Science/Environment Peak agricultural land - a great technological achievement

[Seeds]

The experts now estimate that humans need less land than in the past to feed the world. The peak was in fact 20-30 years ago. This has occured through increased fertiliser use, better water management and genetically modified crops (Remember when that used to be an evil term?).

And with cell based meat and Indoor farming just around the corner the line in this chart is going to fall dramatically very soon.

this is a fundamental civilisation achievement. Poverty will no longer be a function of lack of food.

we always talk about whats wrong with the world and how things are getting worse. Its important to acknowledge the achievements as well. We are now on the verge of ending world hunger. Yes there are transport and trade barrier issues to still deal with but these will only become less and less important with time. As they already are. We havent had a major famine since somalia and rwanda in the 1990s after all.

falling agriculture land requirements will also free up more land to return to the forests and wild species. This will help rejuvenate nature.

see the malthusians were wrong. human breeding was not sending us on a path of a mass hunger event that would eventually wipe out billions from famine.

After millennia of agricultural expansion, the world has passed ‘peak agricultural land’

The world produces more food than ever, but the amount of land we use is now falling. This means we can feed more people while restoring wild habitat.

ourworldindata.org

 

[Gethelred]

The experts now estimate that humans needs less land in the past to feed the world. The peak was in fact 20-30 years ago. This has occured through increased fertiliser use, better water management and genetically modified crops (Remember when that used to be an evil term?).

And with cell based meat and Indoor farming just around the corner the line in this chart is going to fall dramatically very soon.

this is a fundamental civilisation achievement. Poverty will no longer be a function of lack of food.

we always talk about whats wrong with the world and how things are getting worst. Its important to acknowledge the achievements as well. We are now on the verge of ending world hunger. Yes there are transport and trade barrier issues to still deal with but these will only become less and less important with time. As they already are. We havent had a major famine since somalia and rwanda in the 1990s after all.

falling agriculture land requirements will also free up more land to return to the forests and wild species. This will help rejuvenate nature.

see the malthusians were wrong. human breeding was not sending us on a path of a mass hunger event that would eventually wipe out billions from famine.

View attachment 1413006

After millennia of agricultural expansion, the world has passed ‘peak agricultural land’

The world produces more food than ever, but the amount of land we use is now falling. This means we can feed more people while restoring wild habitat.

ourworldindata.org

Interesting.

 

[Jafa]

Interesting.

Very.

The dumb part of my brain was ready to do a "Soylent green" thing though.

 

[barreness]

So we'll just ignore top soil loss, fertilizer shortages and the need to stop using them, monoculture crops becoming less nutritious, foodbowls getting rekt by heatwaves/flooding/war, etc etc

Earth cant support 8 billion without petrochemicals. Famines they are a comin'

 

[Seeds]

So we'll just ignore top soil loss, fertilizer shortages and the need to stop using them, monoculture crops becoming less nutritious, foodbowls getting rekt by heatwaves/flooding/war, etc etc

Earth cant support 8 billion without petrochemicals. Famines they are a comin'

So you would rather have famines rather then use fertilizer? Seriously?

And if we need less land going foward to feed people then the environmental issues of agriculture start to disapear because the land is no longer used for umm agriculture.

gm crops can be made more nutritous not less. Cell based meat will be more nutritous and healthier (and tastier) then regular meat. Food already tastes much better today then it did when i was a kid.

why are famines coming? The evidence suggests exactly the opposite? do you have any reasons or is it just a gut feel? follow the science, not your gut feels.

ps. Do you ever think food is too expensive? Cos without fertilizer its going to be a lot more expensive.

 

[barreness]

So you would rather have famines rather then use fertilizer? Seriously?

And if we need less land going foward to feed people then the environmental issues of agriculture start to disapear because the land is no longer used for umm agriculture.

gm crops can be made more nutritous not less. Cell based meat will be more nutritous and healthier (and tastier) then regular meat. Food already tastes much better today then it did when i was a kid.

why are famines coming? The evidence suggests exactly the opposite? do you have any reasons or is it just a gut feel? follow the science, not your gut feels.

ps. Do you ever think food is too expensive? Cos without fertilizer its going to be a lot more expensive.

I'd rather less people, Haber–Bosch process has created this and it only ends one way

Environmental issues dont just disappear, not on a human timescale at least, in fact they tend to get worse.

