Agriculture, environment and food security.

[djm]

What about phosphate resource limitations, do you think that is solvable technologically?

Yes, although much work remains to be done. Phosphate use is extremely inefficient, with less than 1% of that applied taken up by crops due to lock up in soils. The work that needs to be done there is on helping roots access the large existing soil reserves, which may be via GM crops that better express genetics that help roots do this, via use of phosphate releasing microorganisms or by better use of other nutrients and understanding how agronomy drives root access to phosphates (this is the area I am more interested in).

So yes mined phosphate reserves will run dry if we carry on wasteful usage, but given that soils contain bucket loads of unavailable phosphate to be tapped into I am confident ways will be developed.

[djm]

Which is more important food security or environmental sustainability?

I wouldn't look at them as exclusive, but believing that food security is a political issue with political obstacles to overcome, I doubt we could ever reach global food security without a global cataclysm that would threaten to wipe us out as a species first. And by that I mean world war and its junior partner revolution.

I hope you are wrong on this one.

When governments try to impose big mass change it rarely goes well. Revolution often destroys food supply and creates environmental carnage. The most famous example is the starvation in the Ukraine post the Russian Revolution, but in more recent years you have the appalling starvation caused by the imposition of 'Juche' systems of growing rice in North Korea in the 90s, and even more recently the mess in Venezuela. I say this not as a criticism of the politics, as I think it more to do with imposing large changes without taking time to listen to farmers and why they farm the way they do currently.

Agriculture is something best changed slowly and carefully, and local farmers really do need to be listened to and learned from. Academics often infuriate me with their lack of any understanding of what actually happens on farms. I know academics that are very well known that haven't visited a farm for decades, but are quite happy to tell farmers what their problems are. I have learned far more talking to smallholder farmers (often illiterate) than I ever have talking to experts. Once you understand their problems, resources and marketplace you are much better prepared to find ways that help.

[Ferrus]

So yes mined phosphate reserves will run dry if we carry on wasteful usage, but given that soils contain bucket loads of unavailable phosphate to be tapped into I am confident ways will be developed.

Yes, sometimes it is easy to underestimate how quickly humans adapt when placed under pressure. I am thinking of the fear of peak oil a few years ago, that was very concerning a few years ago when it seemed very unlikely that renewable energy sources were feasible at scale and now the UK has about 42% energy production from such sources (other advanced countries are around that too). Even the USA is more self-sufficient from fracking. If only there wasn't such a vigorous anti-nuclear movement among environmentalists, which I regard as arrant stupidity given a cold look at the alternatives, based more on nuclear woo by people who don't know what they are talking about than anything else. As a baseline of nuclear power to provide a baseline to prevent brownouts coupled with these new sources would provide a fairly stable energy source, especially as uranium (and potentially thorium with research) reserves could last centuries.

[Utisz]

In Ireland work mainly in the farming areas around Cork, Newry and Dublin mostly on potatoes. Have done some work with UCD there also. Have a couple of larger farming businesses there that I work with, one on soft fruit and one one the makes crisps (potato chips to Americans) but most as you say are 20 acres or less of spuds on a mixed farm. Unusually Ireland is almost completely dominated by one potato variety (Rooster) which fortunately is very responsive to my product so am doing well there.

I think in the west where my family is from, there is little in the way of crops as the quality of the land is supposedly quite poor, being more boggy and hilly in general (hence the perhaps mistaken phrase "to Hell or to Connacht"). I think around my area, literally no land (aside from garden plots) is dedicated to crops, but rather everything is used for grazing.

We used to grow a small patch of potatoes for the family, along with some other vegetables. They weren't Roosters for sure (they were brown), but I couldn't say what they were (maybe new potatoes if that's a thing?). But Roosters are definitely popular now in markets and such. Also Kerr Pinks I guess, Records, maybe some other types. I just remember massive bags of spuds that provided gainful employment to sturdy lads for help bringing them out to the car. It became a right of passage to get old enough to carry them out.

Regards Netherlands, this is because they focus largely on high-value goods, so the $value of their exports is disproportionate to the tonnage produced. They are a world centre for seed production (a new variety of tomatoes seed is more valuable per Kg than gold), seed potato production, flowers and ornamental plants, and glasshouse fruit and vegetables. On the broad acre side very little of the land is given over to cereals, with large acreages of potato, celeriac (they eat a lot of it locally), carrots and onions.

