To be fair, as someone with Celiac disease, living in that world might be a little easier for me than living in present day America (minus the obvious implications for the end of society as we know it).
Doubtful, because the demand for calories would shift to other sources (the sources you currently consume) and increase the price substantially. Also, I've found that the United States is one of the best places at accommodating alternative diets.
Another reason to use polycultures & a more ecosystemic approach (restoration agriculture) to growing food, custom to each region. There's disease resistance by design & the ecosystem is improved.
Small scale farming also focuses the population on improving the biosphere, whereas the technosphere has dominated our cultural attention.
- A potential European famine won't happen because the lacking quantities of food will be imported, to the detriment of all with less purchasing power and no sufficient own production (read Africa)
- Is there some principle similar to "financial diversification" applied in Agriculture to obtain a Portfolio with low risk? I could imagine to use some "genome distance" instead of asset correlation.
It's called genetic diversity. Look at traditional methods of potatoe farming in Peru and the Andes. They breed thousands of varieties. Look up some pictures, it's crazy. Our modern method of high input, high petroleum leveraged mono cropping is highly susceptible to blight.
On the bright side, your potatoes would be less boring, because of more diversity on your plate. Now variety might not be enough though: many humans, but we still had plaques.
First, mono-cropping generally refers to single crop, year-on-year. It does not mean single, variety/hybrid as you suggest.
Second, your assertion regarding agriculture in the US just doesn't really match reality. USDA data[0] in 2014 indicated that only 16 percent of corn, 14 percent of spring wheat and 6 percent of soybean acreage is continuously planted with one crop over a three-year period. More recent data is available feel free to validate it for yourself.
You’re missing the point. Nearly all the corn grown and sold in the USA is a few varieties, and one goal of industrial agriculture is perfect uniformity of output. If you go look at Mexican peasant farms from 50+ years ago (and going back millennia), you’ll see corn of every conceivable size and color, differing broadly from region to region, and locally matched to each particular micro-climate. Same story for all crops grown traditionally in their regions of origin, which usually have thousands of varieties with diverse traits.
Whether they are planted continuously, or rotated with other crops, etc., doesn’t change the fundamental lack of genetic diversity in our modern industrial agriculture system.
> If you go look at Mexican peasant farms from 50+ years ago
The goal of modern agriculture shouldn't be to produce like peasants.
Their output was low, product homogenous, and crop was prone to catastrophic failure. All very bad things.
>e the fundamental lack of genetic diversity in our modern industrial agriculture system.
Diversity is a renewable resource. Even despite that, there already exists an incredible library of diversity breeders use to create yearly hybrid crops. The reason only a few types are planted each year is because they are optimized for that season.
Stop assuming modern farmers don't know what they are doing, and stop leaning on an authenticity bias of yesteryear.
I never said modern farmers don’t know what they’re doing. They’re very good at maximizing revenue (via crop uniformity and yield, marketable plant attributes, intense land use, efficient distribution, maximizing government subsidies, etc...) while minimizing input costs (especially labor).
This has been fantastic at reducing the number of people required to work in agriculture, and at producing more food than ever before on the same amount of land. It’s fair to say that our current world population would be entirely unsustainable without industrial agriculture.
There are big systemic risks and unaccounted external costs though (to farms and ranches, to the local environment, to people living nearby, and to the planet), in e.g. using water from aquifers at above-replacement rate; topsoil erosion at faster than replacement rate; large-scale use of a tiny number of plant varieties; widespread use of pesticides, herbicides, and fertilizers which run off into local waterways; promoting crops with less nutritional value because they have improved size or durability or prettier appearance; feeding animals large quantities of antibiotics and potentially breeding resistant bacteria; et cetera.
(P.S. we owe an awful lot to hundreds of generations of Mexican peasant farmers. Corn, tomatoes, squash, pinto beans, chilies, avocados, chocolate, tobacco, ... they ate a substantially healthier diet than most people in Europe at the time and supported larger cities and higher population density, despite the lack of draft animals.)
> A potential European famine won't happen because the lacking quantities of food will be imported, to the detriment of all with less purchasing power
I can't believe that in today's connected world this would happen to the determent of other nations. Sure 150 years ago in Ireland type scenario but these days if a local populace was starving the government would shut borders on food. No democratic government would stay in power otherwise and I doubt a dictatorship could either. It's a different world.
That said purchasing power would be used by wealthy nations to buy any excess. But also I feel like in the scenario from the book there would be very limited excess so it's a stretch to claim there would be no European famine as you can't expect there to be excess food from any nation. Grass overs a hell of a lot of food production directly and also indirectly in things like meat production.
What? This is basic supply and demand. The supply goes down, the demand stays the same (in fact, demand grows because of panic), so prices rise. Rich countries continue to eat, poor countries starve.
