestock raising model is better, you really have no idea what you're talking about--I've worked on both, too. Although I agree the US' consumes way too much meat in general, but there are much bigger problems to solve and changing a culture's palette is typically generational barring a massive catastrophe (think: War). I think many Millennial and Gen Z diets are moving toward plant-based more than their Boomer counter-parts, which I have some reservations about: the image of a 'vegan' toddler at the Farmer's Market I worked at during my apprenticeship comes to mind and I thought he was undergoing chemo-therapy he looked so unhealthy.
Also, I like the fact that these things are being explored, obviously for terrestrial applications the use-cases are limited, but experimentation for long-term Mars colonization will require in-situ crop cultivation if it is to be sustainable, and what applies to Vertical farming could help design the new container garden model. Vertical farms are essentially playthings for hobbyists on Earth, even a Community garden with a moderate size greenhouse for off-season grows will yield (in every sense of the word) way more per/sqft with the exception of perhaps the now defunct business models: selling micro-greens to fine-dining restaurants in a post COVID World.
Detroit showed how the solution to Food deserts isn't Container Gardens/Vertical farming, though its not entirely against it either, but its a reversion to Agrarian practices which include re-purposing large plots of land to Urban Farming, which created a Renaissance of sorts in the last decade. I guerilla gardened as an activist before farming, and while vertical farming should be encouraged; if nothing else as a form of Community building and as small step in CO2 sequestration as well as an improvement aesthetically speaking.
Personally speaking: As a person who grew up in CA the Valley has to be the ugliest part of CA to me because of how modular and cookie-cutter everything looks, it looks like an 'Industrial Model' to Civilization.
A few creeping grape/pea vines and spontaneous gardens won't solve the massive Homeless issue that ones associates with the vista of the Valley but it could really help improve the overall feeling of the place: I seriously had to flee to Sonoma every chance I got to keep from going crazy when I was there as it looked and felt so alien to me.
it would literally be genocide to go biodynamic for billions of people. Outcompete conventional processes and prices then it will solve itself. Until then conventional production has provided us food enough to feed the entire worl (but not logistically yet)
> it would literally be genocide to go biodynamic for billions of people. Outcompete conventional processes and prices then it will solve itself. Until then conventional production has provided us food enough to feed the entire worl (but not logistically yet)
Honestly, Labour and long-term Capital is the only thing stopping it in my opinion, everything is pretty much there to make the transition. The former being the biggest thing to be solved can now be an opportunity for all the Extinction Rebellion kids and Greta Thunberg followers who have opted out of Schooling to 'put up, or shut up' if they're serious about this movement, and the latter can easily be done by removing all the Ag subsidies overnight.
Its entirely do-able, I did it when it was far less viable after my apprenticeship and came back to the US and converted a few organic farms after having managed an existing Biodynamic one for a year.
I really hope most coders/tech people switch over to Ag Tech after this pandemic is over and they reflecyed on what exactly they're applying their labour toward as there is so much needed disruption and opportunity in what is the biggest Industry in the World (Food) because we just got a real wake up call about how precarious our living situation is on Earth when we saw all those shortages during COVID.
And the only 'genocide' to occur will be from continual reliance and outsourcing to the CCP as we've done for everything else, and extinction if we don't modernize our Ag, Food Supply and Supply Chains to something actually sustainable instead of using current practices that deplete our soil, water sources and arable farm land with the seriously reckless practices you're advocating for.
Prices are not sustainable with Conventional Ag, and they were never meant to be nor have they been truly adjusted for the Environmental damage they the incur as a result of State intervention, and are instead masked by a multitude of subsidies (which keep farmers into a near debt-slave based servitude situation) and why the consolidation of Ag occurred by Chemical/Pharma corps (where I come from as a Biologist) in the first place, and subsequently why things like diabetes, heart disease and obesity kill more people in wealthy developed nations than anything else--which you can probably argue is a form of genocide, as in these Industries are targeting the above poverty class of the World into using becoming clients of either of its branches and wreaking havoc regardless.
To be fair, I'm not for phasing out conventional or even GMO practices over-night as some regions would simply not be able to grow anything because of the damage to the soil/environment, but instead we should stop incentivizing it and remove its subsides and allow it to compete on its own merits after having shifted those subsidies (perhaps even a significant reduction) for the next 20-30 years in the form of long-term, low interest loans to small, organic/sustainable independent farmers, Community Gardens and seed money/Angel Investment to startups in Ag.
Just the budget of the Department of Ag for 2019 alone is staggering [1] just the $23 Billion in discretionary funds of the total $140 Billion could revolutionize how food is sourced, produced, and delivered into a near post-scarcity level (which on a caloric basis we are already at) in our Lifetimes! We could put a real dent in Carbon capture, reclamation and soil re-vitalization, which could in turn be another way to capture Green house gasses, and help the environment further.
I really think most people take for granted how broken and needlessly, complex, wasteful and ultimately poor for all involved our Modern Food Supply system is and how dire it is to have to repair it.
I think addressing the issue of not having to succumb to the model that ensures 1/3 of all food produced is lost would do FAR more than that, recapturing the losses and creating alternative processes to create more efficient supply chains would ensure we could curtail so many more problems.
I say this as a person who has actually farmed, worked professionally in culinary (including vegetarian and vegan cuisine) and has a background in Logistics/Supply Chain for Auto-Multinational Corps.
So, if you think Conventional (chemical) Ag Grain/Vegetable monocrops (which is what most people eat) are really that much better for the Environment/Humans than a sustainable (ideally Biodynamic) Livestock raising model is better, you really have no idea what you're talking about--I've worked on both, too. Although I agree the US' consumes way too much meat in general, but there are much bigger problems to solve and changing a culture's palette is typically generational barring a massive catastrophe (think: War). I think many Millennial and Gen Z diets are moving toward plant-based more than their Boomer counter-parts, which I have some reservations about: the image of a 'vegan' toddler at the Farmer's Market I worked at during my apprenticeship comes to mind and I thought he was undergoing chemo-therapy he looked so unhealthy.
Also, I like the fact that these things are being explored, obviously for terrestrial applications the use-cases are limited, but experimentation for long-term Mars colonization will require in-situ crop cultivation if it is to be sustainable, and what applies to Vertical farming could help design the new container garden model. Vertical farms are essentially playthings for hobbyists on Earth, even a Community garden with a moderate size greenhouse for off-season grows will yield (in every sense of the word) way more per/sqft with the exception of perhaps the now defunct business models: selling micro-greens to fine-dining restaurants in a post COVID World.
Detroit showed how the solution to Food deserts isn't Container Gardens/Vertical farming, though its not entirely against it either, but its a reversion to Agrarian practices which include re-purposing large plots of land to Urban Farming, which created a Renaissance of sorts in the last decade. I guerilla gardened as an activist before farming, and while vertical farming should be encouraged; if nothing else as a form of Community building and as small step in CO2 sequestration as well as an improvement aesthetically speaking.
Personally speaking: As a person who grew up in CA the Valley has to be the ugliest part of CA to me because of how modular and cookie-cutter everything looks, it looks like an 'Industrial Model' to Civilization.
A few creeping grape/pea vines and spontaneous gardens won't solve the massive Homeless issue that ones associates with the vista of the Valley but it could really help improve the overall feeling of the place: I seriously had to flee to Sonoma every chance I got to keep from going crazy when I was there as it looked and felt so alien to me.