On Saturday, 8 July 2023 at 00:25:57 UTC+1, Don Y wrote:
> On 7/5/2023 12:47 PM, whit3rd wrote:
> > The 'poorest people' have local crops, and don't need cash. And, they're
> > finding the climate worse (and food scarce), so they have to migrate.
> > We've all heard about boatloads of folk trying to cross
> > the Mediterranean, is drowning them what you mean by 'population control'?
> ISTM that the "food problem" isn't that the planet can't feed the
> current population but, rather, that the food isn't where it needs
> to be (conversely, the people aren't where THEY need to be!)
>
> From <https://www.fda.gov/food/consumers/food-loss-and-waste>
>
> "In the United States, food waste is estimated at between 30–40
> percent of the food supply. This figure, based on estimates from
> USDA’s Economic Research Service of 31 percent food loss at the
> retail and consumer levels, corresponded to approximately 133
> billion pounds and $161 billion worth of food in 2010. Food is
> the single largest category of material placed in municipal
> landfills and represents wasted nourishment that could have
> helped feed families in need."
>
> I.e., a "hand-waving" estimate says that 100M people could be fed
> (at the same *average* "feeding level" of the US population)
> from just the US's "waste".
>
> One problem with food is that it is perishable. So, not all
> foodstuffs can bear the transport time (assume zero cost) to
> get to the need that exists.
>
> There's a local group that tries to give a second chance to
> produce that is "past its due date" (yet still edible).
> They can't find enough people to take it off their hands
> before it passes it's REAL "last use date".
>
> Feel guilty when you pass over an apple with a slight blemish?
> (I'm sure there's someone who would be thrilled to have said apple!)

The planet has no difficulty producing enough. It's nowhere close to max possible production. The reason for food shortage is the inability of the poorest to pay. It is pay that motivates people to grow things.

On Friday, July 7, 2023 at 11:34:02 AM UTC-4, Anthony William Sloman wrote:
>
> So what. Some clever farmers eventually persuade their neighbours to take advantage of new developments, but tit takes while for the new stuff to trickle through

Nothing could be further from the truth. There's nothing a farmer wants more than there to be short supply of whatever it is they're growing, because that means higher market value, more returns on their labor and investment. Over production is well known to be a disaster for famers caught up in it. That and dozens of other ways farmers can put themselves out of business is why the U.S. government has so much regulation, subsidies, and strict control over production.

> Bil Sloman, Sydney

On Saturday, July 8, 2023 at 7:11:55 PM UTC-4, Tabby wrote:
> On Saturday, 8 July 2023 at 00:25:57 UTC+1, Don Y wrote:
> > On 7/5/2023 12:47 PM, whit3rd wrote:
> > > The 'poorest people' have local crops, and don't need cash. And, they're
> > > finding the climate worse (and food scarce), so they have to migrate.
> > > We've all heard about boatloads of folk trying to cross
> > > the Mediterranean, is drowning them what you mean by 'population control'?
> > ISTM that the "food problem" isn't that the planet can't feed the
> > current population but, rather, that the food isn't where it needs
> > to be (conversely, the people aren't where THEY need to be!)
> >
> > From <https://www.fda.gov/food/consumers/food-loss-and-waste>
> >
> > "In the United States, food waste is estimated at between 30–40
> > percent of the food supply. This figure, based on estimates from
> > USDA’s Economic Research Service of 31 percent food loss at the
> > retail and consumer levels, corresponded to approximately 133
> > billion pounds and $161 billion worth of food in 2010. Food is
> > the single largest category of material placed in municipal
> > landfills and represents wasted nourishment that could have
> > helped feed families in need."
> >
> > I.e., a "hand-waving" estimate says that 100M people could be fed
> > (at the same *average* "feeding level" of the US population)
> > from just the US's "waste".
> >
> > One problem with food is that it is perishable. So, not all
> > foodstuffs can bear the transport time (assume zero cost) to
> > get to the need that exists.
> >
> > There's a local group that tries to give a second chance to
> > produce that is "past its due date" (yet still edible).
> > They can't find enough people to take it off their hands
> > before it passes it's REAL "last use date".
> >
> > Feel guilty when you pass over an apple with a slight blemish?
> > (I'm sure there's someone who would be thrilled to have said apple!)
> The planet has no difficulty producing enough. It's nowhere close to max possible production. The reason for food shortage is the inability of the poorest to pay. It is pay that motivates people to grow things.