Pro gm but it has been overrun by capitalists. Cell based meat is just a techo futurist wet dream, will never happen at scale(96% of mammals are humans and the livestock we eat, 3 tmes more chickens than wild birds), just another energy sink

Afghanistan is on the brink of famine. How can Biden just forget about us? | Selay Ghaffar

People are fleeing in search of food, freedom and safety resulting from the economic and humanitarian catastrophe caused by 20 years of US occupation

www.theguardian.com

Sri Lanka Faces Acute Food Shortages and Starvation Amid Economic Crisis

Food prices in Sri Lanka have soared as the country endures an economic crisis.

www.globalcitizen.org

Poorer nations will go first

The problem is it has been its too cheap, through fossil fuels, leading to a population boom. This can't last, one way or another

 

[Lethality]

We all need to start growing our own food. Even if you have just a small garden, you can grow a bunch of food with vertical gardening.

 

[Seeds]

We all need to start growing our own food. Even if you have just a small garden, you can grow a bunch of food with vertical gardening.

Why? How can you read the thread and come to the conclusion we need to grow our own food? The evidence suggests the exact opposite. Especially in australia where we already produce far too much for australian comsumption. If we start growing our own it just means more has to be exported.

growing your own food takes time and effort. if you considered it work, which it is, then the price of the food you grow yourself would be multiple times higher then the price of food in the shops.

 

[Seeds]

I'd rather less people, Haber–Bosch process has created this and it only ends one way

Environmental issues dont just disappear, not on a human timescale at least, in fact they tend to get worse.

Pro gm but it has been overrun by capitalists. Cell based meat is just a techo futurist wet dream, will never happen at scale(96% of mammals are humans and the livestock we eat, 3 tmes more chickens than wild birds), just another energy sink

Afghanistan is on the brink of famine. How can Biden just forget about us? | Selay Ghaffar

People are fleeing in search of food, freedom and safety resulting from the economic and humanitarian catastrophe caused by 20 years of US occupation

www.theguardian.com

Sri Lanka Faces Acute Food Shortages and Starvation Amid Economic Crisis

Food prices in Sri Lanka have soared as the country endures an economic crisis.

www.globalcitizen.org

Poorer nations will go first

The problem is it has been its too cheap, through fossil fuels, leading to a population boom. This can't last, one way or another

both the afghanistan and sri lanka problems are caused by political crisis. Not an inability of the world to provide enough food for everyone. It states this clearly as the cause at the top of both articles. and this is all happening with a war in the europes biggest food bowl and reduced agriculuture production as a result of covid Lockdowns.

i hate to destroy your hope of energy prices going up and making food more expensive but it aint going to happen. We have energy investment issues at the moment driving higher energy prices but its only a short term problem. renewables themselves are incredibly cheap now and only getting cheaper. Long term, energy prices will continue to fall as we move away from fossil fuels. And agricultural production will continue to improve making food prices cheaper and free up more land to return to nature.

capitalism created the problems of mass pollution but also ended it through technological progress. Capitalism also spread agriculture across the planet but is also now soon going to end it through technological process. As its doing with emissions from energy as well.

question.

it sounds like you dont want this to happen. You want humanity to struggle. Is this true? If so does that not make you a cartoonish evil villian of humanity? Or have i misinterpreted and you simply do not believe it will happen even with evidence of it happening put foward in front of your eyes?

are you on team humanity or team mass human extermination?

 

[Lethality]

Why? How can you read the thread and come to the conclusion we need to grow our own food? The evidence suggests the exact opposite. Especially in australia where we already produce far too much for australian comsumption. If we start growing our own it just means more has to be exported.

growing your own food takes time and effort. if you considered it work, which it is, then the price of the food you grow yourself would be multiple times higher then the price of food in the shops.

Supply chain issues, inflation, blockades, drought. Freeing up more agricultural land for biodiverse forests.

IDK if it would cost more than the price of food in shops. For example if you had a lemon tree you would get free lemons for the rest of your life. For maybe an hour's work.

 

[Seeds]

Supply chain issues, inflation, blockades, drought. Freeing up more agricultural land for biodiverse forests.

IDK if it would cost more than the price of food in shops. For example if you had a lemon tree you would get free lemons for the rest of your life. For maybe an hour's work.

the supply chain and issues we dealing with now are temporary shocks caused by covid lockdowns and the ukraine war. They are temporary and will disapear unless you think the world is about to become a huge isolationist war zone. And if we in that isolationist/ war zone world then australia wont be able to export all its excess food supply so will need to dump them on domestic markets at cheaper prices. Food prices in australia will actually fall.

the inflation shocks that are distinct from the supply chain shocks described above are purely a monetary problem and not a real problem. I.e. any rise in inflation not driven by supply constraints is completely offset by a wage rise so doesnt change your purchasing ability of food.

i dont think anyone can live off lemons. Kind of need other crops which need more work. In any case the cost of producing lemons is not just the labour but also the levilized value of the land you grow it on. Land is a lot cheaper in the countryside then in urban areas. a lemon tree takes up about 10-20 thousand dollars of land in an urban environments. Its going to need to produce a lot of lemons to claim that money back.