What does democracy in, say, the Philippines have to do with the fact that an exporter (of which there are now less of) can sell to England for $0.20/pound or sell to the Philippines for $0.10/pound?
Consider the 2008 rice crisis which wasn't caused by a shortage of rice (1). You also see this when staple foods suddenly become trendy (2)
Hopefully this is not the beginning of another science-fiction plot turning reality. From what I can tell we are quite a few years away from the technology of 'Interstellar'
If we had interstellar level of tech we could synthesize aminos, carbs and fats more efficiently than we can with agriculture. We could probably do it right now with processing simple organisms like algae or what not if push came to shove - with enough R&D $ spent, but all forms of agriculture get subsidized enough that it doesn't even let alternative competition come up.
I'm not saying agricultural disasters can't have very negative impacts on society (especially less developed countries that have to bid for same food as developed countries on global market) but such sci-fi plots are rather unconvincing.
To be fair to the screenwriters: If I don't remember wrong, in Interstellar, they don't have interstellar level of technology, they just find the tech.
Given that plague's... unusual biochemistry (lives off Nitrogen instead of Oxygen how?) I'm less worried about that than us merely running 5 years behind on Car Wars' timeline:
although I think it makes some sense to see the blight as representative of a reversal of humanity's changing relationship to nitrogen in the 20th century via the Haber process - bomb-enabling and fertilizer-propagation coming full-circle as being used by a plague that takes human life via nitrogen again.
Better than the US standard of letting untested genes or chemicals loose on the population and testing/regulating only when a problem starts popping up, no?
It depends. For instance, the precautionary principle in the EU has, in the case of declining bee populations, manifested itself in banning things even when the scientific studies have shown that the pesticides in question are almost certainly not the problem.
How many scientific studies does it take to convince a politician?
When the crop is wind pollinated as is the case with wheat and other grasses, AND when there are closely related weeds and other plants nearby, a little caution seems like a good thing.
As far as neonicotinamides, they are a very useful group of pesticides. Safe for applicators, effective, long lasting. I use them quite often to control pests in the university greenhouses I manage. I think the jury is still out on their role in bee colony collapses. Even if they are not implicated, there is a lot of evidence that they do kill insect pollinators
People seem to fall apart when GMO food is mentioned but vaccines, medical procedures, drugs any science at all they agree with except GMO. Very useful things I'm not slagging on them in case I'm not being clear. People are weird.
Frequently, critics of GMO are presented as anti-science scared of "genetics". I think there is some valid criticism of GMO even if you decide that genetic manipulation is totally safe. For instance:
-GMO, at least as is commercialized now, imply a reduction in genetic variation.
-GMO technology could be a good thing, but, some people find worrisome, that global supply of food it's in the hands of a few corporations. You have to recognize that this is an historical change of global proportions in a fundamental issue. Surely it pays to feel some mistrust.
-Some people, and I have not found convinced evidence of the opposite, thinks that GMO is being promoted because profit, not because humanity needs it. After all, the places where there is hungry is, in general, because development and politic issues, not because production problems; and in the places where there is not hungry, in general, a lot of food finish in the trash.
> GMO technology could be a good thing, but, some people find worrisome, that global supply of food it's in the hands of a few corporations.
Ding ding ding! Monsanto isn't exactly Evil corp. and after doing some research, they don't quite deserve the terrible reputation they have. That said, I am still wary of a large multi-national corporation that seems to hire a large number of prominent US ex-politicians.
The cognitive dissonance it creates in people, especially those in LA, makes me chuckle. They'll only eat organic, gluten-free foods and use "all natural" toothpaste, cleaning products, etc. for fear of cancer. Meanwhile, on that jog during rush hour, they're breathing in possibly the worst air pollution in the US and living in this smog will definitely takes years off of your life.
>Some people, and I have not found convinced evidence of the opposite, thinks that GMO is being promoted because profit, not because humanity needs it.
Unless humanity instantaneously ends the Anthropocene era and stops spewing out greenhouse gases, wheat, corn, rice and sorghum (which account for half of the calories consumed by humanity) face a very uncertain future by the pressures of climate change.
Also, a large % of farmers practice crop monoculture, which is unsustainable. For example, edible bananas are the result of a genetic accident in nature that created the seedless fruit we enjoy today. Virtually all the bananas sold across the Western world belong to the so-called Cavendish subgroup of the species and are genetically nearly identical. These bananas are sterile and dependent on propagation via cloning, This lack of diversity makes them extremely susceptible. The vast worldwide monoculture of genetically identical plants leaves the Cavendish intensely vulnerable to disease outbreaks.