And that's why Soviet Union was an agricultural disaster. The population was so apathetic of their food supply in one year during Gorbachev regime, they wouldn't even get up to help with harvest during a labor shortage when he made a call for it. Let it rot in the fields.

On Sun, 9 Jul 2023 09:06:15 -0700 (PDT), Fred Bloggs
<bloggs.fredbloggs.fred@gmail.com> wrote:

>On Saturday, July 8, 2023 at 7:11:55?PM UTC-4, Tabby wrote:
>> On Saturday, 8 July 2023 at 00:25:57 UTC+1, Don Y wrote:
>> > On 7/5/2023 12:47 PM, whit3rd wrote:
>> > > The 'poorest people' have local crops, and don't need cash. And, they're
>> > > finding the climate worse (and food scarce), so they have to migrate.
>> > > We've all heard about boatloads of folk trying to cross
>> > > the Mediterranean, is drowning them what you mean by 'population control'?
>> > ISTM that the "food problem" isn't that the planet can't feed the
>> > current population but, rather, that the food isn't where it needs
>> > to be (conversely, the people aren't where THEY need to be!)
>> >
>> > From <https://www.fda.gov/food/consumers/food-loss-and-waste>
>> >
>> > "In the United States, food waste is estimated at between 30–40
>> > percent of the food supply. This figure, based on estimates from
>> > USDA’s Economic Research Service of 31 percent food loss at the
>> > retail and consumer levels, corresponded to approximately 133
>> > billion pounds and $161 billion worth of food in 2010. Food is
>> > the single largest category of material placed in municipal
>> > landfills and represents wasted nourishment that could have
>> > helped feed families in need."
>> >
>> > I.e., a "hand-waving" estimate says that 100M people could be fed
>> > (at the same *average* "feeding level" of the US population)
>> > from just the US's "waste".
>> >
>> > One problem with food is that it is perishable. So, not all
>> > foodstuffs can bear the transport time (assume zero cost) to
>> > get to the need that exists.
>> >
>> > There's a local group that tries to give a second chance to
>> > produce that is "past its due date" (yet still edible).
>> > They can't find enough people to take it off their hands
>> > before it passes it's REAL "last use date".
>> >
>> > Feel guilty when you pass over an apple with a slight blemish?
>> > (I'm sure there's someone who would be thrilled to have said apple!)
>> The planet has no difficulty producing enough. It's nowhere close to max possible production. The reason for food shortage is the inability of the poorest to pay. It is pay that motivates people to grow things.
>
>And that's why Soviet Union was an agricultural disaster. The population was so apathetic of their food supply in one year during Gorbachev regime, they wouldn't even get up to help with harvest during a labor shortage when he made a call for it. Let it rot in the fields.

Collectivazation is "Let Gorgi do it."

And it lets dumb people try to manage farming.

On Sunday, July 9, 2023 at 12:20:49 PM UTC-4, Anthony William Sloman wrote:
> On Monday, July 10, 2023 at 1:49:37 AM UTC+10, Fred Bloggs wrote:
> > On Friday, July 7, 2023 at 11:34:02 AM UTC-4, Anthony William Sloman wrote:
> > >
> > > So what. Some clever farmers eventually persuade their neighbours to take advantage of new developments, but it takes while for the new stuff to trickle through.
> >
> > Nothing could be further from the truth. There's nothing a farmer wants more than there to be short supply of whatever it is they're growing, because that means higher market value, more returns on their labor and investment. Over production is well known to be a disaster for farmers caught up in it. That and dozens of other ways farmers can put themselves out of business is why the U.S. government has so much regulation, subsidies, and strict control over production.
>
> Unfortunately farmers don't have strict control over production. Natural variation in climate always has unpredictable effects on yield.

That's why all the advanced nations have a system of crop insurance in place. It's the price they have to pay to keep their agricultural supply stable.

