We need a revolution in agriculture. Philosophy should support it.

The biggest advance in my opinion could if the efficiency that some countries have in agriculture could be implemented in Third World countries, especially places where agricultural production has natural advantages.

Just consider the top 10 countries by value of food exports (in USD):

1 United States 72,682,349.79
2 Germany 34,628,800.73
3 United Kingdom 29,540,218.71
4 China 25,152,286.27
5 France 24,114,557.76
6 Netherlands 23,271,570.93
7 Japan 21,870,881.77
8 Canada 21,803,448.88
9 Belgium 15,742,034.88
10 Italy 13,890,507.81

Notice something peculiar? It's Netherlands, Japan and Belgium. These countries aren't big or in the case of Japan it's surprising at least to me. These aren't the countries you would suspect to be top agricultural exporters, but their production efficiency has taken the exports to another level. Several of the largest agricultural producers aren't in the top 10, which tells something also. India might naturally be not among the top exporting countries, but what about Russia and Ukraine, Brazil and Argentina?

Because if you would have these larger countries being as advanced as Netherlands in agricultural production, then supply would be somewhere totally else from today.

How do they increase efficiency there though? I can't eval your data unless I have details about their methodology. I've heard stories of machinery and unwise methods being introduced to places where agriculture was not modernized, and now it has had negative consequences. Take shrimp farming or forestry... increasing efficiency in developing countries at the cost of long term soil and surface health is not going to fix anything, obviously. It will just destroy their land and economic system and health, not to mention they'll just export everything to wealthier countries.

Quoting ssu

Notice something peculiar?

Yes. I notice that the UK is nowhere near self-sufficient in food production, and that therefore your figures are so misleading as to be pretty much worthless. We export a lot, we also import a lot more.

Quoting Nasir Shuja

How do they increase efficiency there though?

This is a very complex topic, but very broadly, a labour intensive market gardening and mixed farm set up, adapted for climate and soil and irrigation availability is about as productive per acre as you can get, by and large, though much land is unsuitable for such use. So we are in agreement to a great extent. It is also a much more pleasant way to live. Are you ready to work hard and be rather poor?

Hahaha, yes! I am in the process of learning everything about it to avoid those two things as best I can. But yes, it is a way of life.

We need to sit philosophy down and get his approval, the question is how can we convince him?

The financial value given to the food exported doesn’t represent the quantity produced. It’s not the best way to present the production of food. You should present by nutritional value alongside tonnage.

Western countries have more efficient farming due to technology.

There is an interesting talk on the subject matter here:

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=uB6rXAXmzQg

Quoting ssu

1 United States 72,682,349.79
2 Germany 34,628,800.73
3 United Kingdom 29,540,218.71
4 China 25,152,286.27
5 France 24,114,557.76
6 Netherlands 23,271,570.93
7 Japan 21,870,881.77
8 Canada 21,803,448.88
9 Belgium 15,742,034.88
10 Italy 13,890,507.81

$73 million??? SSU, where did you get these numbers from, and what do they represent?

A quick search showed that the value of just two US food exports--soybeans $12 billion, and corn $10 billion, greatly exceeds the figure you cited. Total US food exports last year were expected to be about $144 billion.

Quoting unenlightened

we export a lot, we also import a lot more.

Most countries do, because other countries grow food that are in demand. Like, hard sausage from Italy, apricots from Turkey, olives from Greece, wine and cheese from France, etc. Basmati rice from India is far superior to "texmati" grown in Texas or California. California supplies much of the world with almonds. Iran is a major supplier of pistachio nuts. Some of it is a bit absurd -- selling Jaffa oranges in California, for instance, or importing cheese into Wisconsin (where the license plates say "eat cheese or die").

Quoting Bitter Crank

Total US food exports last year were expected to be about $144 billion.

That sounds more like the big business which farming really is in North America.

Quoting Nasir Shuja

Based on this stuff I feel we need to return to a smaller farm model.

Is this practical?

