peterl
Green
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Post by peterl on Mar 29, 2021 18:14:55 GMT
Its production is better for the environment. There are also animal welfare standards involved. I would only ever by organic milk for instance.
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myth11
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Post by myth11 on Mar 29, 2021 18:57:24 GMT
Its production is better for the environment. There are also animal welfare standards involved. I would only ever by organic milk for instance. Lower yields means higher prices and more imports. |
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peterl
Green
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Post by peterl on Mar 29, 2021 18:58:50 GMT
We have a huge amount of space avaliable that we can turn over to agriculture.
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Post by greenchristian on Mar 29, 2021 19:02:27 GMT
Its production is better for the environment. There are also animal welfare standards involved. I would only ever by organic milk for instance. Lower yields means higher prices and more imports. Conventional agriculture typically gives lower yields per hectare than the kind of multi-cropping approaches commonly used in organic agriculture. |
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Post by Adam in Stroud on Mar 29, 2021 19:35:11 GMT
Lower yields means higher prices and more imports. Conventional agriculture typically gives lower yields per hectare than the kind of multi-cropping approaches commonly used in organic agriculture. There are numerous other cost implications of intensive agriculture, especially to do with water. Off the top of my head: - chemical fertilisers utterly fuck the field-capacity (water retention) of soil and directly lead to flooding, at massive cost to the state and insurers - nitrates have degraded most of the freshwater in the countryside, so that freshwater fish (once a major food resource and potentially one again) is virtually non-existent as a food industry in England. |
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J.G.Harston
Lib Dem
Leave-voting Brexit-supporting Liberal Democrat
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Post by J.G.Harston on Mar 29, 2021 19:52:13 GMT
Its production is better for the environment. There are also animal welfare standards involved. I would only ever by organic milk for instance. But you need more environment. If fertiliser gets you 100 tons of corn from one field, and no fertiliser will get you 50 tons of corn, you need twice as much environment to get that 100 tons of corn. |
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J.G.Harston
Lib Dem
Leave-voting Brexit-supporting Liberal Democrat
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Post by J.G.Harston on Mar 29, 2021 20:01:06 GMT
We have a huge amount of space avaliable that we can turn over to agriculture. But we also have G/green campaigners demanding we use less space for agriculture. |
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Post by Adam in Stroud on Mar 29, 2021 20:13:38 GMT
Its production is better for the environment. There are also animal welfare standards involved. I would only ever by organic milk for instance. But you need more environment. If fertiliser gets you 100 tons of corn from one field, and no fertiliser will get you 50 tons of corn, you need twice as much environment to get that 100 tons of corn. That's way too simplistic. Adding chemical fertiliser increases yields, but only so long as you keep adding the fertiliser. Meanwhile it degrades the soil structure so that if you stop adding the fertiliser the soil is poorer than when you started, therefore you are trapped into adding the fertiliser indefinitely or abandoning the land altogether. Making the fertiliser under the Haber process means applying lots of energy to air to extract nitrogen in the form of ammonia and the energy is generally coming from burning fossil fuels. "Conventional"/chemical agriculture is essentially about turning hydro-carbon into carbohydrate; which involves using really quite a lot of "environment" and is gradually reducing the global total of productive land. There are also amazing new developments in agriculture now to do with hydroponics, vertical agriculture, more controlled environments etc; pretty clearly cultured meat is going to be revolutionary too - the choice doesn't have to be between some sort of return to the C19th or carrying on throwing nitrates onto the ground. I think in a decade or two the 1940s-1960s approach is going to look very, well, last century. (It is, incidentally, a game where we will always be beaten by the USA and the likes of the Ukraine, which are closer to where the nitrates are made and where big flat tractor-friendly plains and more predictable weather gives them the advantage. If that's the way we want to go, we should largely get out of arable production over most of the UK anyway.) |
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Post by gwynthegriff on Mar 29, 2021 20:19:28 GMT
We have a huge amount of space avaliable that we can turn over to agriculture. Where? |
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Post by Adam in Stroud on Mar 29, 2021 20:23:43 GMT
