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Comment by CapitalistCartr | Hacker News Reader

In the United States articles have been bemoaning the loss of our topsoil since the 1930s. They seem to follow a template. We need our soil; we'll die without it. Then explaining the rate we're losing it at; how much we have left, finishing with dire warnings.

My parents were farmers. We haven't depended on topsoil to fill our collective larder since those 1930s. We add nitrogen, phosphorus, potassium, and various minor minerals.

Nitrogen made from and by the petroleum industry. We use it to grow corn, a heavy feeder, turn that corn into a gasoline additive and pretend it's green. Phosphates are dug from the ground a few miles from where I live by giant drag lines. We use petrochemicals to compensate for massive mono-cropping and now we have gene-splicing. The soil? It's just a grow medium for petro-food.

Anyone who still pretends our modern cornucopia is the fruit of the soil is being willfully ignorant.

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We add nitrogen, phosphorus, potassium, and various minor minerals.

Sure, until we run out of phosphorus[0].

[0]. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peak_phosphorus

This frightens me about as much as "peak oil".

This comment is ambiguous in intent, but worrying in effect.

Peak oil is worriesome for a variety of reasons, but peak element / mineral (or more important, exhaustion of readily available or recoverable sources of same) is much more so - there's no wind or solar equivalent for certain elements.

Just because some people maybe overhyping the risks of (accessible) resource depletion doesn't mean it isn't a valid issue.

I believe that erosion is a bigger issue than loss of nutrients.

For example, Iowa has lost an estimated 10 inches of topsoil in the last 150 years. There are only six inches left. Dust-covered bedrock does not make good farmland.

I am definitely not a fan of our current system, but your post illustrates the problem. Under that topsoil is meters of subsoil before the bedrock. The current agri-corps can continue to play the chemistry set game with our food for another century or more if we let them. The rise of "Roundup Ready" crops is helping to eradicate the monarch butterfly. Multiple articles about the plight of the honeybee have been posted to HN. These are externalities to their profits unless and until we change that.

> The rise of "Roundup Ready" crops is helping to eradicate the monarch butterfly.

This is true, but it's significantly less direct than the news stories have indicated. The issue is that Roundup is being used to eliminate milkweed, which are essential for monarch butterflies. It's not Roundup or Roundup Ready crops that are harming monarch butterflies, but what they're being used to eliminate.

Right, it's like when you don't give a person food. You aren't harming him - his own body is doing that as a secondary effect of simple food denial.

These distinctions are important.

I'm all for correcting oversimplified news stories, but I don't understand why you call this "significantly less direct". As far as I can see, it's exactly one step less direct, i.e. as close as you can get without killing them directly. As you say, milkweed is essential for them. It's literally the only plant this species lays its eggs upon.

It's significantly less direct because Roundup has no effect on the Monarch butterflies. The issue is the way it's being used by farmers. If it were not being used to eliminate milkweed, there would be no effect whatsoever on the butterfly populations. We would have the same problem with absolutely any other herbicide.

Or if milkweed were replanted in other areas still within the Monarchs' path but not mixed in with the crops. Many towns have butterfly gardens, but something on a larger scale would work too.

I wonder what kind of scale you would need to make this work? I'd be curious to see numbers on it, and whether or not it's feasible; definitely a great option if so!

In any case, it doesn't hurt to try and grow some milkweed in one's own yard, which many of us in my area do.

So what? Is biodynamic farming going to feed 10B people?

The free-marketers and the greens are by and large ignoring the elephant in the room: unsustainable human population growth.

Technology is reaching the limit as far as pie-slicing goes. Virtually every single macro problem facing the planet is exacerbated by overpopulation.

> So what? Is biodynamic farming going to feed 10B people?

Natural polyculture methods have higher yields than chemical monoculture methods. There will be less of a particular type of corn or soybean, but more food overall.

Though some farmers, such as Masanobu Fukuoka was able to have significantly higher rice yields (& even more overall food of different types) using natural polyculture methods than chemical monoculture methods.

Note that permaculture is of a different tradition than biodynamic farming. Both are good in their appropriate usages. Appropriate for the climate, land, water context, etc.

Really? So, we go from, say, 450M agriculture waged workers today, to 2 billion. Or 3 billion. Or 5. Slaving away with hoes on their tiny biodynamic farmsteads . Problem solved, 10 billion fed (although living in abject circumstances, ignoring pollution etc. here). Let's take it to 15 billion people. What does the planet earth look like then?

Also, I think your premise that "natural polyculture" can scale up to feeding the high 10 digits of people in anything resembling the kind of society we expect to live in is unrealistic, to say the least.

Really. Don't let the marketing of large chemical manufactures fool you.