Since we are making America Great Again, it seems like the US just said fuck it, climate change is happening so that we can bring back manual labor jobs from 3rd world countries. If the worst happens and we live in a Mad MAx-esque dystopia, I'm assembling a war band to assault the global seed vault.Does anyone know what kind of fortifications it has? Norweigans?
"They'll only eat organic, gluten-free foods and use "all natural" toothpaste, cleaning products, etc. for fear of cancer. Meanwhile, on that jog during rush hour, they're breathing in possibly the worst air pollution in the US and living in this smog will definitely takes years off of your life."
Thats why many of them live on the land instead ... and smoke all the time to make up for lack of smog ;)
Exactly. There is absolutely 0 evidence that GMOs cause any health concerns when compared to organic food. Organic food is just for rich countries who can afford to produce food inefficiently in order to feel good about themselves. Now, I don't doubt their intentions, but it's not a solution to any problem, nor is it better for you.
Well, no but there are other things that are often forgotten:
- Monoclonal cultures are highly suceptible to diseases like this one
- there is a much higher pesticide usage associated with GMO fields around the world (for what reason whatsoever)
- people have been sued because their crops contained genes from GMO companies
I am not really against GMO (I studied biotechnology) but I can understand why people have massive problems with them. And if Monsanto says that they want to monopolize food production around the world, I will oppose them, even if they do sometimes good things. It is not GMO that is the problem, its monopoles and big corporations that are associated with that and thats what people fear and rightfully fear.
>there is a much higher pesticide usage associated with GMO fields around the world (for what reason whatsoever)
This is because most GMO crops are designed to withstand more pesticides rather than bettering the crop on its own. It's a kind of printer and cartridge sales model. In Monsanto's case they want you to buy their crops and then use more Roundup. In this way they sell seeds and afterwards they sell more pesticide for those seeds.
Not really: GMO crops don't really use more pesticides. Very often less.
It's not totally a one-way street and things are complicated in many situations, but the common public perception "GMO == pouring lots of pesticides" is clearly wrong.
Overall pesticide use decreased only in the first few years GE crops were used (42 percent between 1998 and 2001) and has since then risen by 26 percent from 2001 to 2010.
By 2011 there were also three times as many herbicide-resistant weeds found in farmer's fields as there were in 2001.
Now, I think the GMO scare out there borders on mindless hysteria. But pesticide and herbicide resistant crops are just... bad.
Herbicides, not pesticides. Also, keep in mind that "herbicide" is not a single thing; the particular herbicide that Monsanto sells (glyophosate) is more-or-less not toxic to mammals or insects and does not migrate to the water table.
You can't just compare "pounds of *cide" and call it a day. It is very important how much of which pesticides and herbicides are being applied, and what the properties of those are (how long they take to break down, whether they migrate to the water table, how toxic they are to different animals).
I don't disagree that those are risks, and I do not like the large agriculture firms or the climate of that business from what I've read. I'm with you here.
>Organic food is just for rich countries who can afford to produce food inefficiently in order to feel good about themselves.
The organic label is bullshit and has no consistent meaning. However, there is a difference between the farmer who grows for maximum yield and the artisan who tries to maximize taste.
I think many people confuse the label organic with higher quality foods, hybrids, and heirlooms or more generally quality.
That's why I try to buy things that are locally made, or that I can discern the quality myself and judge whether it's worth the extra money. As you mentioned, the artisan tries to maximize the taste (or quality in general), and the artisan also tends to be a local shop. With that being said, I have yet to find artisan broccoli.
Put it this way. If you see two apples, one organic and one not, but the one that is not is cheaper, you would only buy the organic one if you believe that it's healthier, or you feel like you're doing something "good". But if you do that, you're making that decision without evidence of the organic apple being better for you. The rational decision is to pay for the cheaper one, unless you're at least consciously choosing to buy an organic apple because you believe it's a value statement.
If you buy the organic apple because you believe it's healthier than you're doing so without evidence and effectively asserting that such evidence exists. If we're to assume (and I think this is the proper assumption) that you don't have proper knowledge about the health effects, then the default choice where you're not positing that there is any evidence would to simply purchase the cheaper apple. In that case you're saying (I don't know) and taking that factor out of the equation, which leaves either price or lifestyle, which I mentioned above.
I used to believe that GMOs were bad and organic was the way to go. I thought I had to stand up to big agriculture and buy local. I still mostly try to buy local for environmental reasons (and others), but I no longer factor "organic" into the decision. You can get "organic" just about anything these days whether or not it's actually "organic", and often times it's worse for the environment.
