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Comment by CapitalistCartr | Hacker News Reader

I've been reading topsoil doomsday stories since the seventies. I've seen them written from the thirties. They completely ignore modern farming. We don't rely on topsoil, or care. Modern farming, especially since the fifties, is chemistry. The soil is merely a growing medium. We test it and add whatever is needed via petrochemical fertilizers. Better soil is better for the farmer, but far from necessary.

And whomever says a millennium to make 30mm of topsoil knows nothing about the subject. I've seen nature make that much in less than a decade many times.

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The soil is not supposed to be a growing medium. The soil is supposed to be a microbiome.

Sure, nearly-dead soil can work fine for growing plants. But it results in less healthy plants and runoff, which then has a cyclical effect. The byproducts of petro-fertilizers end up in the environment, which then ends back up in animals and plants. By not relying on healthy bacteria and fungi to naturally infuse plant roots with the nutrients and water they need, we are only getting short term benefits of reliable production. In the long term we will end up slowly poisoning the ecology that we absolutely need to keep agriculture sustainable.

> We don't rely on topsoil, or care. Modern farming, especially since the fifties, is chemistry. The soil is merely a growing medium. We test it and add whatever is needed via petrochemical fertilizers. Better soil is better for the farmer, but far from necessary.

I agree the article is hyperbolic, but there's a wealth of research showing that this approach has long-term negative consequences on soil health and the crops themselves, leading to long-term declines in yields.

Not to mention the contamination of rivers and underground aquifers with nitrogen and potassium leading to widespread algal blooms deoxygenating rivers and leading to mass deaths in (literally) downstream aquatic ecosystems.

One thing the industrial approach ignores entirely is the community of bacteria that live in symbiosis with plants. This includes both nitrogen-fixing bacteria (which presumably we bypass by just adding nitrogen directly).

The better approach is to understand farming as part of greater ecosystem flows, and to work with the soil and not treat it as a barren Petri Dish.

Good old petrochemical fertilizers. Who cares if we kill off most other life in the ecosystem as long as we have us, corn and cows.

Maybe its missing bacteria, fungi and other important life, this is one of the biggest reason of the rise of vitamin b12 deficiency in the world, even cattle and sheep need to take shots in some places. But if we focus on build soil instead of the plant we end up working far less in the future and without any need to buy or import things to grow food

In the 70s were the doomsday stories saying we only had 110 years left?

No, they would say 10-30, typically. 110 isn't scary.

That sixty year time frame is convenient, since anybody making such a prediction will be retired or dead by then.

and minerals ?

Ground-up rock dust works wonders: https://remineralize.org/ "Through our education and outreach, projects, research, and advocacy, Remineralize the Earth facilitates a worldwide movement that brings together gardeners and farmers, scientists and policymakers and the public to create better soils, better food, and a better planet. ... “Remineralization is one of the most important missions on the planet at this time. Together, we can remineralize gardens, farms, landscapes, and forests. We can grow nutrient-dense food and improve the nutrition and well-being of all life. And in the larger picture, it’s a key strategy to stabilize the climate!”"

interesting, because the mineral content of food is a matter of chance usually. For example certain plants accumulate certain minerals more than others (e.g. brazil-nuts:selenium, cocoa:nickel) but the soil they're grown in may have more or less of those minerals, so it's hard to control one's intake

Yes, my mother's favorite fertilizer on the farm was 8-12-16 with micronutrients, which were mostly minerals.

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