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What an odd response. We have centuries of evidence for minimal disturbance agriculture supporting civilizations. What evidently does NOT work is the quite new

What an odd response. We have centuries of evidence for minimal disturbance agriculture supporting civilizations. What evidently does NOT work is the quite new practice of industrial tilling and fertilizer, which is causing rapid breakdown of our natural environment and future potential for food production.

altairprime 6mo ago
Ideally, industrial farming will use this new data to min/max tilling intervals for higher production per acre, which is still wildly suboptimal but at least provably better than arbitrary downtime practices (or even none) that they would otherwise settle on. If nothing else, that’s language their shareholders will listen to: “use fewer resources to produce more goods” is the holy grail of corporations, and fertilizer must be the death of their opex today.
thrownthatway 6mo ago
What do you mean “does not work”? The industrial practices that have enable us to feed a population of 8 billion, with surplus - a lot of food is thrown out as waste because we have so much of it we really don’t have to be super strict with it. The industrial practices that have allowed the majority of the population to do something other than be directly involved in agriculture. What part of that isn’t working? The sky is falling, co2 will cook the planet, industrial agriculture is poisoning the land, over fishing will collapse fish stocks. We’ve been told these things for, what, at least sixty years now. Now we can add A.I. will de-employment everyone. I don’t believe any of it.
- darkarmani 6mo ago
  > co2 will cook the planet It doesn't have to cook the planet to cause massive suffering. Do you think there hasn't been global warming? What amount of global warming would change your mind?
- arthurbrown 6mo ago
  What's the point of this? You are saying that you will not accept any new information that goes against your belief system. The evidence is there. Read something. Watch a video. The resources are readily available and abundant. Make a garden patch and experiment for yourself if you refuse to accept any outside information. This video is 15 years old. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q1aR5OLgcc0 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q1aR5OLgcc0
- Saline9515 6mo ago
  Tilling with large amounts of mined fertilisers and poisons works for now, but is not especially durable. Many of us are going to discover this given that the fertilisers aren't produced anymore since the Hormuz Strait is blocked.
- modo_mario 6mo ago
  >co2 will cook the planet, industrial agriculture is poisoning the land, over fishing will collapse fish stocks. The insect population is down a ridiculous amount where I live and also in neighboring germany. I could link the study and such but honestly it's not like these things aren't backed up by my own experiences and those of my parents and grandparents. I do find a lot lot less insects than I did when i was young. We no longer get much (if any) snow let alone the kneedeep stuff. It's harder to catch certain kinds of fish. The fishing boats where I used to visit every year go quite a bit further nowadays because those fish stocks have collapsed.
lurk2 6mo ago
Do you have experience as a farmer? If you don’t, why should I believe that farmers who continue to till their fields know less about this issue than you do?
- NanoCoaster 6mo ago
  Because there are other factors at play. No-till is mostly about sustainability of farming. Humans often don't optimize for the most sustainable option but for the option that's most profitable (or perceived to be most profitable) _right now_. Tilling and using crazy amounts of mineral fertilizer definitely improves yields. But it will, in the long term, also kill agriculture to a large extent if we're not careful. We're not talking about highly speculative outcomes here: The data is pretty clear and everyone with even a large pot and some soil can run the same experiment at home and come to the same conclusions. Farmers need to survive, they need to earn money, they will obviously optimize for short-term yield. We shouldn't judge them for this, but we _should_ find ways to solve the issue, ideally together with farmers.
- arthurbrown 6mo ago
  I'm not a farmer, but you are welcome to ask a no-till farmer for their experience, or do some reading. Heck, you could read the article that we're commenting on where scientists have dedicated their career to understanding this stuff.
  - lurk2 6mo ago
    Can you explain to me why a farmer with a financial stake in this argument continues to till his soil? Can you explain the benefits of tillage, or are you arguing that it has no benefits?
    - inkcapmushroom 6mo ago
      The modern industrial farming complex is designed to treat every field as identical, and to allow as few people as possible to work as big an area as possible. That allows for standardizing methods and optimizing the output per acre. Tilling the soil is mainly for aeration: the farm equipment rolling over the fields (which is needed to massively reduce labor costs) compact them, so you need to loosen the soil again. It's also for weeding; if you till before you plant you uproot any plants already growing there (weeding by hand is extremely labor intensive). It also allows you to mix compost and other beneficial components into your soil to further aerate it and give space for roots to grow. It's all to give your field a "blank canvas" that you apply your crops to, where you can just dump about 2-3x the recommended amount of fertilizer into it and not worry about the particular conditions of the soil itself beforehand.

