For the most part, you throw seeds onto barren land and the magic happens.
Uh… no. As someone who has actually grown plants myself for food this is not accurate. Agriculture is hard. Soil nutritional content, acidity levels, too much or too little water depending on the plant, temperature and planting times matter, amount of sun varies by plant, some plants can be grown together and some cant, pests are a huge problem and need to be managed properly, etc. I really do encourage you to get some experience growing your own food from seed if you have the land to try it out available. It’s 100% viable to do, but it’s not nearly as simple as you made it sound there. Tonight part of my dinner will be a butternut squash I grew myself. It’s quite fufilling.
A great example of how complex and fragile our agriculture currently is: That Haber-Bosch Process I mentioned? 40% of Global calories are made possible by it is the typical estimate. It’s part of the Natural Gas -> Fertilizer supply chain.
Yeah it’s kinda crazy when you think about it. Imagine what would happen if natural gas ran out. But luckily that’s an infinite resource that… uh… oh, right. lol
If you aren’t familiar with it, I suggest checking out Bill Reese’s talks on overshoot. Nice to see an actual intelligent person talk about how fucked we are as a species lol.
I’ll have to give it a look. It’s pretty bad yeah lol. I even saw something on here recently talking about how we’re farming so much that the nutrition in our food is plummeting from low soil nutrient levels. Makes me wonder about that whole “Great Filter” question. Things are extremely bleak.
Oh yeah if you go back further it’s way worse. I was just talking about a specific study comparing soil now to like the 90s or something I think? But if you go back and read like personal journals of the colonizers who came to the Americas they’ll talk about things like “You can throw a spear at a river blindly and hit 2 fish”. Then them and their ancestors went on to ruin that very environment lol. Then like the Buffalo herds that used to number in the millions. It’s such a shame.
Yes, I am aware that there is more to agriculture, that’s why I prefaced it and followed it up with my actual point, which is that this complexity pales in comparison to the complexity of any more ‘engineered’ processes.
And yes, agriculture may be fragile, but we’re not gonna replace it anytime soon, because we need something that scales.
Reducing the amount of plants we need to grow by going for a plant-based diet is already a step in the right direction. I don’t remember the exact numbers, but we might even be able to cut out Haber-Bosch.
In particular maybe also interesting for you is that legumes can help to reduce the need for fertilizer, because they fixate nitrogen into the ground. And well, plant-based diets involve a lot of legumes.
That’s why they were often part of crop rotation and also the Three Sisters.
Uh… no. As someone who has actually grown plants myself for food this is not accurate. Agriculture is hard. Soil nutritional content, acidity levels, too much or too little water depending on the plant, temperature and planting times matter, amount of sun varies by plant, some plants can be grown together and some cant, pests are a huge problem and need to be managed properly, etc. I really do encourage you to get some experience growing your own food from seed if you have the land to try it out available. It’s 100% viable to do, but it’s not nearly as simple as you made it sound there. Tonight part of my dinner will be a butternut squash I grew myself. It’s quite fufilling.
A great example of how complex and fragile our agriculture currently is: That Haber-Bosch Process I mentioned? 40% of Global calories are made possible by it is the typical estimate. It’s part of the Natural Gas -> Fertilizer supply chain.
50% of the nitrogen found in human tissues originated from the Haber-Bosch process.
Yeah it’s kinda crazy when you think about it. Imagine what would happen if natural gas ran out. But luckily that’s an infinite resource that… uh… oh, right. lol
If you aren’t familiar with it, I suggest checking out Bill Reese’s talks on overshoot. Nice to see an actual intelligent person talk about how fucked we are as a species lol.
I’ll have to give it a look. It’s pretty bad yeah lol. I even saw something on here recently talking about how we’re farming so much that the nutrition in our food is plummeting from low soil nutrient levels. Makes me wonder about that whole “Great Filter” question. Things are extremely bleak.
Oh man. It’s way worse than you think, lol. Don’t start deep diving unless you’re ready to feel existential grief and probably anxiety.
The soil on the great plains used to be 12 feet thick on average, now its roughly 6 inches lol
Oh yeah if you go back further it’s way worse. I was just talking about a specific study comparing soil now to like the 90s or something I think? But if you go back and read like personal journals of the colonizers who came to the Americas they’ll talk about things like “You can throw a spear at a river blindly and hit 2 fish”. Then them and their ancestors went on to ruin that very environment lol. Then like the Buffalo herds that used to number in the millions. It’s such a shame.
Yeah we’ve replaced almost every large mammal with a human being in like 250 years. It’s fucked lol.
Yes, I am aware that there is more to agriculture, that’s why I prefaced it and followed it up with my actual point, which is that this complexity pales in comparison to the complexity of any more ‘engineered’ processes.
And yes, agriculture may be fragile, but we’re not gonna replace it anytime soon, because we need something that scales.
Reducing the amount of plants we need to grow by going for a plant-based diet is already a step in the right direction. I don’t remember the exact numbers, but we might even be able to cut out Haber-Bosch.
In particular maybe also interesting for you is that legumes can help to reduce the need for fertilizer, because they fixate nitrogen into the ground. And well, plant-based diets involve a lot of legumes.
That’s why they were often part of crop rotation and also the Three Sisters.