>
> They may want everybody else to have a bad harvest, but they still try hard to grow as much as they can - or are allowed to.
>
> Real farmers also pick what they grow, and the more conservative ones are more reluctant to diversity into new crops - one of the clever ones I went to school with diversified into native plants and herbs that he could sell to naturopaths, and made a bundle out of it.

Farmers require machinery more or less specific to the type of crop they grow. These big specialized machines are not cheap. If they switch to something else, that's just that much more money they have to outlay.

>
> And there's the business of raising animals for meat or other products. Sheep farmers harvest wool, dairy farmer harvest milk, and the guys who spercialise in fat lambs sell them to be slaughtered for the meat trade.
>
> Pork growers in the Netherlands are limited by the amount of nitrogenous waste they can dispose of (and have been known to cheat). It can be a complicated business. There is more and less sophisticated cheating, and the guy near Nijmegen whose farm emitted enough ammonia to rot the copper gutters off the nearby houses was not very sophisticated at all

Raising animals for whatever purpose is the most disgusting form of agriculture.

>
> --
> Bill Sloman, Sydney

On Sunday, July 9, 2023 at 12:26:30 PM UTC-4, John Larkin wrote:
> On Sun, 9 Jul 2023 09:06:15 -0700 (PDT), Fred Bloggs
> <bloggs.fred...@gmail.com> wrote:
> >On Saturday, July 8, 2023 at 7:11:55?PM UTC-4, Tabby wrote:
> >> On Saturday, 8 July 2023 at 00:25:57 UTC+1, Don Y wrote:
> >> > On 7/5/2023 12:47 PM, whit3rd wrote:
> >> > > The 'poorest people' have local crops, and don't need cash. And, they're
> >> > > finding the climate worse (and food scarce), so they have to migrate.
> >> > > We've all heard about boatloads of folk trying to cross
> >> > > the Mediterranean, is drowning them what you mean by 'population control'?
> >> > ISTM that the "food problem" isn't that the planet can't feed the
> >> > current population but, rather, that the food isn't where it needs
> >> > to be (conversely, the people aren't where THEY need to be!)
> >> >
> >> > From <https://www.fda.gov/food/consumers/food-loss-and-waste>
> >> >
> >> > "In the United States, food waste is estimated at between 30–40
> >> > percent of the food supply. This figure, based on estimates from
> >> > USDA’s Economic Research Service of 31 percent food loss at the
> >> > retail and consumer levels, corresponded to approximately 133
> >> > billion pounds and $161 billion worth of food in 2010. Food is
> >> > the single largest category of material placed in municipal
> >> > landfills and represents wasted nourishment that could have
> >> > helped feed families in need."
> >> >
> >> > I.e., a "hand-waving" estimate says that 100M people could be fed
> >> > (at the same *average* "feeding level" of the US population)
> >> > from just the US's "waste".
> >> >
> >> > One problem with food is that it is perishable. So, not all
> >> > foodstuffs can bear the transport time (assume zero cost) to
> >> > get to the need that exists.
> >> >
> >> > There's a local group that tries to give a second chance to
> >> > produce that is "past its due date" (yet still edible).
> >> > They can't find enough people to take it off their hands
> >> > before it passes it's REAL "last use date".
> >> >
> >> > Feel guilty when you pass over an apple with a slight blemish?
> >> > (I'm sure there's someone who would be thrilled to have said apple!)
> >> The planet has no difficulty producing enough. It's nowhere close to max possible production. The reason for food shortage is the inability of the poorest to pay. It is pay that motivates people to grow things.
> >
> >And that's why Soviet Union was an agricultural disaster. The population was so apathetic of their food supply in one year during Gorbachev regime, they wouldn't even get up to help with harvest during a labor shortage when he made a call for it. Let it rot in the fields.
> Collectivazation is "Let Gorgi do it."
>
> And it lets dumb people try to manage farming.

The main challenge is nature doesn't wait for anyone. If something has to be done, there's limited time to do it. People have to work long and hard when it's called for.

