That’s fair, and I’m grumbling less as an ag scientist or policy person than as a layperson born and raised in the ag industry. It is my opinion that the commercial ag industry in my country both contains inadequacies and is a system of no free energy, to borrow from Inadequate Equilibria.
To elaborate, I observe the following facts:
Conventional agriculture using fertilizer and pesticide creates negative externalities, notably by polluting runoff and consuming non-renewable resources (fertilizer is made from potash, a reasonably abundant but not infinite mineral which also creates a carbon footprint to mine).
Organic agriculture sacrifices considerable output as practiced, and is not actually optimized for minimal environmental impact but rather to maximize appeal to the organic food market, and as such also contains negative externalities which are not currently captured.
Almost no commercial agriculture in my area, organic or otherwise, incorporates livestock into land rotation cycles. Although I don’t have sources at hand, I am under the impression that evidence suggests that grazing animals provide not just replenishment of macronutrients, but also help to maintain a robust and fertile microbiome. Although labour is a factor, consider that under status quo, ranchers own land, and farmers own different land, and that land changing hands once every several years would on its own be an improvement.
Most commercial ag operations are extremely conservative with regard to implementing and operational changes, for good reason. Being subject to both global market fluctuations and climate fluctuations is an unenviable business position.
Combine all these things I have seen firsthand, and I do conclude there is a better global maximum out there somewhere. And granted, if I were appointed Ag Czar it would no doubt be a Great Leap Forward-like disaster because I don’t have the in-depth knowledge required to overhaul a complex ecological and economic system.
To bring all this back to the original thesis of the post, the precise reason I raised these gripes is because I agree with jasoncrawford that the waterline for industrial literacy is too low and more people should have a basic grasp of how these systems work. But like the Gell-Mann in the apocryphal story about trusting the news, I looked at his list of “things people should know about industry” and thought “Well… I have something to add to that, if people are going to take this post as a starting point for things that are important to know”.
That all makes sense—I’m less certain that there is a reachable global maximum that is a Pareto improvement in terms of inputs over the current system. That is, I expect any improvement to require more of some critical resource—human time, capital investment, or land.
That’s fair, and I’m grumbling less as an ag scientist or policy person than as a layperson born and raised in the ag industry. It is my opinion that the commercial ag industry in my country both contains inadequacies and is a system of no free energy, to borrow from Inadequate Equilibria.
To elaborate, I observe the following facts:
Conventional agriculture using fertilizer and pesticide creates negative externalities, notably by polluting runoff and consuming non-renewable resources (fertilizer is made from potash, a reasonably abundant but not infinite mineral which also creates a carbon footprint to mine).
Organic agriculture sacrifices considerable output as practiced, and is not actually optimized for minimal environmental impact but rather to maximize appeal to the organic food market, and as such also contains negative externalities which are not currently captured.
Almost no commercial agriculture in my area, organic or otherwise, incorporates livestock into land rotation cycles. Although I don’t have sources at hand, I am under the impression that evidence suggests that grazing animals provide not just replenishment of macronutrients, but also help to maintain a robust and fertile microbiome. Although labour is a factor, consider that under status quo, ranchers own land, and farmers own different land, and that land changing hands once every several years would on its own be an improvement.
Most commercial ag operations are extremely conservative with regard to implementing and operational changes, for good reason. Being subject to both global market fluctuations and climate fluctuations is an unenviable business position.
Combine all these things I have seen firsthand, and I do conclude there is a better global maximum out there somewhere. And granted, if I were appointed Ag Czar it would no doubt be a Great Leap Forward-like disaster because I don’t have the in-depth knowledge required to overhaul a complex ecological and economic system.
To bring all this back to the original thesis of the post, the precise reason I raised these gripes is because I agree with jasoncrawford that the waterline for industrial literacy is too low and more people should have a basic grasp of how these systems work. But like the Gell-Mann in the apocryphal story about trusting the news, I looked at his list of “things people should know about industry” and thought “Well… I have something to add to that, if people are going to take this post as a starting point for things that are important to know”.
That all makes sense—I’m less certain that there is a reachable global maximum that is a Pareto improvement in terms of inputs over the current system. That is, I expect any improvement to require more of some critical resource—human time, capital investment, or land.