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Comment by timwaagh | Hacker News Reader

Farming does a heck of a lot worse damage than 'a decline in bird populations'. What causes such decline in wild animal populations and causes damage to humans is that farming takes up all the available room driving both animals and humans away. I would rather see the farmer being free to sell their lands to housing developers or build on it instead of the current level of masochism with considerations like autarky and tradition being dominant. Presumably a lot would go for it. Farmer happy, people happy. Probably birds happier too. We will help to ensure Ukraine wins that war and afterwards it can sell us food. Or Africa. Or wherever, really. Europe has better things to do.

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"Man – despite his artistic pretensions, his sophistication and his many accomplishments – owes his existence to a 6-inch layer of topsoil and the fact that it rains."

I'd hesitate to be flippant about the complexities and difficulties in the generation of food, and the market forces that it drives. And I'd certainly hesitate to claim that anyone has "better things to do".

As fancy as it is to use fancy phrases, the lecturing tone here is not matched by any substance. The argument boils down to an appeal to authority followed by a personal attack.

I like to think of it as an encouragement to meditate a bit more on, for example, why this "solution" (let the free market handle it) isn't currently already solving everything. Not argument by authority, just a reminder that perhaps you are not the first person to have thought about this problem.

And an admonishment against the hubris of just casually dropping deeply loaded positions like "Europe has more important things to worry about" than Africa or Ukraine. Hell even casual the separation of Ukraine as something outside of Europe.

If you took it as a personal attack, then perhaps it is just because a hit dog will holler.

What do you think is going to happen if farmers start selling their land for building residences and offices? where do you think your food is going to come from? Corporate farms? do you seriously think corporate farms are going to be carrying more for the environment than farming families?

I think they might actually now that you mentioned it. In the same way h&m has a better policy than most locally owned clothing stores. Families typically face immense pressure to only think about the short term. But it wasn't what I was thinking of.

But like I said the food produced by land that is urbanized would have to be imported. But that is not a bad thing. It will be very good for developing nations.

Not producing food locally and being dependent on imports for even basic food supplies is actually even more dangerous than being dependent on other countries for stuff such as electricity. Plus consider the huge amount of energy needed to transport food crops across the globe.

Another question worth thinking about - what landscape pollutes the air/water/land more? is it farm land or the cities?

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