On Sunday, July 9, 2023 at 10:31:32 AM UTC-7, Fred Bloggs wrote:
> On Sunday, July 9, 2023 at 12:20:49 PM UTC-4, Anthony William Sloman wrote:

> > Unfortunately farmers don't have strict control over production. Natural variation in climate always has unpredictable effects on yield.
> That's why all the advanced nations have a system of crop insurance in place. It's the price they have to pay to keep their agricultural supply stable.

India, the world's most populous nation, doesn't have crop insurance, as I understand it.

Alas, 'price' and 'system' and 'control' are just market terms: simultaneous crop failures worldwide aren't
survivable because of such. That takes warehousing, and seed banks, and real backup plans against
unpredictable weather events. Me, I've got canned and dry goods for a few months...

On 7/9/2023 12:42 PM, whit3rd wrote:
> India, the world's most populous nation, doesn't have crop insurance, as I understand it.
>
> Alas, 'price' and 'system' and 'control' are just market terms: simultaneous crop failures worldwide aren't
> survivable because of such. That takes warehousing, and seed banks, and real backup plans against
> unpredictable weather events. Me, I've got canned and dry goods for a few months...

LDSers are *supposed* to keep foodstuffs for a 1yr "event", on hand.
I don't know of any who do... (but, they aren't supposed to advertise
it, either! OTOH, a year of food for a family takes up a fair bit
of space...)

[Beans/legumes are supposed to be a good hedge -- if you can stand
eating them for prolonged periods!]

NORAD (Cheyenne Mountain Complex) keeps 10 days of fresh food, 10 days of
frozen and 10 days of canned in case they need to seal the mountain.
(There are water and diesel reservoirs in the mountain, as well. Plus,
a "garrison" immediately outside -- which may come in handy!)

What "widespread crop failures" fails to point out is that *a* bad year
can be the first of MANY bad years. Struggling to get by until NEXT
crop season may be false hope.