>> Dr Jorgen Schlundt, Coordinator for the Food Safety Programme at the World Health Organization, commented: ‘‘Before genetically modified rice can be widely introduced, scientific evidence will need to be provided to assure that the rice is safe and nutritionally adequate, does not pose unacceptable risks to the environment, and will provide the human health benefits suggested.’’ He added: ‘‘WHO, along with the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO), and the jointly sponsored FAO/WHO Codex Alimentarius Commission are developing the methods and criteria to be used for the international assessment and management of genetically modified foods, including requirements for the labelling of such foods and their products. WHO is studying possible human health hazards from the release of genetically modified organisms into the environment and, as a first step, the WHO Regional Office for Europe has organized a seminar on this topic for September 2000.’’
This pressure meant that some of the patent restrictions and licensing were reduced - the 30 companies holding over 70 patents on golden rice said they'd allow free licensing for farmers earning less than $10,000; and they'd allow farmers to keep seed for replanting.
Hunger stopped because of industrialization of agriculture, not GMO, GMO is a recent invention and people were not starving in the West before it. Most places with hunger are currently facing some sort of war or other internal issues anyway, GMO isn't going to solve that. Let other countries do an industrialization of their agriculture first, then we will see.
GMO alone does not affect the genetic diversity of the variety.
GMO just affects how the first plant(s) of a variety are obtained; in the case of GMO, you shoot a gene gun (or use some other technique) to modify one or more starting seeds. In non-GMO crop development, you simply observe an interesting individual (or cross some number of existing varieties and look for interesting individuals among the offspring). A math teacher of mine once found an exceptionally fuzzy soybean plant he thought might be insect resistant.
What happens next is what affects the genetic diversity of the crop.
So you have one special plant. How do you turn that into a field?
Well, you breed it and hope its offspring are also special. Some plants are self-fertilizing; you may do that, to try to avoid introducing non-special genes into the germ-line. You may also use the pollen from your special plant to pollinate a large number of other plants and hope at least some of their offspring are special. In the case of GMO, you might use your gene gun to shoot the same modification into a reasonably diverse set of initial seeds.
Your goal as a seed breeder - GMO or non-GMO - is to get the genes that produce the characteristics of the variety you are trying to produce (flavor or size or color of the fruit; speed of growth; hardiness or resistance) as uniformly as you can into a breeding population of plants, so that all of the offspring of all of the plants can reasonably be expected to express the traits.
There will necessarily be a weak point there: if a new virus attacks the gene that is needed to make your new corn variety super-delicious, all the plants will inherently be susceptible to that disease, regardless of how that gene got there. This sort of susceptibility isn't too troubling, however, because it's always there: corn shares a great number of genes with other corn; that's what makes it corn and not wheat or beans.
What will vary is how much diversity will be in the rest of the plant's genome. There could be very little, if you simply breed your exemplar starting plant against it self, and then its children against themselves, over and over until you have enough seeds to plant a field. There could be a lot, if you can find or produce a number of unrelated exemplars or you first breed your exemplars against a more diverse gene pool.
This second sort of a lack of genetic diversity is more troubling, but it isn't a product of genetic engineering: it's a result of going through a population bottleneck in the recent past; this can happen to non-GMO varieties just as easily.
I agree with you, but at the same time people generally have been shown to do things that act against their perceived best interests. So, we'll have to wait and see.
One aspect that isn't getting discussed much here is trade. With CETA set to pass at some point in the not too distant future, Europe will have easier access to Canadian agricultural products. Of course, there will be an impact on prices though.
From my point of view, that is a weak argument. I mean, we also subsidize coal; not because it is cheaper now but because it keeps jobs in our market as you do not buy from outside. I would therefore not be so sure whether it is the best interest to import cheaper canadian products.
And last but no least: I have no idea how most product should become cheaper that way, as canadian supermarkets are mostly more expensive than european. You wont get a litre of milk in Vancouver for 47 cent, nor good bread or eggs for the prices offered around here. Bananas and other import products are cheaper, but that is not the market Canada targets, I assume. The prices would go up if it wasn't all that much subsedized, something that might actually happen under CETA.
Medical procedure and vaccines can be an analogy to fungicides not GMO. GMO is like everybody suddenly want to be blond and have blue eyes. But if everybody become a clone basically, one bacteria or whatever could sweep out the whole world.
This isn't really a "new" disease, but a new variety of Puccinia graminis.
One thing about P.graminis that's useful for us is that it overwinters on barberry, where it does the sexual stage of its lifecycle, so if you can get rid of the barberry you can slow down the rust's evolution significantly. Here's a page about the eradication efforts in 20th century US: https://www.apsnet.org/publications/apsnetfeatures/Pages/Bar...
While I'm sure this is was too simplistic. Seems like it they can produce less wheat, then maybe people will eat less wheat, and possibly the reduced carbs will make them healthier. Win/win!
http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/941731.The_Death_of_Grass
In it, a rice virus mutates and wipes out all grass crops in Asia and Europe --- rice, wheat, barley, oats, you name it.
tl:dr: it doesn't go well.