I think it would require massive revision from top down, but it seems necessary, no? I don't think we need to totally become isolationist (each country grows their own food), or totally global (more like now), some mix would be better probably. For example here at least in the US, we could start with mapping out resources, revising the economics, fixing supply chains (figure out how to support densely populated areas), etc. But I think it is blatantly obvious that the current model is not balanced, at the least. I don't want to write a dissertation on it here and look up all sorts of data, but yes, I think it is practical if it is done somewhat at least; we can't do it completely of course. A lot, lot of things would have to change. We don't have time for debates about the efficiency any more, that is obvious enough to anybody who has ever grown anything. Dogma and greed and simple reactionary short term simple minded ignorance has corrupted everything. Why do we use so much unsustainable agriculture in the US? Because of power, short term profit, ignorance of "experts," etc; now we try to export that to third world countries as some on this board have sanctioned? How absurd. We need to grow like our ancestors did, but in a reductive, holistic, modern way. The quotes of figures is obviously out of context and nonsensical which is why I didn't even bother respond to that aspect; global political data is very complex. But there are people who are beginning to grow alternatively, slowly.. I don't see why we believe in dark matter though but can't see the value of alternative agriculture. We buy one theory but not another that is so Much more relevant and evidenced; it's all politics. We'll only do it when we absolutely have to. There is so, so much nonsense out there. I want the US government to support small Farmers, which they don't, at all. Why? Again, foolish considerations. Politicians have to be like gods (know everything About everything) in the modern age to get anything truly just done, and that they are not. Big agriculture Farmers don't Know anything about soil cycles and food webs and labor-machinery balance, ignore ethics, know a lil about soil chemistry, etc while the greenies just know about compost/interdependency (better) but know nothing about the knowledge we can extract from synthetics. I'm hinting at the work done by Albrecht in part, the soil chemistry of minerals and plant nutrition. Michael asteras book the ideal soil is a very valuable resource on this. He has the most balanced synthesis I've found, and I'm going to use it in the models proposed in works like the market gardener and the new organic grower (Coleman). That basic structure seems to be the most efficient and sustainable model for me personally. If I had more land, I'd do it a little differently then, but with much similarity.

Quoting unenlightened

This is a very complex topic, but very broadly, a labour intensive market gardening and mixed farm set up, adapted for climate and soil and irrigation availability is about as productive per acre as you can get, by and large, though much land is unsuitable for such use. So we are in agreement to a great extent. It is also a much more pleasant way to live. Are you ready to work hard and be rather poor?

Do you have a source for these statements? Not arguing, I'd just like to read a bit.

I think the big hole in the argument is "labor intensive" and "be rather poor." Productivity is "the effectiveness of productive effort, especially in industry, as measured in terms of the rate of output per unit of input." The type of farming you describe is productive because farmers and farm workers for this type of farming get paid for shit. As the father of two farmers, I can see this first hand.

But nobody goes into it expecting to be a billionaire? We do it because we want to. The market isn't set up to support us. I don't think it is as cut and dry as having to be poor or using extreme amounts of labour. Yes, manual labor is necessitated at very specific junctions of the growth cycle (weeding prior to mulching while young direct seeds or transplants reach adequate size to mulch, harvesting, preparation for market, sowing, raising transplants, and a few other things). But this can be mitigated and made very efficient if you plan correctly. On my acreage, I will need a small tractor to till the veg plot (for the bacteria; not in the forest section bc fungi don't like tilling). I'll use a broadfork once a year where necessary. I'll use a hand driven rotating seed sower. I'll do all green house propagation by hand. I'll refurbish the raised beds yearly with compost. I will use drip irrigation everywhere so no labour there. Ferts are applied twice a year, scattered on the soil prior to deep-ish tilling. It's not really that bad for a small to mid sized piece of land. Everybody has different land and a different methodology. I have a target market which is not saturated and is growing and I got a friend to do all the marketing for me, for free. I'm going to do a CSA, so I can grow whatever I want and make more profit. But I'll go to some markets also and have a stand on site, depending. The land will also be used for other purposes. It remains to be seen as far as the nitpicky details go, but the majority of labor should be spent in initial improvement of the land, and the above mentioned spots. It's not easy, but it's doable. Many agree. I might even be able to do it with me and one helper. Based on the business model (what I will grow where on the land remains to be determined, that will take a long time to decide on), I will see where I end up in actuality.. but, (and I will be certified organic maybe), the good thing is the initial capital required for my setup is very reasonable.. I don't know what kind of farming your sons do. There is huge, huge variance in methodology. There are many books out there on the efficiency of a well planned market farm.

