Intensive farming as practiced by corporations today is among the worst culprits regarding carbon emissions.
It is more profitable to practice intensive till-heavy farming since it takes advantage of the nutrients already stored in the soil. The disadvantage is its unsustainability. After few decades of soil-tilling, it becomes quite poor in nutrients, and will have reduced yield. Corporations can afford to destroy land and move on to the next one, until nothing is left.
This is opposed to regenerative/conservative agriculture.
> Intensive farming as practiced by corporations today is among the worst culprits regarding carbon emissions.
Relative to what? What are the CO2 emissions per bushel of grain for the practices you've described?
My point about reduced carbon emissions is specific to corporate farms using modern equipment which is more precise, thanks to auto-guidance via GPS, more efficient, as a result of the diesel engines being more modern and also as a result of other technologies that allow the tractors to have larger implements, travel faster, and consume less horsepower and finally lower emissions as a result of being compliant with more recent emissions standards.
This is fascinating, but also somewhat orthogonal to the argument, assuming there was nothing I missed when skimming that paper.
The paper itself describes farming practices that are more sustainable, and possibly more efficient after introducing a new formula to measure efficiency. I'm not sufficiently well-informed to critically assess the formula given, although on the surface it seems fine.
To clarify my original assertion, modern farming equipment with the latest technology as employed by corporate farms increase the efficiency of industrial farming methods vs. farming equipment being used that's 30-40 years old.
There are a few common metrics that I use to base my assertion on, that is gallons of fuel used per cultivated acre, as well as yield per acre. From those, one can derive yield per gallon of fuel and subsequently carbon emissions as a result.
I'm not suggesting that represents a lifecycle analysis of the entire crop, but I think it's still sufficient to evaluate the impact of modern equipment vs. aging equipment.
For the most part I just thought it was interesting.
You asked in relation to what modern farming is among the worst culprits regarding carbon emissions. I suppose that merits a comparison to other know ways to grow food? Most of the crops "we" grow use to grow just fine on their own. We've cultivated them to be dependent. It doesn't seem unreasonable to think we can cut carbon emissions beyond 100% (eventually)
To add a funny: We wont optimize the Nodejs to the point it changes into ERLANG. It takes a whole new approach.
I agree that the comparison deserves merit, but it's a lengthy discussion. I'd presented a simple dichotomy.
> ...use to grow just fine on their own. We've cultivated them to be dependent. It doesn't seem unreasonable to think we can cut carbon emissions beyond 100% (eventually)
There are a couple of constraints there. We have a limited amount of arable land to feed the world's population and a significant amount of the carbon emissions in modern farming practices comes from harvesting and transport.
I can't see any way to harvest and transport agriculture products without carbon emissions today.
We could eat where it grows and grow where we eat :).. Back to the trees!...or wait... LEDs are pretty epic already, I could see myself grow salad in the cup board. Then there is the Personal Food Computer for more advanced stuff (back on familiar soil?) https://www.media.mit.edu/projects/personal-food-computer/ov...
I like how hn always finds a way to blame everything on programmers. Who would have thought carbon emissions are our fault? (I hope its to blame on my silly mood)
You could grow salad in the cupboard. Lettuce is one of the few crops that would be economical to grow under indoor lighting. I believe that info comes from here:
> What are the CO2 emissions per bushel of grain for the practices you've described?
Just to clarify, because it is important. My point is that emissions from land transformation due to unsustainable farming practices dwarf any efficiency due to modern diesel engines etc.
cf. the links in my parent post: a well-regenerated soil can contain up to 25 to 60 tons of carbon per acre.
I'm not disagreeing that different farming practices may be more sustainable. My argument is that existing farming practices are made more efficient and produce fewer emissions when using modern equipment vs. equipment that is 30-40 years old.
There is plenty of research to support your point, also another poster replied to this parent with an interesting paper. My assertion is supported by direct observation, that is, if we constrain ourselves to current industrial farming practices, there's plenty of data showing improved yields and reduced fuel consumption as more modern equipment is adopted.
