Re:Unsealed Documents Raise Questions on Monsanto Weed Killer
by ethbro on Wednesday March 15, 2017 @03:33PM
(#13879059)
There's a relevant quote in-between the two you cited. (And noting that the author is obviously a proponent of permaculture farming, rather than a less biased investigator)
> Conventional agriculture doesn’t seek to maximize yield per acre; it seeks to maximize yield per unit of labor. If we had 10% of the population engaged in agriculture rather than the current 1%, we could easily feed the country without petrochemicals or pesticides.
Interestingly, it may be that with coming automation we may be better served by reallocating 9% of our population back to agriculture...
Also, in a similar vein to permaculture, I found this article fascinating if you haven't come across it yet. https://medium.com/invironment/an-army-of-ocean-farmers-on-t...
Re:Unsealed Documents Raise Questions on Monsanto Weed Killer
by spraak on Thursday March 16, 2017 @01:05AM
(#13882675)
Thanks for your reply :) I'm enjoying that article so far. Very good quote and point about automation. There's a forum called permies [1] where I've seen posts about such permaculture automation :D
> Of course if you take two fields and plant each with a monocrop, then the one without pesticides will do worse than the one with, but that isn’t really what organic farming is.
> It is true that the old, control-based methods of agriculture are nearing the peak of their productive potential. Further investments in this kind of technology are bringing diminishing marginal returns – witness the proliferation of Roundup-resistant weeds and the “necessity” of new kinds of herbicides to deal with them.
http://charleseisenstein.net/permaculture-and-the-myth-of-sc...