On Friday, July 7, 2023 at 9:28:52 AM UTC-5, Fred Bloggs wrote:
> On Friday, July 7, 2023 at 2:10:42 AM UTC-4, Anthony William Sloman wrote:
> > On Friday, July 7, 2023 at 6:47:13 AM UTC+10, Fred Bloggs wrote:
> > > On Thursday, July 6, 2023 at 12:03:16 PM UTC-4, Anthony William Sloman wrote:
> > > > On Friday, July 7, 2023 at 12:55:29 AM UTC+10, Fred Bloggs wrote:
> > > > > On Thursday, July 6, 2023 at 2:02:53 AM UTC-4, Anthony William Sloman wrote:
> > > > > > On Thursday, July 6, 2023 at 5:31:22 AM UTC+10, John Larkin wrote:
> > > > > > > On Wed, 5 Jul 2023 11:54:36 -0700 (PDT), whit3rd <whi...@gmail.com>
> > > > > > > wrote:
> > > > > > > >On Wednesday, July 5, 2023 at 9:18:49?AM UTC-7, John Larkin wrote:
> > > > > > > >> On Wed, 5 Jul 2023 08:49:08 -0700 (PDT), Fred Bloggs
> > > > > > > >> <bloggs.fred...@gmail.com> wrote:
> > > > > > > >>
> > > > > > > >> >All they know for sure is their current crop of models are oversimplified and dangerously useless for predicting the kind of extreme events coming their way. ( But I bet the graphics are real impressive.)
> > > > > > > >> >
> > > > > > > >> >https://www.sciencealert.com/researchers-weve-underestimated-the-risk-of-simultaneous-crop-failures-worldwide
> > > > > > > >> Crop production is way above what it was decades ago, and still
> > > > > > > >> increasing.
> > > > > > > >
> > > > > > > >So, John Larkin is a fan of underestimation.
> > > > > > >
> > > > > > > No, I'm a fan of feeding the poorest people on the planet.
> > > > > >
> > > > > > That's what he likes to claim. Sadly, he doesn't have a clue how this might be done, but sustained doses of climate change denials propaganda have convinced him that burning more fossil carbon as fuel is a necessary part of the process. The Agricultural Revolution got going in Eng;land from 1700. before the Industrial Revolution and without burning any coal.
> > > > > >
> > > > > > > Feed them, educate them: that's the path to progress and general happiness and, indeed, to population control.
> > > > > >
> > > > > > All true, and all quite independent of burning fossil carbon. Use solar cells to charge the batteries that let the school children stays in the evening. Burning the midnight oil was never good for the atmosphere, and it was bad for the lungs of the students.
> > > > >
> > > > > Mankind's agricultural output was outright paltry until mechanization came along.
> > > >
> > > > The Agricultural Revolution meant that half the population could feed the other half. That's paltry compared with mechanised agriculture, but it was enough allow the industrial revolution, and Russia industrialised without doing much better.
> > > >
> > > > > Don't know about other places, but U.S. was just starting total mechanization in the 1940s. The result was acres in cultivation per farmer took off exponentially. And this is gas/ diesel combustion engine mechanization. There was steam powered mechanization around in the mid-19th century, but it wasn't in wide use and ordinary farmers weren't using it.
> > > >
> > > > It made a great deal of difference, but the third world doesn't need to get that far to do much better than it is doing at the moment.
> > >
> > > The problem with primitives in the third world is farming practices are more of a cultural tradition than anything else, and they don't want to be told to change. You can give them a bunch of state of the art farm equipment and they let it sit idle and rust.
> > Not just the third world. Farmers are famously conservative. In Australia the Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation paid a couple of sociologists for a study on how to get them to pay attention to good advice. The answer was to concentrate the advice on the least conservative farmers.
> > When they started making more money than their conservative neighbours, the conservative neighbours would copy them. It worked.
> > > > > There may have been other limitations that made steam impractical, like all these machines weighed 20 tons and the engines were weak. I saw a steam powered machine designed to lay drainage tile. Looked like something from a Jules Verne story. Tires were out of the question, they used big heavy wheels, with spikes for traction.
> > > >
> > > > Solar and windmill powered mechanisation is quite a enough get beyond the original Agricultural revolution. The world isn't required to recapitulate the European industrialisation of agriculture to get to European agricultural outputs, and the third world doesn't need to eat as much meat as Americans do - in fact it should eat rather less (and so should Americans).
> > >
> > > There are other aspects to farming. It's estimated that without modern herbicide and pesticide application, modern output would decline by 70%.
> > But you don't to burn fossil carbon to get or apply herbicides and pesticides. And farmers famously apply too much and mess up the local ecology.
> I'd say. Archeological evidence of the moldboard plow in Mesopotamia has been dated to 10,000 years. The moldboard plow is as significant to the development of civilization as the wheel- unless you like the hunter/ gatherer lifestyle. It's still in wide use to this day. For a few decades, ag has been trying to convert to "no-till" practices, but that requires a lot of herbicide treatment, which in itself may be more damaging than soil loss.
>
> >
> > --
> > Bill Sloman, Sydney

Plow use has faded out here in south central Nebraska U.S.A. I grew up on a farm here. The last time I used a plow was maybe a half central ago. I haven't seen anyone plowing for decades.
Plows had two problems. One was turning the soil over like a plow does leads to a lot of erosion. There's little organic matter to slow the wind and water. The second is a plow isn't very efficient compared to a tandem disc or field cultivator. It just takes too long to plow a field.