The UN has a report that small scale, distributed farming is more efficient & yields more food than large monoculture farms. It's been measured.

http://www.technologywater.com/post/69995394390/un-report-sa...

The only "disadvantage" is more people will be required to grow food. However, given the amount of people who are out of work & economically displaced, this would be a good thing. These people will be given autonomy & food sovereignty.

There is historical evidence that monoculture, petrol farming does not work. Look at the "green revolution" in India. India is moving back toward natural farming techniques because they work.

"These people will be given autonomy & food sovereignty."

You're kidding, right? Small-scale peasant farmers have historically been the most downtrodden and oppressed group. Serfdom or outright slavery is the norm.

"There is historical evidence that monoculture, petrol farming does not work."

No, there is historical evidence that it does work. China hasn't had a major famine in close to fifty years, and India hasn't had one since the 1940s.

Yes, there are still hungry people there, but you don't see the kind of mass die-offs that were common under the "natural farming techniques".

"The only "disadvantage" is more people will be required to grow food."

Cool. You get to go first.

Historical corn yield in Missouri:

http://crops.missouri.edu/audit/images/CornYields_MO.jpg

What was that you were saying about "does not work"?

Note that even in a horrible year, the yield is still about 3x what they were getting in the early 1900s. In a good year it's 7x-8x.

> What was that you were saying about "does not work"?

Things that do not work: the overuse of till farming, soil erosion, drought, loss of habitat of wildlife, water pollution, inefficient water usage, desertification, famine, uneven food distribution, the reduction of nutrients in food, the obesity epidemic of the consumers of monoculture petrol agriculture, methane pollution from concentrated livestock, to name a few...

Note that the graph you present is a myopic & reductionistic lens on the system's performance. It is also based on the evolution of the tradition of monoculture till farming, which can work (in an unoptimal way) in forgiving (even rainfall through the year) climates, but devastates the ecosystem in brittle (uneven rainfall through the year) climates.

> No, there is historical evidence that it does work. China hasn't had a major famine in close to fifty years, and India hasn't had one since the 1940s.

Yes, look at the "fertile crecent", that is Iraq, Iran, etc. It was once a lush paradise that has been till farmed to desert. Look at the farmers in India who are going back to natural methods because they are going into debt due to chemical agriculture's exploitative & inefficient practices.

In China, look at the Loess Plateau being transformormed from desert into green land with Natural & Permaculture methods.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YBLZmwlPa8A

And famines happen all over the world. Centralized food production results in unequal food distribution.

Re: traditional agriculture, we have been improving on a fundamentally broken tradition for thousands of years; We & Earth's ecosystems have suffered. It's time to go back to basics & work with, not against, nature.

Reductionistic policy creates many externalized consequences, because we optimize for the things that we measure. In a monoculture mindset, we optimize for one crop. In a systemic mindset, we optimize for the entire system. Polyculture farms grow food by acre than monoculture farms. The many plants interact with each other to form a symbiotic food web, having introduce chemicals.

Natural farming techniques, such as no till farming, have been shown to consistently out perform chemical monoculture agriculture.

See https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9yPjoh9YJMk&feature=youtu.be and http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Masanobu_Fukuoka

One "challenge" is the diversity of the ecosystems on Earth call for a diversity in natural growing methods. There are many bioregions. The natural farmer needs to be in tune with the land & the ecosystem.

On a side note, we have an epidemic of overly reductionistic thinking, which tends to blind us from the bigger picture.

> Cool. You get to go first.

I am. I'm taking part in the solutions to humanity's biggest issues. You are invited to as well.

"Note that the graph you present is a myopic & reductionistic lens on the system's performance."

Measuring actual, you know, food output is "myopic"? Okay.

"Yes, look at the "fertile crecent", that is Iraq, Iran, etc. It was once a lush paradise that has been till farmed to desert"

That was done with "tradtional, natural farming methods", dude.

"Centralized food production results in unequal food distribution."

You couldn't be more wrong. Centralized food production and distribution is exactly why we don't have famines any more.

Where we do see famines, it's where the central distribution mechanism has been destroyed by war or by the government in the area being otherwise fucked up.

Your "must grow locally" idea is guaranteed to produce at least localized famine when the crop fails (as will from time to time).

Before mechanized agriculture China had a famine in one or more provinces almost every year, for over a thousand years.

"I am"

No, you aren't. Writing about it online and actually living the life of an agricultural stoop-labor peasant farmer are two different things. Entirely.

Let me ask you this: what is the largest percentage of your total caloric intake that you, personally, have ever produced for yourself using hand/low-tech farming labor?

Maybe you should give it a try before advocating it.

@briantakita If you read between the lines, what that says is all of our options are bad.