That makes sense!

[djm]

I think in the west where my family is from, there is little in the way of crops as the quality of the land is supposedly quite poor, being more boggy and hilly in general (hence the perhaps mistaken phrase "to Hell or to Connacht"). I think around my area, literally no land (aside from garden plots) is dedicated to crops, but rather everything is used for grazing.

This is a perfect example of why the argument that we should all move to a completely plant-based diet is so flawed. In places like your home area, grazing is the most productive thing to do with the land. It is also reasonably low in environmental impact, and keeps the traditional landscape. Stopping that kind of farming and leaving the land alone would just make a load of scrubland, with less biodiversity and a lot of native plants and bugs would die out having evolved to live alongside humans on land farmed that way.

It is the same in Wales with hill sheep farming, and large tracts of Scotland and Northern England. The whole of the West of England is mixed farming, with some land good enough for arable and other lands only suited to pasture.

There is no equivalence in this with the way large tracts of rainforest in Brazil have been lost in order to grow soybean to feed to factory farmed beef herds in Texas.

There is also a lot of overlap between supporters of veganism and organic farming. But take manures out of the equation and organic farming doesn't stack up. Put simply, if we took synthetic fertiliser out of the equation we would need three new earth-sized planets to produce enough manure to maintain the current global arable output. You need mixed farming to make organic farming work, and it makes no sense not to eat the animals raised from a ecological viewpoint.

Equally there is merit in the argument that we can not just keep on wasting inputs denuding resources of water and minerals and polluting and degrading the environment the way that is happening globally. A more nuanced approach will be required.

[Ferrus]

Equally there is merit in the argument that we can not just keep on wasting inputs denuding resources of water and minerals and polluting and degrading the environment the way that is happening globally. A more nuanced approach will be required.

Something that I have found interesting in Spain (and it is not something many people know about the country) is the huge number of hydroelectric dams that sprung up around the country during the Franquist era of the country. Whole villages were created as colonies from the irrigated land that was created from them. I know an area of northern Catalonia in the Gerona area that has a huge artificial reservoir, with a sunken Romanesque church that re-emerges during times of drought - my aunt lived in the Peak district some time back and I remember similar stories about the reservoirs there too.

It was designed to make Spain much more self-sufficient in energy and food, especially in the southern parts of the country like Murcia and Andalucia where water was pumped from the North, often in huge, long canalised flows, which it did to some extent, although the unexpected long term environmental consequences are now starting to become quite glaringly obvious.

[djm]

Equally there is merit in the argument that we can not just keep on wasting inputs denuding resources of water and minerals and polluting and degrading the environment the way that is happening globally. A more nuanced approach will be required.

Something that I have found interesting in Spain (and it is not something many people know about the country) is the huge number of hydroelectric dams that sprung up around the country during the Franquist era of the country. Whole villages were created as colonies from the irrigated land that was created from them. I know an area of northern Catalonia in the Gerona area that has a huge artificial reservoir, with a sunken Romanesque church that re-emerges during times of drought - my aunt lived in the Peak district some time back and I remember similar stories about the reservoirs there too.

It was designed to make Spain much more self-sufficient in energy and food, especially in the southern parts of the country like Murcia and Andalucia where water was pumped from the North, often in huge, long canalised flows, which it did to some extent, although the unexpected long term environmental consequences are now starting to become quite glaringly obvious.

That's really interesting Ferrus, will look that up. I am not very active in Spain these days but used to spend maybe 3 months a year there (in short 1-2 week stints). Can't remember much Spanish now, though I am sure I could get it back if I made an effort. I used to spend most of my time in the South in Almeria, Alicante, Murcia and Huelva as that is where a lot of the fruit and veg is grown. Always fancied spending some time in the North but have never managed to.

[SomeInternetBloke]

I had ants and grasshoper legs in a Mexican restaurant before. I don't really see it as different to eating shellfish. Whether or not it is enviromentally effective or not,

We should go back to eating people; that'd be pretty environmentally effective. 27 tonnes of carbon per annum per American...

Not quite as much for anyone else.

" if you want to punish your enemy killing them is not enough. If you can chop them up and eat them and turn them into excrement that is the greatest humiliation you can impose on them." -NZ Scientist said about Maoris