Well organic farming is really just what people did for centuries. Could really be called "traditional farming". IMHO, "organic" farming is a marketing scam. It is no more healthy for the consumer than "unorganic" farming, in fact the food just goes off more quickly , thus contributing to unnecessary waste. I sympathise with this a bit. I'm not convinced organic food is healthier or tastier. I tend to opt for it due to the catastrophic effects of chemicals on wildlife - even there going organic is no guarantee that the farmer hasn't e.g. ripped up all the hedgerows, but I tend to hope it indicates a cast of mind. (I happen to be lucky enough that I can talk to the producers of most of my food, most people can't and never will be able to do that.) On food waste, well the main factors temperature, e.g. if you refrigerate an apple low enough it never produces the ethylene and stays unripe. But TBH the main factor is that food is dirt cheap, people buy too much, forget it and chuck it out. I actually think chemical agriculture is the big villain here, or at least the plenty it produces is - there simply wasn't food waste on current scale before about 1960 and certainly not in Victorian times when all agriculture was organic. Spraying everything with preservatives to counter-act that is arse-about-face |
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Merseymike
Independent
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Post by Merseymike on Mar 29, 2021 20:40:53 GMT
IMHO, "organic" farming is a marketing scam. It is no more healthy for the consumer than "unorganic" farming, in fact the food just goes off more quickly , thus contributing to unnecessary waste. I sympathise with this a bit. I'm not convinced organic food is healthier or tastier. I tend to opt for it due to the catastrophic effects of chemicals on wildlife - even there going organic is no guarantee that the farmer hasn't e.g. ripped up all the hedgerows, but I tend to hope it indicates a cast of mind. (I happen to be lucky enough that I can talk to the producers of most of my food, most people can't and never will be able to do that.) On food waste, well the main factors temperature, e.g. if you refrigerate an apple low enough it never produces the ethylene and stays unripe. But TBH the main factor is that food is dirt cheap, people buy too much, forget it and chuck it out. I actually think chemical agriculture is the big villain here, or at least the plenty it produces is - there simply wasn't food waste on current scale before about 1960 and certainly not in Victorian times when all agriculture was organic. Spraying everything with preservatives to counter-act that is arse-about-face Also it's because people can't cook. Apples, pears can be baked. Most veg can be made into soup. |
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Post by carlton43 on Mar 29, 2021 20:43:57 GMT
Well organic farming is really just what people did for centuries. Could really be called "traditional farming". All and every form of farming is organic. It always has been and always will be. You cannot farm without carbon. This sort of normenclature has always been utter bollocks. |
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Post by Adam in Stroud on Mar 29, 2021 21:03:38 GMT
I sympathise with this a bit. I'm not convinced organic food is healthier or tastier. I tend to opt for it due to the catastrophic effects of chemicals on wildlife - even there going organic is no guarantee that the farmer hasn't e.g. ripped up all the hedgerows, but I tend to hope it indicates a cast of mind. (I happen to be lucky enough that I can talk to the producers of most of my food, most people can't and never will be able to do that.) On food waste, well the main factors temperature, e.g. if you refrigerate an apple low enough it never produces the ethylene and stays unripe. But TBH the main factor is that food is dirt cheap, people buy too much, forget it and chuck it out. I actually think chemical agriculture is the big villain here, or at least the plenty it produces is - there simply wasn't food waste on current scale before about 1960 and certainly not in Victorian times when all agriculture was organic. Spraying everything with preservatives to counter-act that is arse-about-face Also it's because people can't cook. Apples, pears can be baked. Most veg can be made into soup. Partly "can't", partly too knackered/short of time. Longer working hours, more single parents juggling work and kids - setting down to properly prepare a meal is a bit dispiriting and there are tons of easier alternatives (ready meals, cheap take-outs) - all of which also increases the numbers who can't cook but even those who can are less likely to. |
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Post by carlton43 on Mar 29, 2021 21:39:02 GMT
Conventional agriculture typically gives lower yields per hectare than the kind of multi-cropping approaches commonly used in organic agriculture. There are numerous other cost implications of intensive agriculture, especially to do with water. Off the top of my head: - chemical fertilisers utterly fuck the field-capacity (water retention) of soil and directly lead to flooding, at massive cost to the state and insurers - nitrates have degraded most of the freshwater in the countryside, so that freshwater fish (once a major food resource and potentially one again) is virtually non-existent as a food industry in England. That is a near to total nonsense post on various levels. Flooding is caused by rainfall and water management policies. All fertilizers and all additives including entirely 'natural' dung are 'chemical'. 'Chemical' fertilizers have very little effect on water retention and even less on flooding. Freshwater fish have not been a significant part of our food chain for hundreds of years. The main causes of flooding are building on flood plains, removal and drainage of water meadows and other wetlands, failure to dredge and maintain rivers and minor watercourses, removal of hedgerows, field headings and trees (especially willows) and improved drainage in agriculture and the urbanization of so much land that hugely improves rapid run off. That post is witless nonsense showing a complete and utter lack of any core knowledge of the subject. |
