But… we don’t have unlimited hectares of suitable land for people to fuck up. That’s the point… A food forest concept would require every last bit of ariable land on the planet and still not provide enough food for everyone.
The entire idea shows a complete lack of understanding what it takes to feed people at the scale of billions.
Agriculture is water intensive. The more land we use, the more water we need. Whether from the sky or from a irrigation canal, it’s still water used to grow crops not native environments. Reducing our land footprint reduces our total water usage. That’s what matters, not the per hectare usage.
Corn and wheat - just irrigating itincreases the average yield by 2x to 10x depending on the region.
If you’ve never been in a 50 hectare greenhouse it’s hard to imagine (they are 12-15m tall). These greenhouses are all in soil as well. The larger a greenhouse is the more efficient it is as maintaining temperature. You can get 2-3 cycles per year in them depending on light levels. So the yields are irrigated + 50% per cycle and 2-3 cycles per year instead of 1 cycle. Supplemental lighting can push it to a solid 3 cycles.
We need food for billions not a small community.
Food forest = lower environmental impact per acre but a higher environmental cost per kg of production. It’s also highly environmentally irresponsible to add in invasive species, disease, and pests into and established ecosystem. These are all spread by seed, soil, and plant tissue of the crops we grow.
Irrigated and/or protected culture… Protected culture for the crops that make sense. Irrigated in for all others.
We farm the way we do because historically we go through periods of innovation then stagnation. When the way we farm no longer works and we either rapidly innovate again or the civilization flounders and dies due to famine and war.
“Enormously expensive,” it’s all in perspective. It’s damn cheap compared to the cost of the environmental damage we are currently doing. FYI The equipment and technology already exist to do it as well.
The best thing for the environment and soil health is to not farm it. There is no such thing as environmentally friendly agriculture. It is always destructive.
We farm the land we do because it’s profitable.
Irrigated acres make up less than 7% of the land area used for agriculture but produce 65% of the total yield.
Protected culture (greenhouses, high tunnels, etc) produce 10x to 20x more per acre than open field production.
Increasing our water storage and transport infrastructure on a massive scale, combined with expansion of protected culture could reduce our agricultural land requirements by as much as 80%. All wiithout changing our diets.
Imagine 80% of the farmland rewilded? Massive stretches of native ecosystems rebounding without fertilizer or sprays.
Hmmm…
That would make more sense. The distinctive backpack must have made him easily traced by cameras.
Why would he do that?
Either he was incompetent or he knows the art of misdirection. A mask that he knowing allowed to be seen would send the authorities on a wild goose chase. All of the cops would be looking for the wrong person for a long time.
A quick change, ditch all the distinctive outfit, and change into a non-descript Walmart outfit. Then take care to let no camera see his real face as he high-tails to a safe location.
He assassinated an immoral asshole who has profited on the needless pain, suffering, and death of millions.
The reaction can’t be too surprising.
Hmmmm… I wonder what would cause pharmaceutical prices mysteriously drop?
Since my self-employed income is seasonal (the work is constant), I get to do that for around 9 months of the year. It gets old.
The process to save seeds is the same whether it’s a hybrid or OP in most species.
The difference is on the variation in the next years crop. By year 4 or 5 of self pollinating they have an OP (inbred). I honestly think more average gardeners should attempt some amateur breeding. We need more locally developed and adapted genetics. Since the environment, pathogens and pests are constantly evolving, we need to encourage our food species to evolve with them.
Plant breeders rely on landraces/wild types for genetics to breed new varieties. A successful breeder replaces the landraces in the commercial markets. They are dependent on the thing they destroy.
You might not know it, but if you purchased a pumpkin this fall, the genetics were massively influenced recently by an amateur breeder in Michigan. An experienced commercial breeder used his genetics to create many of the varieties on the market today (I chose the best and named most of them).
If your in the northern hemisphere December is not a good time to purchase seeds.
It’s usually carryover from the previous season of southern hemisphere production.
Wait until February. That’s when the northern hemisphere production is available.
If you are in the southern hemisphere, August is your month.
These are all illegal operations FYI. They break international, national, and state laws meant to prevent the spread of invasive species and pathogens.
Ummm… Boy… Deep breath
Zero GMO genes commercially available cause infertility. The only infertility GMO gene was developed by the USDA-ARS as a way to prevent the spread of GMO genes into the environment. Public outcry shot that one down, so now we have widespread GMO contamination in some species…
Some species hybrid production utilizes male sterility. For example hybrid onions utilized cytoplasmic male sterility. This is a naturally derived mutation that is passed on in the cytoplasm (mitochondria and chloroplasts). This DNA only comes from one parent an is an exact copy (put your punnet square away).
A different example of “sterile” hybrid is gynecious cucumbers. Cucumbers can be all female (gynecious) or monoecious (male and female flowers on same plant) . These are hybrids that are produced by by crossing two gynecious lines using silver thiosulfate to convert one parent to male bloom.
Both of these types will produce seed if crossed with fertile pollen from another plant.
Most hybrids can have seen saved from them except for triploids. Triploids like seedless watermelons are sterile because they can’t form gametes correctly. Diploid lines are crossed by tetraploid lines to created triploids. Triploids in nature is usually sterile (with exceptions of course like the the Amazon molly cause life finds a way).
An OP variety is a partially inbred population. In tomatoes for example. You can easily make these from a hybrid by saving seed for a few generations. The level of heterozygosity decreases by 50% every generation. So a F1 hybrid is 50%, F2 is 75% uniform, F3 is 87.5% uniform, F4 is 93.75%. This is where most OP varieties are. As tomatoes are mostly cleistogamous, no extra effort to exclude pollinators is needed
It cost at last 50 million in a fancy name designer fees.
Because flossing sucks…
Or be in a religious cult like Mormons. Of course they will send you to a foreign country and confiscate your passport until your 1.5-2 years are over.
Fun fact: Organic production is worse for the environment overall.
It’s less damaging per hectare under cultivation, but more hectares are required to produce the same yield. So it’s more damaging per kg of production.
FYI there is only two suppliers of carrots in the U.S.: Grimmway and Bolthouse.
This one is Grimmway.
So if you have organic carrots, double check on this one.
If I recall correctly they linked a bunch of powermacs together with FireWire.
Then I read their methods … It should not pass peer review. Their variable control is shit.