Quoting T Clark

The type of farming you describe is productive because farmers and farm workers for this type of farming get paid for shit. As the father of two farmers, I can see this first hand.

I don't have chapter and verse to hand, but I'm considering productivity per acre and not per man-hour, obviously. A lot of land - anywhere that isn't plains - you don't have much choice. Anything more productive than grazing or forestry would have to be small scale and mixed. But there's a lot of narrow valley bottom, and steep valley side that could do more than it does, and did, before agro-industrialisation.

Reply to Nasir Shuja Reply to unenlightened I'm all in favor of small farms, organic methods, minimum tillage, truck farming, and so on. There is nothing impractical about any of this. Before WWII agriculture was conducted considerably differently than it is now, 70 years later. Farms were much smaller, herbicide/pesticide application was minimal compared to present practice, production was much ore diversified, and so on.

What are the barriers to our returning to pre-WWII farming methods and organization?

1. Over the last two and three generations, farms have been consolidated into large acreages (where the lay of the land allows for big flat fields);

2. very few young farmers are available to begin farming on 200 acre farms, even if they were given the land and capital;

3. the machinery used for diversified family farms is no longer being made (smaller tractors, various kinds of tillers, rakes, etc.);

4. seed production (from which crops are planted) has become a hostage of seed, herbicide, and pesticide corporations like Bayer and Monsanto, et al.

None of these barriers are insurmountable, but they would take a generation or two to overcome

We don't know whether we would be able to attain the current level of production in corn, wheat, soy, cotton, sorghum, oats, and so forth in a rediversified, small-farm re-arrangement. We will certainly be able to produce as many apples, potatoes, cabbages, rutabagas, carrots, kales, and cucumbers as we do now, and probably better.

All these changes would have to be forced -- I don't mean by soviet style collectivization -- by very intrusive governmental action more akin to to WWII production mobilization. The technology of small farming hasn't been lost -- it has been merely neglected. But it would certainly take time (a generation) to train in a generation of novice farmers in how to manage crops and animals and manage farm finances -- never an easy task.

I like the generational point.
How should we achieve this?
I am willing to take action/help.

Reply to unenlightened I haven't checked this, but it seems to me that tree-crops (apples, pears, apricots, peaches, oranges, pecans, almonds, walnuts, etc.) have very high value and weight per acre. And forestry on land that is too steep for anything else can, in the very long run, be profitable. A large walnut or oak tree (maybe 80 years old) is worth quite a bit a cash.

Reply to Nasir Shuja A young man starts farming. He has children. He convinces the children that farming is the best thing in the world (evidence to the contrary). Rinse and repeat every 20 years.

Reply to Nasir Shuja But seriously, government intervention is needed. A young man can not just start farming. Capital is needed -- cash, machinery, seed stock, animal stock, housing, and so forth. The government can help in several ways: university training in agriculture (quite a few state universities have colleges of agriculture); trade-school level training in agriculture; active university-based agricultural extension services; state financing; busting up the seed/herbicide/pesticide monopoly, so that farmers can buy self-perpetuating seed stock, and seeds not dependent on the seed company's herbicide (RoundUp Ready corn, for example).

Giant corporate control of agriculture has to be ended, and that requires state action on the highest level.

