Re:Pesticides are killing the world's soils
by rini17 on Wednesday June 02, 2021 @03:42AM
(#27366018)
Somewhat lower yields are fine, just reallocate land from other uses. In Europe there's overproduction so large parts of land ended up growing biofuels, which is incredibly stupid. In America large part is fed to cows (in Europe grazing is preferred).
Re:Pesticides are killing the world's soils
by snovv_crash on Wednesday June 02, 2021 @07:13AM
(#27367292)
Switzerland doesn't have lots of excess land, it is highly industrialised already.
Re:Pesticides are killing the world's soils
by rini17 on Wednesday June 02, 2021 @07:46AM
(#27367545)
In Switzerland of all places there should be pretty accurate estimates what would happen after pesticides ban.
Anyone would be so kind as to link them so we could move beyond such nebulous arguments/counterarguments? ;)
The subject of the book isn't pesticides or biodiversity per se, but rather how to produce food sustainably in the face of population growth and climate change.
An anecdote from the book: what happens when artificial pesticides aren't used (setting aside the meaning of artificial/natural)? Corn can be sprayed with crystal toxins derived from proteins in the soil bacterium, Bacillus thuringiensis (Bt), engineered to produce these proteins, or exhibit damage from insects (it looks pretty gross [2]).
If you're going to ban pesticides, you need an alternative or will face lower yields.
[1] https://cropgeneticsinnovation.ucdavis.edu/book-tomorrows-ta...
[2] https://www.nature.com/scitable/knowledge/library/use-and-im...