What is Mankind's Greatest Invention?

[Fife]

What's the name again of that one city that fucked up everything about the ag market?

[C-Mag]

We need to radically decentralize food and energy production. The more centralized, complex and specialized it gets, the less resilient the system will be to failures.

[Speaker to Animals]

We need to radically decentralize food and energy production. The more centralized, complex and specialized it gets, the less resilient the system will be to failures.

Yep

Agriculture needs to shift to a more localized, sustainable model.

[brewster]

You could break up a huge industrial farm into dozens of smaller organic farms and your yields would be much higher. Small growers produce huge yields now on just a few acres using things like high tunnels and other technology.

Not true for commodity crops. For high value fresh foods where high labor and infrastructure costs are balanced by high prices, sure. But not soybeans and wheat.

[Speaker to Animals]

You could break up a huge industrial farm into dozens of smaller organic farms and your yields would be much higher. Small growers produce huge yields now on just a few acres using things like high tunnels and other technology.

Not true for commodity crops. For high value fresh foods where high labor and infrastructure costs are balanced by high prices, sure. But not soybeans and wheat.

That's a good point. Wheat, corn, etc. probably is best produced on large scale farms.

[brewster]

You could break up a huge industrial farm into dozens of smaller organic farms and your yields would be much higher. Small growers produce huge yields now on just a few acres using things like high tunnels and other technology.

Not true for commodity crops. For high value fresh foods where high labor and infrastructure costs are balanced by high prices, sure. But not soybeans and wheat.

That's a good point. Wheat, corn, etc. probably is best produced on large scale farms.

So you're really talking about a tiny fraction of agriculture.

[Speaker to Animals]

Wheat and corn can still be grown in a sustainable fashion. The size of the farm is not necessary to sustainability.

[Montegriffo]

You could break up a huge industrial farm into dozens of smaller organic farms and your yields would be much higher. Small growers produce huge yields now on just a few acres using things like high tunnels and other technology.

Not true for commodity crops. For high value fresh foods where high labor and infrastructure costs are balanced by high prices, sure. But not soybeans and wheat.

Yup. Huge great feilds with no hedgerows are far more efficient for most forms of agriculture.
Breaking farms up into small units would be disastrous for yeilds.
Meat is what really uses the most land though.
Cut down on the meat and there will be plenty of food to go around.

[Speaker to Animals]

Incorrect.

Breaking up farms into smaller farms would increase food yields.

Large industrial farms are not really using the best technology we have today. They rely upon dangerous pesticides and fertilizers and then waste huge amounts of land.

I will concede that for something like wheat or corn a larger farm is more ideal, but that's it, dude.

Most of the vegetables and fruits you purchase in the supermarket would be better if grown on smaller farms. There are people in America producing absolutely huge yields of food on only a few acres, guys. The food yield difference is not even remotely the same.




This guy has managed to make an extremely high-yield farm on less than two acres. He grosses over 350k USD per year.

[brewster]

Cut down on the meat and there will be plenty of food to go around.

Not all meat is created equal. Beef is by far the worst at feed conversion. My family eats very little, perhaps 2 or 3 meals a month, mostly ground meat.



StA, as I said, fruit and vegetables are a small fraction of US farming. Focusing on them begs the question.