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Post by carlton43 on Mar 29, 2021 21:45:30 GMT
Also it's because people can't cook. Apples, pears can be baked. Most veg can be made into soup. Partly "can't", partly too knackered/short of time. Longer working hours, more single parents juggling work and kids - setting down to properly prepare a meal is a bit dispiriting and there are tons of easier alternatives (ready meals, cheap take-outs) - all of which also increases the numbers who can't cook but even those who can are less likely to. Those are third rate abysmal stupid and untrue reasons. Modern people are often lazy and so much better off that they can cheerfully afford to waste a large proportion of food purchased. They can't be bothered to shop for ingredients, to do the prep, to learn to cook or to give the time. They have far more available time than previous generations but undervalue good food, good nutrition and the need to learn about it. |
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Post by greenchristian on Mar 29, 2021 22:04:07 GMT
Its production is better for the environment. There are also animal welfare standards involved. I would only ever by organic milk for instance. But you need more environment. If fertiliser gets you 100 tons of corn from one field, and no fertiliser will get you 50 tons of corn, you need twice as much environment to get that 100 tons of corn. In addition to what Adam pointed out, "organic" farming methods almost always involve growing a greater variety of crops on the same land in order to maintain soil quality. So that 50 tons of corn comes with 50 tons of some other crop and doesn't require you to use up half a field's worth of peat bog every year. It gets you less of one particular crop and often requires more labour than the vast monocrop fields that "conventional" farming methods lend themselves to. But it usually gets more out of the land for less input and has less impact on the countryside that surrounds the field. |
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Post by Adam in Stroud on Mar 29, 2021 23:55:20 GMT
There are numerous other cost implications of intensive agriculture, especially to do with water. Off the top of my head: - chemical fertilisers utterly fuck the field-capacity (water retention) of soil and directly lead to flooding, at massive cost to the state and insurers - nitrates have degraded most of the freshwater in the countryside, so that freshwater fish (once a major food resource and potentially one again) is virtually non-existent as a food industry in England. That is a near to total nonsense post on various levels. Flooding is caused by rainfall and water management policies. All fertilizers and all additives including entirely 'natural' dung are 'chemical'. 'Chemical' fertilizers have very little effect on water retention and even less on flooding. Freshwater fish have not been a significant part of our food chain for hundreds of years. The main causes of flooding are building on flood plains, removal and drainage of water meadows and other wetlands, failure to dredge and maintain rivers and minor watercourses, removal of hedgerows, field headings and trees (especially willows) and improved drainage in agriculture and the urbanization of so much land that hugely improves rapid run off. That post is witless nonsense showing a complete and utter lack of any core knowledge of the subject. Oh dear, Carlton. To suggest the issue is about whether or not dung is chemicals is where you show it is you who has no core knowledge of the subject. So forgive lecture, but you're going to accuse me of witless ignorance you asked for it. Of course dung is chemicals, so is every other physical object. So what? Carbon in coal and carbon in the air is still carbon, but they behave rather differently if you pour water on a cubic mile of each of them and so does the water. The issue of field capacity is about soil structure. Even the most ignorant person on here must be aware of the difference between clay soil after heavy rain or drought compared to that of a sand or loam. That is nothing to do with the nutrients, the definition of clay/soil/loam does not consider the chemical make up, it is specifically the size of particles, whether or not they are positively charged and how they stick together. Soil structure depends on the organic and mineral matter of which all soil is composed. If you are going to go on about everything organic being just chemical you are just plain wrong, soil is mainly dead plants, microbes and animals and is quite different from minerals (i.e rock), and if you think differently try putting a spade in one of each. I work in thin Cotswold soils with the subsoil often only a spit down and the mineral layer not too far below that and I know the fucking difference.Therefore replacing bulky organic matter (dung, compost, leaf mould etc) with a chemical powder or liquid feed, even if it contains the exact same balance of nutrients, radically changes the physical nature of the soil because the former is bulky - therefore adding to the soil horizon and the latter isn't. This is fundamental to the science of soil which I have studied (albeit at a basic level) because it is my job and I'll thank you as a retired banker not to lecture me on it until you know what you're talking about. I also know the difference made by putting tons of rotted manure, year after year, on a previously wrecked soil because I've bloody done it, and bloody hard work it is, and seen the results after rain. Replacement of chemical fertilisers with organic versions does indeed make an instantly observable difference and I've observed it, many times, by