On Sunday, July 9, 2023 at 9:02:33 PM UTC-4, Dean Hoffman wrote:
> On Friday, July 7, 2023 at 9:28:52 AM UTC-5, Fred Bloggs wrote:
> > On Friday, July 7, 2023 at 2:10:42 AM UTC-4, Anthony William Sloman wrote:
> > > On Friday, July 7, 2023 at 6:47:13 AM UTC+10, Fred Bloggs wrote:
> > > > On Thursday, July 6, 2023 at 12:03:16 PM UTC-4, Anthony William Sloman wrote:
> > > > > On Friday, July 7, 2023 at 12:55:29 AM UTC+10, Fred Bloggs wrote:
> > > > > > On Thursday, July 6, 2023 at 2:02:53 AM UTC-4, Anthony William Sloman wrote:
> > > > > > > On Thursday, July 6, 2023 at 5:31:22 AM UTC+10, John Larkin wrote:
> > > > > > > > On Wed, 5 Jul 2023 11:54:36 -0700 (PDT), whit3rd <whi...@gmail.com>
> > > > > > > > wrote:
> > > > > > > > >On Wednesday, July 5, 2023 at 9:18:49?AM UTC-7, John Larkin wrote:
> > > > > > > > >> On Wed, 5 Jul 2023 08:49:08 -0700 (PDT), Fred Bloggs
> > > > > > > > >> <bloggs.fred...@gmail.com> wrote:
> > > > > > > > >>
> > > > > > > > >> >All they know for sure is their current crop of models are oversimplified and dangerously useless for predicting the kind of extreme events coming their way. ( But I bet the graphics are real impressive.)
> > > > > > > > >> >
> > > > > > > > >> >https://www.sciencealert.com/researchers-weve-underestimated-the-risk-of-simultaneous-crop-failures-worldwide
> > > > > > > > >> Crop production is way above what it was decades ago, and still
> > > > > > > > >> increasing.
> > > > > > > > >
> > > > > > > > >So, John Larkin is a fan of underestimation.
> > > > > > > >
> > > > > > > > No, I'm a fan of feeding the poorest people on the planet.
> > > > > > >
> > > > > > > That's what he likes to claim. Sadly, he doesn't have a clue how this might be done, but sustained doses of climate change denials propaganda have convinced him that burning more fossil carbon as fuel is a necessary part of the process. The Agricultural Revolution got going in Eng;land from 1700. before the Industrial Revolution and without burning any coal.
> > > > > > >
> > > > > > > > Feed them, educate them: that's the path to progress and general happiness and, indeed, to population control.
> > > > > > >
> > > > > > > All true, and all quite independent of burning fossil carbon. Use solar cells to charge the batteries that let the school children stays in the evening. Burning the midnight oil was never good for the atmosphere, and it was bad for the lungs of the students.
> > > > > >
> > > > > > Mankind's agricultural output was outright paltry until mechanization came along.
> > > > >
> > > > > The Agricultural Revolution meant that half the population could feed the other half. That's paltry compared with mechanised agriculture, but it was enough allow the industrial revolution, and Russia industrialised without doing much better.
> > > > >
> > > > > > Don't know about other places, but U.S. was just starting total mechanization in the 1940s. The result was acres in cultivation per farmer took off exponentially. And this is gas/ diesel combustion engine mechanization. There was steam powered mechanization around in the mid-19th century, but it wasn't in wide use and ordinary farmers weren't using it.
> > > > >
> > > > > It made a great deal of difference, but the third world doesn't need to get that far to do much better than it is doing at the moment.
> > > >
> > > > The problem with primitives in the third world is farming practices are more of a cultural tradition than anything else, and they don't want to be told to change. You can give them a bunch of state of the art farm equipment and they let it sit idle and rust.
> > > Not just the third world. Farmers are famously conservative. In Australia the Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation paid a couple of sociologists for a study on how to get them to pay attention to good advice. The answer was to concentrate the advice on the least conservative farmers.
> > > When they started making more money than their conservative neighbours, the conservative neighbours would copy them. It worked.
> > > > > > There may have been other limitations that made steam impractical, like all these machines weighed 20 tons and the engines were weak. I saw a steam powered machine designed to lay drainage tile. Looked like something from a Jules Verne story. Tires were out of the question, they used big heavy wheels, with spikes for traction.
> > > > >
> > > > > Solar and windmill powered mechanisation is quite a enough get beyond the original Agricultural revolution. The world isn't required to recapitulate the European industrialisation of agriculture to get to European agricultural outputs, and the third world doesn't need to eat as much meat as Americans do - in fact it should eat rather less (and so should Americans).
> > > >
> > > > There are other aspects to farming. It's estimated that without modern herbicide and pesticide application, modern output would decline by 70%..
> > > But you don't to burn fossil carbon to get or apply herbicides and pesticides. And farmers famously apply too much and mess up the local ecology..
> > I'd say. Archeological evidence of the moldboard plow in Mesopotamia has been dated to 10,000 years. The moldboard plow is as significant to the development of civilization as the wheel- unless you like the hunter/ gatherer lifestyle. It's still in wide use to this day. For a few decades, ag has been trying to convert to "no-till" practices, but that requires a lot of herbicide treatment, which in itself may be more damaging than soil loss.
> >
> > >
> > > --
> > > Bill Sloman, Sydney
> Plow use has faded out here in south central Nebraska U.S.A. I grew up on a farm here. The last time I used a plow was maybe a half central ago. I haven't seen anyone plowing for decades.
> Plows had two problems. One was turning the soil over like a plow does leads to a lot of erosion. There's little organic matter to slow the wind and water. The second is a plow isn't very efficient compared to a tandem disc or field cultivator. It just takes too long to plow a field.

