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Comment by ethbr1 | Hacker News Reader

While polluting vast swaths of waterways with excess fertilizer nutrients, destabilizing ecosystems.

But we can feed people, so it's probably worth it.

Small farms (non industrial, non monoculture export crops etc.) are much more productive in terms of nutrition per sqkm. Small farms also feed more of the world even on an absolute scale. It's a pernicious myth that we need industrial agro to "feed the world".

I am interested in a source comparing small farms versus non-industrial farms in terms of nutrition per sqkm. That's a very interesting concept I've not heard before. How is nutrition per sqkm being calculated here? Would this reduce the availability of diverse produce by comparison?

It's an ongoing debate with decades of research from NGOs, non-profits, etc. Here's an attempt at a literature review: https://sustainabilitycommunity.springernature.com/posts/are...

1. "79% of studies reviewed reported that smaller farms have higher yields, with yields increasing 5% per 1ha decrease in farm size."

2. "77% of studies finding that smaller farms have greater biodiversity at both farm and landscape scales"

3. "no statistical evidence for farm-size relationships with resource-use efficiency, greenhouse gas emissions, or profitability"

Here's another paper that specifically breaks down people fed per hectare: https://iopscience.iop.org/article/10.1088/1748-9326/8/3/034...

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