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androidsixteen
@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
@jawa
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
@royalaid.eth
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 💭
@matthewmorek
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
@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 💭
@matthewmorek
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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Jawa
@jawa
I think a lot who comment on conventional ag don’t look deeply and understand the complexities of the problem. A permaculture “food forest” while awesome on paper and at a small scale, it’s a nightmare if you’re trying to feed a big population. A huge % of the cost of our food is related to harvest and monoculture makes harvesting significantly more affordable. Conventional agriculture has a TON of room for improvement and has a lot to learn on the nutrition & pest management sides. All agriculture needs to be hyper-focused on sustainability because we’re never going to stop needing food.
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