Do they plant cover crops, plow/cultivate along elevation contours, and use windbreaks?

On Monday, July 10, 2023 at 10:46:05 AM UTC-5, Fred Bloggs wrote:
> On Sunday, July 9, 2023 at 9:02:33 PM UTC-4, Dean Hoffman wrote:
> > On Friday, July 7, 2023 at 9:28:52 AM UTC-5, Fred Bloggs wrote:
> > > On Friday, July 7, 2023 at 2:10:42 AM UTC-4, Anthony William Sloman wrote:
> > > > On Friday, July 7, 2023 at 6:47:13 AM UTC+10, Fred Bloggs wrote:
> > > > > On Thursday, July 6, 2023 at 12:03:16 PM UTC-4, Anthony William Sloman wrote:
> > > > > > On Friday, July 7, 2023 at 12:55:29 AM UTC+10, Fred Bloggs wrote:
> > > > > > > On Thursday, July 6, 2023 at 2:02:53 AM UTC-4, Anthony William Sloman wrote:
> > > > > > > > On Thursday, July 6, 2023 at 5:31:22 AM UTC+10, John Larkin wrote:
> > > > > > > > > On Wed, 5 Jul 2023 11:54:36 -0700 (PDT), whit3rd <whi...@gmail.com>
> > > > > > > > > wrote:
> > > > > > > > > >On Wednesday, July 5, 2023 at 9:18:49?AM UTC-7, John Larkin wrote:
> > > > > > > > > >> On Wed, 5 Jul 2023 08:49:08 -0700 (PDT), Fred Bloggs
> > > > > > > > > >> <bloggs.fred...@gmail.com> wrote:
> > > > > > > > > >>
> > > > > > > > > >> >All they know for sure is their current crop of models are oversimplified and dangerously useless for predicting the kind of extreme events coming their way. ( But I bet the graphics are real impressive.)
> > > > > > > > > >> >
> > > > > > > > > >> >https://www.sciencealert.com/researchers-weve-underestimated-the-risk-of-simultaneous-crop-failures-worldwide
> > > > > > > > > >> Crop production is way above what it was decades ago, and still
> > > > > > > > > >> increasing.
> > > > > > > > > >
> > > > > > > > > >So, John Larkin is a fan of underestimation.
> > > > > > > > >
> > > > > > > > > No, I'm a fan of feeding the poorest people on the planet..
> > > > > > > >
> > > > > > > > That's what he likes to claim. Sadly, he doesn't have a clue how this might be done, but sustained doses of climate change denials propaganda have convinced him that burning more fossil carbon as fuel is a necessary part of the process. The Agricultural Revolution got going in Eng;land from 1700. before the Industrial Revolution and without burning any coal..
> > > > > > > >
> > > > > > > > > Feed them, educate them: that's the path to progress and general happiness and, indeed, to population control.
> > > > > > > >
> > > > > > > > All true, and all quite independent of burning fossil carbon. Use solar cells to charge the batteries that let the school children stays in the evening. Burning the midnight oil was never good for the atmosphere, and it was bad for the lungs of the students.
> > > > > > >
> > > > > > > Mankind's agricultural output was outright paltry until mechanization came along.
> > > > > >
> > > > > > The Agricultural Revolution meant that half the population could feed the other half. That's paltry compared with mechanised agriculture, but it was enough allow the industrial revolution, and Russia industrialised without doing much better.
> > > > > >
> > > > > > > Don't know about other places, but U.S. was just starting total mechanization in the 1940s. The result was acres in cultivation per farmer took off exponentially. And this is gas/ diesel combustion engine mechanization. There was steam powered mechanization around in the mid-19th century, but it wasn't in wide use and ordinary farmers weren't using it.
> > > > > >
> > > > > > It made a great deal of difference, but the third world doesn't need to get that far to do much better than it is doing at the moment.
> > > > >
> > > > > The problem with primitives in the third world is farming practices are more of a cultural tradition than anything else, and they don't want to be told to change. You can give them a bunch of state of the art farm equipment and they let it sit idle and rust.
> > > > Not just the third world. Farmers are famously conservative. In Australia the Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation paid a couple of sociologists for a study on how to get them to pay attention to good advice. The answer was to concentrate the advice on the least conservative farmers.
> > > > When they started making more money than their conservative neighbours, the conservative neighbours would copy them. It worked.
> > > > > > > There may have been other limitations that made steam impractical, like all these machines weighed 20 tons and the engines were weak. I saw a steam powered machine designed to lay drainage tile. Looked like something from a Jules Verne story. Tires were out of the question, they used big heavy wheels, with spikes for traction.
> > > > > >
> > > > > > Solar and windmill powered mechanisation is quite a enough get beyond the original Agricultural revolution. The world isn't required to recapitulate the European industrialisation of agriculture to get to European agricultural outputs, and the third world doesn't need to eat as much meat as Americans do - in fact it should eat rather less (and so should Americans).
> > > > >
> > > > > There are other aspects to farming. It's estimated that without modern herbicide and pesticide application, modern output would decline by 70%.
> > > > But you don't to burn fossil carbon to get or apply herbicides and pesticides. And farmers famously apply too much and mess up the local ecology.
> > > I'd say. Archeological evidence of the moldboard plow in Mesopotamia has been dated to 10,000 years. The moldboard plow is as significant to the development of civilization as the wheel- unless you like the hunter/ gatherer lifestyle. It's still in wide use to this day. For a few decades, ag has been trying to convert to "no-till" practices, but that requires a lot of herbicide treatment, which in itself may be more damaging than soil loss.
> > >
> > > >
> > > > --
> > > > Bill Sloman, Sydney
> > Plow use has faded out here in south central Nebraska U.S.A. I grew up on a farm here. The last time I used a plow was maybe a half central ago. I haven't seen anyone plowing for decades.
> > Plows had two problems. One was turning the soil over like a plow does leads to a lot of erosion. There's little organic matter to slow the wind and water. The second is a plow isn't very efficient compared to a tandem disc or field cultivator. It just takes too long to plow a field.
> Do they plant cover crops, plow/cultivate along elevation contours, and use windbreaks?