Unchecked population growth will exceed the limits of any system. No amount of conservation and "permaculture" will reduce the footprint of a nonmiserable human to less than a substantial fraction of what is currently, much less zero. You can't manufacture or farm virgin wilderness by any means. We eclipsed optimum population and blazed by sustainable population in the last millennium. We pay the price in this one.

"Unchecked population growth will exceed the limits of any system."

Good thing we're not seeing that, then. The world population growth rate has halved since its peak in the early 1960s, and the rate is continuing to decline.

"You can't manufacture or farm virgin wilderness by any means."

Good thing modern farming techniques don't need virgin wilderness, then.

> Good thing we're not seeing that, then. The world population growth rate has halved since its peak in the early 1960s, and the rate is continuing to decline.

Good thing? World population was 3 billion in 1960, in the post-war baby boom when population growth was 9% on an extremely anomalous rebound above historical rates. So, the world added 270M people that year to 3 billion.

In 2012, the world hit 7 billion people with a population growth rate of 4.5%. You are right, the rate was half of the 1960 peak. So, it added 315M people that year to 7 billion.

Now that you've seen the arithmetic, what do you think has a bigger impact on the environment, 270 million people added to 3 billion people, or 315 million people added to 7 billion people, who are consuming a hell of a lot more than they did in 1960?

Easing off the accelerator while the world is driven to hell is nothing to pat ourselves on the back for. We need to slam the brakes and go in reverse.

> Good thing modern farming techniques don't need virgin wilderness, then.

Let's just pave and plow every single inch of the planet until we have a lifeless moonscape then. Do you know nothing about ecology? Have you never taken a hike off the beaten track?

"Let's just pave and plow every single inch of the planet"

How does "we don't need to use virgin wilderness" equate to "let's pave and plow every single inch of the planet"?

Be specific.

"We need to slam the brakes and go in reverse."

I'll repeat what I said to the other guy: you first.

In fact, virtually every advanced society is either population-neutral or actually losing people.

WRT: "Have you never taken a hike off the beaten track?"

I grew up without electricity or running water, and currently live in Alaska.

You?

> How does "we don't need to use virgin wilderness" equate to "let's pave and plow every single inch of the planet"? Be specific.

Virtual all arable land is already cultivated and grazable pasture is cowburnt now with population 7B. The notion that it's not a problem to scale up because we can just keep chopping down rainforests for lumber, soy and palm oil plantations etc is sickening. No, agriculture doesn't need wilderness, but the inhabitants of earth do.

> I'll repeat what I said to the other guy: you first.

I have << 2.1 children; I've done my part.

> In fact, virtually every advanced society is either population-neutral or actually losing people.

So what? The rest of the world is churning out babies and are more than eager to move. Overpopulation is a global problem. Arithmetic again. Mathematically and physically of course population growth will end at some point. But it's the major driver of all the major social, environmental, and political problems facing nations and the earth today, and it's the easiest one to do something about.

Do you think that population growth just slowed down by magic? In developed countries, family planning is universally accessible. In developing countries where overpopulation is most acute, countries with well-run organized population programs like Thailand, Iran, and China have been extremely successful at managing population growth and have reaped the benefits.

" The notion that it's not a problem to scale up because we can just keep chopping down rainforests for lumber"

You're clearly more interested in preaching that listening to what I say.

Technology increases the yield from current land. By a lot. Thus reducing the need to "pave and plow" more of the planet.

The United States, for instance, has considerably more forest now than it did at the beginning of the twentieth century.

Where do you actually see slash-and-burn agriculture and similar wilderness-destroying methods of farming? Bingo: in the low-tech peasant farming operations that you and the other guy hold out as models.

Where did I hold it out as a model? I said we're not going to feed 7 billion people much less 10 billion with composting toilets and raised beds.

The point is we have industrial agriculture, pesticides, herbicides, and massive amounts of petrofertilizers and other chemicals already widely deployed to artificially increase crop yields providing the great majority of the food supply and we've farmed virtually all arable land already, and food security is still a problem. There will be billions more to feed before population peaks.

What I am saying is that neither modern industrial ag nor permaculture fantasy agriculture or organic farming can sustainably feed the earth's growing population. Population is the problem.

> permaculture fantasy agriculture

Umm, permaculture takes a systemic approach utilizing science & natural laws. It's working with nature not against nature.

What is a fantasy is monoculture & trucking in fertilizer to squeeze the blood from the turnip of the devastated ecosystem & expecting it to grow forever.

Calling a practical lens, that requires a different set of values & thought, a fantasy is a bit pessimistic & ignorant of humanity's ability to adapt. The transition is happening right now. You may not notice the transition if you are abstracted away from the communities that are changing how how we live & how food is grown. But don't let ignorance & assumptions be your guide on this one.