I guess my point is that I don't see our relative assertions being in conflict.
Let me use an analogy. If you are going to cut down a forest, I don't care that you're doing with a modern solar-powered and drone-controlled circular saw or a petrol-powered chainsaw. There is a more important problem that is dwarfing any improvement in the efficiency used by your tools, and that's all those trees getting cut down.
> there's plenty of data showing improved yields and reduced fuel consumption as more modern equipment is adopted.
I absolutely agree with this. My only concern is with relating this to CO2 emissions and the fight against climate change. It is a deceptive argument, since it was not a goal to begin with.
I made a back-of-napkin calculation. I'm not an expert, so please bear with my poor estimates.
Say a tractor burns ~1kg CO2/km (high estimate) while tilling a 4m-long piece of land.
1 Acre = 4m * 1km
The tractor will emit 1kg of CO2 for every pass.
If repurposed, the land will be able to store 25 to 50 tonnes of carbon (equivalent to 10-20t of CO2).
Even if I made mistakes above, there are 3 or 4 orders of magnitude between the two. Any savings that could be made on the tractor's emissions are minuscule.
Repurposed to use more modern AND sustainable agriculture techniques (regenerative agriculture, permaculture, conservative agriculture, ...). You certainly have heard of some of those.
As for how we will feed 11 billion people by the end of the century. This is a very reasonable question to ask. Sustainable agriculture has reduced yields, so maybe we wouldn't have enough to feed the world anymore. But, again, you are looking at the wrong culprit.
There is already more than enough food to feed the world. Food waste, food distribution problems and our questionable appetite for meat are dragging us down.
The problem of world hunger is NOT a "global food production limit" problem. Of course, we shouldn't ship food from the USA to Africa, though. But the phosphate imported from Western Sahara for our fertilizers? Maybe they could use that, to kick-start an agricultural revolution.
Although, if your question was "how to feed 11 billion people without changing anything to our current food industry", the answer is we won't, since we have established that the traditional methods are unsustainable. People will die, either from hunger or from climate-related catastrophes.
> Repurposed to use more modern AND sustainable agriculture techniques
This answers my question. I was wondering if you were suggesting that arable land be repurposed for carbon capture rather than food production, thus the question, how to feed 11 billion people (projected peak world population).
In any case, I think we're making arguments in slightly different directions. Surely, there are more sustainable farming approaches such as no-till, etc, which saves the CO2 emissions.
Let's presume we've use those approaches and have a field full of corn (or wheat, or what have you) ready to harvest with zero carbon emissions and slightly reduced yield. Then what?
That corn still needs to be harvested at 3.8 gallons of diesel per acre and then transported to market.
> questionable appetite for meat
As most other countries, especially developing ones consume way less meat, this is a US specific problem, though admittedly it makes a significant contribution to greenhouse gasses.
> The problem of world hunger is NOT a "global food production limit" problem
The basis of my arguments has less to do with world hunger as a problem that exists today and more to do with the fact that peak global population is estimated to be 11 billion folks. Feeding that population will be difficult to do with yields well below current industrial farming practices.
> we won't, since we have established that the traditional methods are unsustainable. People will die, either from hunger or from climate-related catastrophes.
We should hit ~10 billion by 2050, I doubt there'll be massive climate change related catastrophes by then. 11 billion is projected by 2100, and well, unless something changes then we likely would.
In any case, thanks for engaging in this discourse. Likely, we agree more than not that more sustainable agriculture practices will be needed.
Intensive farming as practiced by corporations today is among the worst culprits regarding carbon emissions.
It is more profitable to practice intensive till-heavy farming since it takes advantage of the nutrients already stored in the soil. The disadvantage is its unsustainability. After few decades of soil-tilling, it becomes quite poor in nutrients, and will have reduced yield. Corporations can afford to destroy land and move on to the next one, until nothing is left.
This is opposed to regenerative/conservative agriculture.
https://www.drawdown.org/solutions/food/regenerative-agricul...
https://www.drawdown.org/solutions/food/conservation-agricul...