standing in fields treated respectively after heavy rain. As for the other factors you mention: yes, all those are immensely important. However the total amount of land used for arable agriculture is significantly more than the amount of flood plain land built on or the area of wetlands, which is a significant but minority land use and always has been. Arable land is roughly 25% of the whole country and degrading its field capacity by definition has a significant effect on what happens to the rain that falls on it. By comparison wetlands are about 3% of the country and about 6% is built on. Of course if we hadn't built on so much and had preserved more wetlands we'd have less flooding but we didn't, but we still have the arable land and we could do something about it if we moved away from chemical powders and sprays towards bulky organic matter. Or we could stick with chemicals to maximise yield on some/most while giving some back to wetland, or dozens of other choices but the point here is that choosing to replace dung with powder and simultaneously draining as much wetland as possible and grubbing up hedgerows and building on floodplains is a perfect storm and we need to look at mitigation. Overgrazing on uplands is another contribution and again the total land involved is much more than the amount built on or available as wetlands. As for freshwater fish: yes, but I was answering a post about how going organic might lead to a need to import more food. There is a neglected resource there which we have made unusable even if we wanted to, it's an opportunity cost. |
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Post by Adam in Stroud on Mar 30, 2021 0:05:32 GMT
Partly "can't", partly too knackered/short of time. Longer working hours, more single parents juggling work and kids - setting down to properly prepare a meal is a bit dispiriting and there are tons of easier alternatives (ready meals, cheap take-outs) - all of which also increases the numbers who can't cook but even those who can are less likely to. Those are third rate abysmal stupid and untrue reasons. Modern people are often lazy and so much better off that they can cheerfully afford to waste a large proportion of food purchased. They can't be bothered to shop for ingredients, to do the prep, to learn to cook or to give the time. They have far more available time than previous generations but undervalue good food, good nutrition and the need to learn about it. It is ironic that you accuse modern people of being lazy and then trot out a load of lazy unthought out prejudices about "modern people" without any consideration of whether or not people really have more time to spend on cooking in an era of office presentism and where the majority of women under retirement age have jobs rather than being housewives. The range of ingredients commonly sold in UK supermarkets is vastly more varied (and often better) than it was when I grew up and as supermarkets are supremely customer oriented it is obvious that plenty of people do shop for ingredients and prepare food. It is certainly the case that people can afford to waste food because they are better off and food is relatively cheaper than ever before. |
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Post by Adam in Stroud on Mar 30, 2021 7:18:38 GMT
Oh, and I haven't even mentioned the effect that worm activity and the actions of other micro animals have on the soil, all of which is heavily dependent on the input of dead organic matter for them to eat and which is destroyed by the replacement of that with chemical powders and also by the use of pesticides which eliminate huge quantities of invertebrates who would otherwise also add to the biomass of organic matter going into the soil. Dig up the soil in organically prepared soil and do the same in chemically treated land and you can instantly see the reduction in worm numbers. Of course Darwin was banging on about the importance of worms over a century ago but presumably carlton43 would dismiss him as witless too. Sorry to fill up this thread with off-topic stuff but frankly I'm pissed off with having total ignorant crap posted on here by someone who clearly knows nothing about it. The really sad thing is that this sort of ignorance about the soil is really quite widespread among farmers after generations of reliance on chemical fertilisers. Which I suppose is sort of getting back on track, because an organic farmer is some who does understand this and farms accordingly. |
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Post by carlton43 on Mar 30, 2021 9:28:07 GMT
Wow! wow!! wow!!
I have stopped pulling your string. Calm down dear. It might never happen.
Our views on all this are probably very similar and for the same reasons, but the misuse of the words organic, chemical and chemicals do get to me and trigger a certain response..
I too am a fan of natural, cyclical, seasonal farming but without being a luddite and without being a fanatic on certain points. I like variety, flavour, smell and sound nutrition. I like hedges, trees, ponds and wetlands. I think we over-drain.
I know that your heart and the essence of the Greens comes from a good place. I don't like gush and hyperbole and untruths, nor misuse of words.
And we just don't have the rivers or lakes to sustain much of a freshwater fish industry and we never did. And the British have never been much of a fish eating nation despite being totally surrounded by an amazing array of salt water fish most of which most people have never tried even once.
I don't know, but I am prepared to wager that I have eaten more varieties of freshwater and saltwater fish than you have, possibly by quite a large multiple?
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