Reply to Nasir Shuja It's pretty amazing. Several very large corporations, like Monsanto, DuPont, Bayer, Dow, etc. own or have controlling interests in dozens of other companies that are part of the Ag. business.


https://civileats.com/2019/01/11/the-sobering-details-behind-the-latest-seed-monopoly-chart/

That is exactly what I was thinking.

Reply to Bitter Crank Sure. Orchards on the steeper slopes, and pigs and chickens under them to tidy up the windfalls and fertilise. Terracing is a thing too.

Reply to Nasir Shuja If I was fit and without commitments, I'd look to something like this, for an education and some fun.

Quoting unenlightened

Orchards on the steeper slopes, and pigs and chickens under them to tidy up the windfalls and fertilise. Terracing is a thing too.

Here is a photo of vineyards planted on the steep lopes along the Mosel River in Germany. These grapes are planted, cultivated, and picked by hand, sometimes with the use of motorized monorail bikes.

Quoting Bitter Crank

$73 million??? SSU, where did you get these numbers from, and what do they represent?

Sorry, not 73 million, forgot the "in thousands of" and hence 73 billion by that link, where just what you take into account on all food exports can vary. The link was Which Countries Export The Most Food?. Perhaps not the optimal stats, but gives perspective. (Should have looked for better stats, but anyway.)

Quoting unenlightened

. I notice that the UK is nowhere near self-sufficient in food production, and that therefore your figures are so misleading as to be pretty much worthless. We export a lot, we also import a lot more

Notice that it was exports. Not net exports. I guess that Scotch Whisky is more profitable than exporting just barley.

Quoting Nasir Shuja

How do they increase efficiency there though? I can't eval your data unless I have details about their methodology. I've heard stories of machinery and unwise methods being introduced to places where agriculture was not modernized, and now it has had negative consequences. T

Netherlands is very advanced in agriculture technology and uses extensively greenhouses.

Here's two takes on Dutch agriculture. (And btw they put Netherlands to different status as mine stats, above, so sorry about that..)

Reply to ssu A question on Dutch meat and dairy production: It wasn't clear to me whether the Dutch are producing all of the fodder and grain / protein which they need to produce quality milk, cheese, ham, etc. Are they importing animal feed?

Similarly, Denmark produces various export crops and products; is Denmark producing their animal feeds, or are they importing those? (The Danes used to import most of the animal feed they needed.)

I'm not asking the question as a criticism; I found the information in the video on Dutch production to be very impressive. A lot of the red/yellow/orange sweet bell peppers we eat in the US are Dutch imports. (The cost is between $3 and $4 a pound; domestic green bell peppers are about $1 a pound.

The expansiveness of US, Canadian, Australian, and Argentinian fields makes it easier to foist highly industrial processes on farmers there. Obviously, RoundUp ready tomatoes grown in a greenhouse makes no sense.

Just curious, did anyone actually watch the link I posted? If so, any thoughts?

Quoting Bitter Crank

The expansiveness of US, Canadian, Australian, and Argentinian fields makes it easier to foist highly industrial processes on farmers there.

Agriculture is turning into an industry. What is diminishing is subsistence farming, which still plays a huge role in the Third World. So likely what will be a 'make or break' moment is will there be a transformation in agriculture for example in Africa. The decrease in subsistence farming isn't in my view really about agriculture or agriculture technology, but the emergence alternative jobs for people. A subsistence farmer will stay quite poor, hence the eradication of agrarian povetry happens when countries industrialize and become prosperous.

Quoting I like sushi

Just curious, did anyone actually watch the link I posted? If so, any thoughts?

Listening to it. Interesting. I love this from the lecture:

"There isn't really a choice. The argument that we can all become vegetarians is also not a viable argument. Because high protein plantfood cannot be produced in most arable land at the level it would be needed to provide protein nutrition for the Worlds population."

HA!!! So take that you stupid vegans (munching my breakfast of eggs and ham while writing this).

https://ourworldindata.org/yields-and-land-use-in-agriculture

There's a load of interesting stuff here. This chart in particular might give pause to the militant carnivores.

