> Given the damage that agriculture has done to the environment
Has it? I thought that the worst thing for the environment was subsistence farming.
Has it? I thought that the worst thing for the environment was subsistence farming.
That said, 'subsistence farming' in temperate climates as it was practiced say in the 18th and 19th century in Europe is quite different. It revolved around permanent settlements (so people couldn't move on quite as easily) and used crop rotation and animal manure for keeping productivity if not high then at least at sufficient levels. We couldn't live from a system like that today, and it was bad for the environment in the sense that it made people put essentially all land into cultivation, but it wasn't as immediately destructive as other forms of subsistence farming are.
With minor variations it's still practiced in parts of Europe, to this day :)
But, people need to eat, and so here we are. Alternatives to traditional agriculture would be great, but must make economic sense to actually take hold.
Besides, subsistence farming is agriculture.
Who says that subsistence farming is bad?
I've always heard that large-scale industrial agriculture is bad because it destroys the soil. Or that it breaks the soil up so it then blows or washes away.
Every year I watch the sand from the farm next door runoff in spring rains into the ditch, which ends up in the creek across the road, which then runs down into Lake Ontario. There's no soil left. On almost all the farms here. But they can still grow things through 'artificial' means.