 

[Lethality]

i dont think anyone can live off lemons. Kind of need other crops which need more work. In any case the cost of producing lemons is not just the labour but also the levilized value of the land you grow it on. Land is a lot cheaper in the countryside then in urban areas. a lemon tree takes up about 10-20 thousand dollars of land in an urban environments. Its going to need to produce a lot of lemons to claim that money back.

Residential land is bought for living space and luxury, the addition of the lemon tree is just a bonus and therefore the cost of land isn't part of the equation.

 

[Seeds]

Residential land is bought for living space and luxury, the addition of the lemon tree is just a bonus and therefore the cost of land isn't part of the equation.

And if you put in a lemon tree you have less land for living space and luxury. You could of instead brought a slightly smaller property at a cheaper price and had just as much land for living space and luxury as you do on the bigger more expensive property with the lemon tree. the difference in the values of those properties is the cost of the lemon tree.

 

[Lethality]

And if you put in a lemon tree you have less land for living space and luxury.

The tree only adds to the living space. It's attractive, can block wind noise and sightlines, provide shade, and so on. The food is just a bonus to an essential backyard feature.

 

[Seeds]

The tree only adds to the living space. It's attractive, can block wind noise and sightlines, provide shade, and so on. The food is just a bonus to an essential backyard feature.

true.

Are you going to respond to the other points that werent just related to the lemon tree? They also kind of made the lemon aspect of the lemon tree a bit redundant.

also not sure a lemon counts as food, its kind of just consumable acid.

 

[Fire]

While this is indeed interesting; the worlds food supply is completley reliant on non renewable fertalizers and the excess nutrients cause ongoing and compounding environmental issues.

Also this in no way implies that food would become more abundant or cheaper.

Also I wonder how big a role climate change is on this, both now and in the future. If arable land is disappearing, then a declining curve could coincide with a catastrophy.

In short, this does not suggest any of the issues we will face are solved. Given what we face we cant just assume we will be able to keep increasing productivity.

 

[Seeds]

While this is indeed interesting; the worlds food supply is completley reliant on non renewable fertalizers and the excess nutrients cause ongoing and compounding environmental issues.

Also this in no way implies that food would become more abundant or cheaper.

Also I wonder how big a role climate change is on this, both now and in the future. If arable land is disappearing, then a declining curve could coincide with a catastrophy.

In short, this does not suggest any of the issues we will face are solved. Given what we face we cant just assume we will be able to keep increasing productivity.

Arable land is not disappearing. Humans simply need less land for agriculture because the productivity of land is rising very fast. If we needed more we can access it. But we don't need more. We need less. And these productivity improvements will most likely accelerate.

With renewables becoming much cheaper we aren't far away from a point where it's cheaper to grow plants in vertical buildings using artificial light. Once this occurs then the line on the chart will almost halve as land is no longer required for crops. And with cell based meat not far from being commercialised and prices soon likely to dive there as well then we will no longer need land for livestock either. It's very possible within the next 50-100 years that humans will need virtually zero agriculture land globally. The outdoor farm is soon to be consigned to history.

The other advantage of this is the emissions from agriculture will also go to zero. Cell based meat doesn't produce any methane like livestock. Growing crops in buildings enables carbon capture storage technologies to be used to capture the emissions from fertilisers. Ofcourse fertilisers might be produced from emissions free green hydrogen by then anyway.

 

[Lethality]

true.

Are you going to respond to the other points that werent just related to the lemon tree? They also kind of made the lemon aspect of the lemon tree a bit redundant.

also not sure a lemon counts as food, its kind of just consumable acid.

Supply chains and inflation are transient problems but it's always good to have insurance.

An exciting garden is also a way to secure some type of employment, to the extent that you are working for food.

These days rooftop gardens are sort of becoming normal, as well as vertical gardening. I also see more people using their nature strip for gardening. It's an exciting time to be alive.

 

[Seeds]

Supply chains and inflation are transient problems but it's always good to have insurance.

An exciting garden is also a way to secure some type of employment, to the extent that you are working for food.

These days rooftop gardens are sort of becoming normal, as well as vertical gardening. I also see more people using their nature strip for gardening. It's an exciting time to be alive.

I agree its good to have insurance. Government should help with creating this insurance and not rely on its citizens to provide it who kind of already have other jobs.