You know, that’s interesting. I know a farmer who does small farming (for CSA boxes and local restaurants) and his farm is doing just fine because he grows a variety of things, properly takes care of his field, cycles crops around, composts all the waste, uses natural things like chickens and bees to help care for the land…his farm is producing really well even though this was kind of a weird year for his region.
Almost like if you farm properly to grow food for people to eat instead of farming for short term profit alone, the land doesn’t turn into a giant dustbowl
I definitely encourage regenerative agriculture however I’m not sure that is a “solution” all by itself.
The destructive agricultural practices in use were adopted during the Green Revolution. We can argue that the suffering if we do not change course on these practices will be immense - and I do - but it should also be acknowledged that changing course at this point would also inflict massive suffering.
Reducing or eliminating animal agriculture could compensate for significant losses in productivity. Mass subsistence farming could also assist in transitioning more safely back to a less productive agricultural environment that doesn’t rely on corporate farming practices. Then add in regenerative agriculture to heal soil and restore long-term fertility.
I like to think all of this together would make a big impact (plus it would be a win for animal rights) but I am not optimistic about the wide-scale adoption of any one of these policies, let alone all of them.
I’ll tell my hexbear comrades the same thing I tell every other comrade: If you can do some subsistence gardening, you absolutely should. Get the practice in, learn about your soil and climate, collect and share seeds, reduce your food costs, and put yourself in a position to help your local community when the going gets tough. Almost no one has a huge success their first year of gardening so I think it is better to learn the ropes before we are desperate.
Remember: One cannot fight if one cannot eat. There is no political or economic stability for the working class without food security. There is no left so long as the left cannot feed itself.
La via campesina and other food/peasant movements have been saying that agroecology is the only way to make sure everyone has enough food in the future for about 50 years already.
Everyone working in food research or agronomy knows that, but we don’t get the big grants from bunge, Cargill and so on.
You know, that’s interesting. I know a farmer who does small farming (for CSA boxes and local restaurants) and his farm is doing just fine because he grows a variety of things, properly takes care of his field, cycles crops around, composts all the waste, uses natural things like chickens and bees to help care for the land…his farm is producing really well even though this was kind of a weird year for his region.
Almost like if you farm properly to grow food for people to eat instead of farming for short term profit alone, the land doesn’t turn into a giant dustbowl
I definitely encourage regenerative agriculture however I’m not sure that is a “solution” all by itself.
The destructive agricultural practices in use were adopted during the Green Revolution. We can argue that the suffering if we do not change course on these practices will be immense - and I do - but it should also be acknowledged that changing course at this point would also inflict massive suffering.
I don’t want to get into this too much but I can provide a graphic that I think explains my point rather well: https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/total-agricultural-land-use-per-person
Reducing or eliminating animal agriculture could compensate for significant losses in productivity. Mass subsistence farming could also assist in transitioning more safely back to a less productive agricultural environment that doesn’t rely on corporate farming practices. Then add in regenerative agriculture to heal soil and restore long-term fertility.
I like to think all of this together would make a big impact (plus it would be a win for animal rights) but I am not optimistic about the wide-scale adoption of any one of these policies, let alone all of them.
I’ll tell my hexbear comrades the same thing I tell every other comrade: If you can do some subsistence gardening, you absolutely should. Get the practice in, learn about your soil and climate, collect and share seeds, reduce your food costs, and put yourself in a position to help your local community when the going gets tough. Almost no one has a huge success their first year of gardening so I think it is better to learn the ropes before we are desperate.
Remember: One cannot fight if one cannot eat. There is no political or economic stability for the working class without food security. There is no left so long as the left cannot feed itself.
La via campesina and other food/peasant movements have been saying that agroecology is the only way to make sure everyone has enough food in the future for about 50 years already.
Everyone working in food research or agronomy knows that, but we don’t get the big grants from bunge, Cargill and so on.
ok but can his farm grow 10 million tomatoes that taste like plastic?
No, it can grow a few hundred tomatoes that taste fucking delicious instead!
i hereby charge this man with terrorism
Yeah, we figured this out more than ten thousand years ago. But why think about next year when you can squeeze the ever loving shit out of this one?