androidsixteen on Warpcast

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@androidsixteen.eth

History of industrial agriculture: <1940s: scarce but nourishing food ~1950-1990: abundant and nourishing food (depletion period) ~1990-present: abundant but depleted food Next phase will have supply shocks of depleted food The best move is to rotate back into nourishing foods by going local

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Jawa pfp

The depleted argument is over stated. We have traded some nutritional benefit for better shelf life & ability to pack the fruit. Does it matter that much if an orange has 50mg of Vitamin C instead of 60mg if you have much better access to fresh fruit ? Not in my mind. Between 1995 & 2006 I watched strawberries in the Northeast go from small & heavily damaged fruit that barely looked edible to larger & appetizing. They’re not as sweet, but the can get to your fridge before looking like mush. There are lots of trade-offs in ag

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Royal pfp

Additionally the eco impacts of concentrated farming are much smaller than distributed farms because they benefit a lot from the scale. Both organic farming and local farming result in more damage to the environment iirc.

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matt 💭 pfp

This is understated. It’s the number one reason we have a rapidly declining food poverty in the entire world. If you want to see what happens when you remove modern agricultural tools, just look up Sri Lanka from 2021 onwards, and the disaster they created under the premise of going “organic” by banning chemical fertilizers and pesticides. Food prices skyrocketed, production nose dived, and they went from being exporters of rice and tea to a net importer of food in a matter of a single season. Here’s a more nuanced take on this: https://humanprogress.org/sri-lanka-is-a-wake-up-call-for-eco-utopians/

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@androidsixteen.eth

Sri Lanka was a disaster and an awful trial balloon Nobody serious about solving this problem would suggest an overnight cutover An analogy might be a drug addiction — cold turkey could kill the patient. Instead, we need to taper off because the path it keeps us on is worse

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matt 💭 pfp

what makes you say this? why are you so convinced we need to go off of industrial farming entirely? we have currently an abundance of food that could feed everyone in the world thanks to agricultural marvels of technology. doing 180° (even if while tapering off over time) is a surefire way to starvation and poverty

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@androidsixteen.eth

We have an abundance of depleted food because we spent the last 80 years using the Haber process to artificially juice yields As a result: - food quality is worse - climate change is accelerated - soils and fisheries are depleted I think you’re overfitting the current trend. An analogy is someone on meth arguing to stay on it because they have a ton of energy. What they don’t realize is that energetic output comes at a deep cost

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Jawa pfp

Who’s using these practices today and producing “more nutritious” food using these practices you advocate?

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@androidsixteen.eth

Have you ever read any of Joel Salatin’s books? https://polyfacefarms.com/ I’d recommend starting with this one if you haven’t: https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/11521956-folks-this-ain-t-normal

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@androidsixteen.eth

And even closer to home, @brixbounty runs a farm and focuses on soil quality and nutritious produce Just look at the photos he shares and compare that to the conventional Central Valley produce that gets shipped to your grocery store

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Royal pfp

I think there is an ignored miracle in that we CAN ship that stuff local grocery stores throughout the US. You can get most of anything year round now. Additionally like @jawa pointed out, you can easily make up for the nutrition difference with a bit more consumption and the trade off seems easily worth it. This is to say nothing of the infra we have in place to be able to enable this, cold chain + roads + logistic planning software. Is it perfect? No. Is it worth it? Market says yes.

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Royal pfp

On top of all of the above, there is a large opening for people to satisfy the goals you have outlined and farm locally. We get the best of both worlds this way. People in the far reaches of Alaska get tomatoes and you can locally purchase organic and nutrition focused foods.

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@androidsixteen.eth

I don’t think we disagree with each other for the most part I’m not advocating a cutaway from the current system without serious consideration But the root of my argument is that locality is inextricably linked with quality — not that we should migrate existing systems to only local systems now Eating in a non-seasonal manner and having to eat more calories to compensate for lower nutrient density *is* what makes us sick We are deeply connected to the land, and being able to eat more food closer to where it is grown and reducing the reliance on supply chains should all be celebrated — I’m honestly surprised that making an argument for decentralization on the food front is encountering resistance from those who celebrate it on the finance front

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Jawa pfp

Re: decentralization: I advocate for everyone to learn to grow foods that they enjoy eating (strawberries are a great place to start and can be grown in almost every part of the world). The more the public understands the eccentricities of food production the more we will all benefit.

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matt 💭 pfp

I’m not disagreeing with you here. I also prefer to buy local, directly from farmers because I enjoy their produce. It’s definitely better quality but the trade off is the price. Supermarkets often lowball their suppliers (this is widespread in the UK), but people keep choosing convenience over substance. The only way farmers can disrupt this, is by improving their distribution and working together to form more efficient coops and ways of getting to their customers. One example I always give is that you can get faster next-day delivery from my local butcher than from Amazon, but that’s because they care. If a farmer doesn’t want to do marketing, they should work with those who do to help themselves. I think a lot of it is basic business education, no sustainability for sustainability’s sake because that’s a surefire way to famine and food market collapse. It’s enough our governments try to kill indie farmers and strong arm supermarket chains across Europe.

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