altairprime 6mo ago

Ideally, industrial farming will use this new data to min/max tilling intervals for higher production per acre, which is still wildly suboptimal but at least provably better than arbitrary downtime practices (or even none) that they would otherwise settle on. If nothing else, that’s language their shareholders will listen to: “use fewer resources to produce more goods” is the holy grail of corporations, and fertilizer must be the death of their opex today.

thrownthatway 6mo ago

What do you mean “does not work”? The industrial practices that have enable us to feed a population of 8 billion, with surplus - a lot of food is thrown out as waste because we have so much of it we really don’t have to be super strict with it. The industrial practices that have allowed the majority of the population to do something other than be directly involved in agriculture. What part of that isn’t working? The sky is falling, co2 will cook the planet, industrial agriculture is poisoning the land, over fishing will collapse fish stocks. We’ve been told these things for, what, at least sixty years now. Now we can add A.I. will de-employment everyone. I don’t believe any of it.

darkarmani 6mo ago
> co2 will cook the planet It doesn't have to cook the planet to cause massive suffering. Do you think there hasn't been global warming? What amount of global warming would change your mind?
arthurbrown 6mo ago
What's the point of this? You are saying that you will not accept any new information that goes against your belief system. The evidence is there. Read something. Watch a video. The resources are readily available and abundant. Make a garden patch and experiment for yourself if you refuse to accept any outside information. This video is 15 years old. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q1aR5OLgcc0 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q1aR5OLgcc0
Saline9515 6mo ago
Tilling with large amounts of mined fertilisers and poisons works for now, but is not especially durable. Many of us are going to discover this given that the fertilisers aren't produced anymore since the Hormuz Strait is blocked.
modo_mario 6mo ago
>co2 will cook the planet, industrial agriculture is poisoning the land, over fishing will collapse fish stocks. The insect population is down a ridiculous amount where I live and also in neighboring germany. I could link the study and such but honestly it's not like these things aren't backed up by my own experiences and those of my parents and grandparents. I do find a lot lot less insects than I did when i was young. We no longer get much (if any) snow let alone the kneedeep stuff. It's harder to catch certain kinds of fish. The fishing boats where I used to visit every year go quite a bit further nowadays because those fish stocks have collapsed.

lurk2 6mo ago

Do you have experience as a farmer? If you don’t, why should I believe that farmers who continue to till their fields know less about this issue than you do?

NanoCoaster 6mo ago
Because there are other factors at play. No-till is mostly about sustainability of farming. Humans often don't optimize for the most sustainable option but for the option that's most profitable (or perceived to be most profitable) _right now_. Tilling and using crazy amounts of mineral fertilizer definitely improves yields. But it will, in the long term, also kill agriculture to a large extent if we're not careful. We're not talking about highly speculative outcomes here: The data is pretty clear and everyone with even a large pot and some soil can run the same experiment at home and come to the same conclusions. Farmers need to survive, they need to earn money, they will obviously optimize for short-term yield. We shouldn't judge them for this, but we _should_ find ways to solve the issue, ideally together with farmers.
arthurbrown 6mo ago
I'm not a farmer, but you are welcome to ask a no-till farmer for their experience, or do some reading. Heck, you could read the article that we're commenting on where scientists have dedicated their career to understanding this stuff.
- lurk2 6mo ago
  Can you explain to me why a farmer with a financial stake in this argument continues to till his soil? Can you explain the benefits of tillage, or are you arguing that it has no benefits?
  - inkcapmushroom 6mo ago
    The modern industrial farming complex is designed to treat every field as identical, and to allow as few people as possible to work as big an area as possible. That allows for standardizing methods and optimizing the output per acre. Tilling the soil is mainly for aeration: the farm equipment rolling over the fields (which is needed to massively reduce labor costs) compact them, so you need to loosen the soil again. It's also for weeding; if you till before you plant you uproot any plants already growing there (weeding by hand is extremely labor intensive). It also allows you to mix compost and other beneficial components into your soil to further aerate it and give space for roots to grow. It's all to give your field a "blank canvas" that you apply your crops to, where you can just dump about 2-3x the recommended amount of fertilizer into it and not worry about the particular conditions of the soil itself beforehand.