Quoting unenlightened

There's a load of interesting stuff here. This chart in particular might give pause to the militant carnivores.

Actually in the lecture that I like sushi posted above, the thing with beef was discussed. The lecturer gave there interesting insights. (Also, the Q&A is worth listening in my view too).

Here’s another interesting talk: https: Professor Dave Reay: Climate-smart food

//m.youtube.com/watch?v=s_YvrSkESe0&list=PL9E20C4BE37DEBC70&index=12&t=0s

There are some amazingly robust and underutilized food producing organisms out there that could add energy efficient nutritional value to processed products.

Moringa oleifera (called the Miracle Tree) grows in semi-arid locations of sub-tropics/tropics. Leaves from this tree provide a mineral rich complete protein to supplement a calorie source. Seeds also provide cooking oil.

Gram for gram comparison of Moringa leaf to other sources of nutrition:

2x the protein of yogurt
4x vitamin A of carrots
3x the potassium of bananas
4x the calcium of milk
7x vitamin C of oranges ( info from kulikulifoods.com)

I'm also ready to eat insects.

There is so much out there. I'll need another five or so years to really become an expert on this, but let's say after hammering down on a few more books I see the detailed value of possible greenhouse or season extension crops within a more local ish system. The current globalized system with it's year's round availability from various specialized parts of the earth (is the one benefit), at the cost of local growers (eg thru protected culture) or other models which are more sustainable. It seems we're basically on a treadmill and don't know how to stop it. So many people cash crop and have dignity for what they do as they destroy so many things, etc. Simultaneously we need to policy wise and otherwise (ground up) move towards something which is more sustainable as a whole.. I don't think attacking Farmers specifically is the issue, but farming and the government itself. We focus on short sighted diseases, immediate tariffs and debts, etc ("economics) at the cost of actually valid supply chains. Yea finding a model that's whatever scale and still efficient isn't the easiest (but it's possible) thing but we have to see industrializing third world countries and functioning in some illogical global trade market might not work long term.. commodities are given subsidies while local farmers are pushed aside. It's the psychological aspect of so industrialized consumerist capitalist culture which is making the system so irregular. I don't mean to say we should be totally local, but for example California almonds and salibas lettuce etc - these are all based on supply and demand, which is fundamentally flawed. I'm not a Marxist per se, but we need a better balance.

I grew up on a farm that did conventional agriculture. I don't want to go into farming, although money considerations might compel me to do so.

Small farms mean poor farmers and even poorer laborers. What small farms can produce (eg organics) is essentially a luxury product since conventional options are so cheap. I'd like to have a hobby farm, set up a local barter network, but make a living off it? Forget about it. Top-down? Grrrr.

It's just like the energy problem: no matter what you do to the supply side, you won't be able to influence the demand side. Americans like cheap food. Hardly anybody thinks about where food comes from. Small farms can't scale up quickly, and even if they did, food would be 3 or 4 times more expensive (rough guess) than it is now. As you see in the Arab Spring, when wheat went astronomical, expensive food still destabilizes populations.

Conventional farmers do it conventionally not because they're evil, but because they are trying to stay in business.

Healthy food is a basic thing. If it actually is what it claims to be, then it is worth the price. Cheap food is not really hugely beneficial to the consumer or the producer. If you know how to cook or/& are very nutrition savvt, it's really not fiscally a big deal. The economic policy is nonsense. Smaller farms can be high efficiency/profitable, yes with a some added (not nearly as much as in the past) manual labor; if you are a little creative and have the know how you can do it on a smaller farm. An example is a passive solar greenhouse setup to extend season and grow out of season crops that are high value/in demand and produce many harvests etc.. you get a big bang for your buck with that. So on and so forth..
The cheap food/export import imbalances/monopolies/environmental waste/etc thing needs to end yea. It's a problem, it needs a wider solution beyond what I just said to actually fix it. I guess we could stop subsidizing bad food and bad trade, becoming more local, stop using nonsensical techniques....haha..ha