> most of agriculture are ecologically disastrous monocultures drenched in herbicides and fertilizers.
In the EU they use substantially less pesticides and fertilizers than we do in the US, and have as good or better yields.
In the EU they use substantially less pesticides and fertilizers than we do in the US, and have as good or better yields.
Dutch agriculture is anything but a bucolic idyl, instead consisting of very large industrial operations owned by an ever decreasing number of companies that produce vast amounts of food for export using imported feed and plowing the manure that remains, truly stupendous amounts, into the soil thereby rendering it effectively dead.
Large tracts of the province of Drente, formerly poor and backward and hence, in a way, pretty, have been taken over by lily plantations (yes, the flower) that are absolutely drenched in pesticides.
Most food crops are grown in enormous greenhouses that take monstrous amounts of energy to heat and that are lit up 24 hours a day to increase yields, making it difficult for people in surrounding villages to sleep. They are automated as much as possible and the work that can not be automated is done by underpaid immigrant workers living in horrible conditions.
So, yes, Dutch agriculture has “as good or better yields”, but it’s still ecologically disastrous.
And gas prices are more or less back to where they were before the invasion.