Many third world countries are adopting small scale, systemic methods because they work. Gardeners produce way more efficiently than large monoculture farms.

When we move into a low energy economy, those who adapt will prosper, those who don't will perish.

If you want to save the soil then you can stop plowing and go no-till. Course if you go no-till you need to use more chemicals.

If you want to use fewer chemicals then you need to use GMO seed. Course a loud minority doesn't want farmers to use GMO seed despite a mountain of scientific evidence that it's safe.

I worked as an agronomist for twenty years. The overwhelming majority of farmers want to save the soil while balancing that with protecting the rural environment for their children. I trust them more than the hand wringing editorial writers to make the right choices.

Permaculture is an option for notill, no chemical. Mix a variety of crops that benefit eachother. But it makes automation harder.

> For example, Iowa has lost an estimated 10 inches of topsoil in the last 150 years.

Interesting. Reference?

When I was in the Midwest farming communities in Indiana and Ohio, the row crops were heavily corn, wheat, and soy beans. Then after harvest, there were lots of dead corn stalks, wheat stalks, and soy bean plants on the ground, and those plants got plowed under.

Heavily those plants were carbon, and the first cut guess where the carbon came from was CO2 in the atmosphere and not from the existing soil. So, net, all the plant matter was heavily from the atmosphere and adding to the soil. So, typically annual plants, year by year, add to top soil. Indeed, it is fair to say that that was mostly the origin of the top soil.

For another example, as a child, we lived in one house for about 16 years, and I got to mow the grass twice a month or so for much of that time. Well, over the 16 years, the top soil rose with respect to the concrete driveway and walkways, rose 1-2 inches. So, we added to the top soil.

So, if we are losing a lot of top soil from, say, Iowa, then where it is going? Well, it could blow, but then it stands just to add to top soil in Illinois, Indiana, and Ohio, not a net loss.

Or, we're carrying the top soil away via the corn kernels, wheat seeds, and soy beans themselves? Tough to believe that the seeds take more soil than the rest of the plant adds.

Or the top soil could get washed into rivers which about has to be the Mississippi River. So, should be able to see all that Iowa top soil along the Mississippi River and, then, into the Gulf of Mexico. Can the USGS and Corps of Engineers find that top soil for us?

I can believe that the tree cutting of the mountains in the East US by 1930 or so resulted in a lot of top soil from the mountains washing into the local valleys, but Iowa, Illinois, Indiana, Ohio, etc. are nearly flat as a table, in part because at one time they were lake bottoms.

I'd want to see a good and careful argument about loss of top soil in Iowa.

That top soil is going either into the Atchafalaya or right off the continental shelf. None of it is hanging around the delta anymore.

So basically, modern farmers don't have one iota of sustainability in their methods. Aren't you just strengthening the premise of the article, even if you disagree on the details?

> So basically, modern farmers don't have one iota of sustainability

Exactly which of the above will run out in the next 1000 years? You've made a statement without any evidence. Even peak phosphorus mentioned in other comments seems as dodgy a concept as peak oil.

Or do you mean they are not following the religion of mothernature knows best and using science and technology for sustainability instead.

> Exactly which of the above will run out in the next 1000 years?

Phosphorus. http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0959378008...

Toby Hemenway gave a great lecture at Nicholas School of the Environment at Duke University, and he specifically talks about how we have "made people out of oil" for the last few generations.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8nLKHYHmPbo

Thank you for your anecdotal account. Many petroleum farmers suffer from soil runoff. There is also desertification. Also, there is inefficient usage of water draining the acquirers. Note that California monoculture petrol farmers are largely responsible for using nearly 80% of California's water usage.

There's also habitat loss for insects & other organisms. There's also pollution of water from the excess nitrogen. There's also the poisoning of the people who eat chemical agriculture foods. Note the obesity epidemic & it's relation to the disruption of gut bacteria. Herbicides & Fungicides disrupt biological processes in humans.

You mention "scare tactics". The problem is temporarily mitigated by mining & importing the nutrients. This is inefficient on fossil fuels because we are trucking in nutrients that are available with natural systems.

Here's another account a farmer using natural systems to build soil. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9yPjoh9YJMk&feature=youtu.be

His yields increased & he is the most profitable farmer in his local area.

"Nitrogen made from and by the petroleum industry"

This is it. When growing food, soil and labor are not the limiting factors. Petroleum is. If you have lots of oil, you can perhaps do hypdroponics in a desert; if you don't, all your farming will need heavy subsidies to cover for its petroleum consumption.

I don't expect world to care about soil until it becomes limiting factor. Call me when they resume growing grain in Siberia.

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