Hacker News Reader

Comment by kylebenzle | Hacker News Reader

Maybe a lot of farmers don't want to drastically increase their herbicide use?

>The other factor, he said, was that you'll suffer lower yields for a few years after you stop tilling, while the soil builds up a proper layer of decomposing matter on top. Or at least, farmers are afraid that could happen. And it's not a risk worth taking in their view.

Maybe it has more the fact that humans are risk averse. We just don't want to make financial sacrificed in the short term to get longer term rewards. Many of us want to do good, but we also don't want our 401ks and subsidies to go down.

Feels like something you could roll out to a small portion of the land and see what happens. Is that not viable?

Edit: NVM, it was pointed out elsewhere that the needed equipment is different

These are low margin businesses. Chances are they can't afford it without significant pain.

For sure, economic assessment is one way to figure out what to do.

When we as a civilization making decisions ending up where we are now (depleted soil and what else not looming). It does make one wonder if the current financial incentives is NOT aligned with the incentives of living beings on the planet? How can we make it so?

Where and when did that misalignment happened?

Farming is a low “shots on goal” business too. You only really get 1 harvest per year. In a 30 year career already marked by high variance, losing 1/6 of your lifetime profits to experimenting with methods is a huge ask.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com