Hacker News Reader

Comment by dragontamer | Hacker News Reader

If "natural growth" is best, it'd be possible to measure it. It seems somewhat straightforward to measure the carbon content of an area before its forested (or re-forested), and then measure it afterwards, and see which method does better.

In my experience: agriculture wins in regards to hitting goals and targets. Nature will never grow as much food as our farming system, period. Similarly, I expect that our farming system (tweaked for carbon-capture instead of wood and/or other growth targets) would be superior at handling a specific goal (ie: Carbon capture) than nature.

View on HN

We can certainly measure mineral depletion in soil that agriculture drives. This affects the resulting nutritional value of agricultural products.[1]

In general we over focus on stocks rather than flows when it comes to natural resources. That is to our, and the planets, detriment. Much of modern agriculture, for its productivity, wreaks havoc on the soil and the surrounding ecosystems. It's something that can be solved by technology, but not without getting over this stocks vs flows conceptual hurdle.

[1] https://www.nytimes.com/2015/09/15/science/a-decline-in-the-...

> Nature will never grow as much food as our farming system

Permaculture is considered as "farming" or "nature"? I think it corresponds more to the latter. And it's extremely productive

Unfortunately permaculture usually isn't that productive with a few exeptions

References? As far as I understand it, by personally visiting sucessfull alternative farms that are using management intensive grazing (holistic grazing, mob grazing, etc.), they really do have a paradigm changing method that could and should be adapted by almost all meat producers. The current practices are archaic and destructive and are completely missing the more recent (last 20 years) scientific advancement in understanding how to build soil, maximize forage use, and raise healty animals without the current massive use of pesticides, herbicides, and large expensive machines. The economics is there, the change is slow, but proceeding. Check out the research work at the University of Missouri by Jim Garrish, the Stockman Grass Farmer publication and the farms of Greg Judy and Gabe Brown, to start.

I guess it depends on your definition of permaculture, I was thinking more like an integrated orchard system. You are quite right about your 'alternative grazing methods', they are productive and much much better for the soil than Corn + Feedlots that you get in the US. I do work on a farm that does a fair bit of that sort of stuff.

Yea, we're arguing symantics. My apoligies. The word "permaculture", nowadays, is, in my circles, a big umbrella word for many different systems. Many of those systems would not necessarily call themselves "permaculture". A big umbrella - "permanent agriculture", or agricultural practices that do not degrade the land, but rather can run on for millenia, there are many systems we are now discovering, some ancient, some newly synthesized, that have that potential to feed the world, while, at the same time, healing past damage .

I'd expect that the ideal carbon-capture strategy is to grow a tree as quickly as possible (ie: a fast and easy growing wood like poplar, or maybe bamboo), and then probably bury the wood deep underground. If any bacteria eats the wood, the CO2 gasses should remain trapped there.

The expectation that permaculture is actually the best carbon-capture strategy is... strange. Trees eventually die, and at that point: their captured carbon is eaten by bacteria, turned back into CO2 and released into the atmosphere. There is a degree of carbon-capture with natural forests, but they aren't explicitly designed for carbon capture.

--------

Now if you think there are other benefits of permaculture, then of course, that's to be discussed. Maybe it'd be more beneficial to the wildlife (more room for predators / prey to roam the lands), and possibly beneficial for other reasons in the long run.

But if we have a specific goal (ie: carbon capture), that's easily measured and easily quantified, then frankly... modern science is the best approach forward. We should measure various methodologies, and then compare them. And then incrementally engineer a solution over the years based on the target quantifier.

Burying newly-grown wood seems like a difficult thing to achieve economically. Surely it's almost as good to build that wood into long-lasting structures where it is equally protected from rot, and then when demolition does occur, ensure that the rubble is buried underground?

Why? We've got lots of coal mines with the equipment to move tons of material. Just start stacking cordwood down below.

In New Zealand where we have a lot of commercial forest and a Emissions Trading Scheme plantation forests are certainly much better ate capturing carbon than natural forest.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com