What is to be grown? (Agribusiness, Organic, Local Farming Discussion)

The Something Awful Forums > Discussion > Debate & Discussion > What is to be grown? (Agribusiness, Organic, Local Farming Discussion)

icantfindaname: Jul 1, 2008

ReidRansom posted:

One other thing I'd mention in regard to organic meat and produce is taste and variety. Yes, some of that is entirely subjective and may have nothing to do with the fact that it is organically grown, but modern industrial agriculture is really only concerned with maximum yield and therefore maximum profit. If you want heirloom varieties of produce or breeds of meat animal, you're probably looking at organic because it's either not as profitable at an industrial scale, or in some other way unsuitable for that level of production.

It's also even less sustainable than industrial agriculture. Sustainable isn't heirloom roosters raised in a specific terroir and fed organic corn it's synthetic chicken breasts grown in a vat

# ¿ Jun 10, 2016 21:29

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# ¿ May 14, 2024 05:31

icantfindaname: Jul 1, 2008

Tuxedo Gin posted:

I think there is not a major defense of industrial organic farming being better than industrial non-organic farming in this thread.

They are the same thing.

The real argument here is industrial global ag vs. local community centered ag.

There is this thing called 'economy of scale' which is why we don't produce things by using artisans in cottages like the 1700s anymore

# ¿ Jun 10, 2016 21:31

icantfindaname: Jul 1, 2008

ReidRansom posted:

It's all such small scale it's usually pretty low impact though.

So it's sutainable for a tiny bourgeois elite than can pay for astoundingly inefficient production? I guess, but that's not really what the green types are talking about when they want to expand that vision to all corners of the world

icantfindaname fucked around with this message at 21:39 on Jun 10, 2016

# ¿ Jun 10, 2016 21:36

icantfindaname: Jul 1, 2008

Tuxedo Gin posted:

We overscaled the economy. Industrial agribusiness is dependent on government subsidies to maintain growth and profits, and a ridiculous amount of the product is thrown away every day.

Not to mention agribusiness using scarce, communal resources (like water in California, or land in general) to make bundles of cash exporting almonds and alfalfa (incredible thirsty crops, not at all suited for drought prone regions) to China. Why should they make huge profits at the expense of others? Smaller local farmers who can't afford to add a few thousand feet to their well have fallow fields because the big dogs are raping the groundwater for export profits. Even if the drought in CA suddenly ends tomorrow, it could take decades or longer to bring the groundwater to a healthy level.

Perfectly efficient food production is eating Soylent and ground cricket flour, not organic local produce. Local organic production is massively less efficient than even the system we have now, and setting up the entire world's agriculture like that means billions of people die of starvation

icantfindaname fucked around with this message at 21:51 on Jun 10, 2016

# ¿ Jun 10, 2016 21:46

icantfindaname: Jul 1, 2008

Tuxedo Gin posted:

We don't need a perfectly efficient system, and we don't need to feed billions of people. People should not be living in places that can not sustain them. This goes to my argument: CA agribusiness is raping a drought stricken state to feed Chinese people. China has a shitload of land. De urbanization is the best thing for this planet. Too many people in areas that cannot support them leads to other areas being hurt. Then, when middle America and California's central valley cannot sustain industrial levels of agriculture due to overexploitation of resources, what the gently caress do we do? Pray that technology has an answer, just like all the other climate change factors that we choose to ignore now because of convenience or greed.

e: Also, if people are so concerned about people starving all over the world, why the gently caress are we throwing away tons and tons of food, and bleaching dumpsters, every day?

No actually we do need to feed billions of people, that's exactly the problem. And as for people living in unsustainable places, there are hundreds of millions of poor brown people living in just such places today, and those places will become increasingly unsustainable in the future thanks to climate change. The major stress on world food production isn't Las Vegas and California suburbs, it's third world countries under water stress, and while eliminating waste and inefficiency in Las Vegas will help a little its effect on a country like Yemen or Bangladesh will be negligible. The solution to developing countries' problems looks nothing like small, local farms, it looks like industrial agriculture with huge inputs of capital and technology

icantfindaname fucked around with this message at 22:25 on Jun 10, 2016

# ¿ Jun 10, 2016 22:18

icantfindaname: Jul 1, 2008

Tuxedo Gin posted:

Consumer oriented waste is not the only type of waste. It's like you don't read a loving thing anyone writes.

Producers and retailers have ridiculous amounts of food waste.

Eliminating food waste is not sufficient for solving hunger

http://www.wri.org/blog/2013/12/global-food-challenge-explained-18-graphics

# ¿ Jun 11, 2016 00:53

icantfindaname: Jul 1, 2008

ITT: Small-town California farmer's market operator goes apeshit over marginal waste of fresh produce

# ¿ Jun 11, 2016 04:26

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# ¿ May 14, 2024 05:31

icantfindaname: Jul 1, 2008

Tias posted:

I live in a well developed farming nation (Denmark), and it's my clear impression that organic tastes better and doesn't contain herbicides that are toxic to humans - but itt a lot of respected posters claim the label is bullshit?

Am I being a dumb, or is organic just not regulated in the United States?

Both

# ¿ Jun 13, 2016 18:36

The Something Awful Forums > Discussion > Debate & Discussion > What is to be grown? (Agribusiness, Organic, Local Farming Discussion)