There aren't many, if any, farmers around here planting cover crops. The main crops right in my area are soybeans and corn. Corn is planted just as soon as the soil is warm enough each spring. Beans are planted after corn. Corn planting usually starts in early April.
Harvest is usually in October. The farmers generally work the ground in the fall so they can apply NH3 in the fall also. They have to wait until November 1 to do that. The thinking is the soil is cool enough to keep the NH3 from activating. The ground freezes so that limits erosion. Crop residue also limits erosion.
My dad put some terraces in on our farm long ago. They're gradually disappearing. Farm equipment is so large nowadays that it doesn't fit the terraces very well. Some farms have grassed waterways and small ponds to catch runoff.
Farmers usually plant straight north-south or east-west. They ignore the hills. It would be better if they contour farmed but most don't. They don't do all of the cultivating farmers of my dad's generation did. He'd usually cultivate 3 times to kill weeds and ditch the rows so he could irrigate. Chemicals are being used now to control weeds instead of all the field work. Center pivots have pretty much taken over the irrigation part.
My brother and I don't farm. Our little farm isn't large enough to make a living. We rent it to a guy who farms next to our little property.
There is an organic farm just west of me a couple miles. It was in corn the last time I went by it. What a mess it was. Weeds everywhere.
The local natural resources district does have a tree planting program. I'm not sure if many take advantage of of it. Most of the windbreaks I see are mature. I suspect there are fewer trees than in the past. Farms are growing and farmsteads are being abandoned. Someone eventually cleans them out so the ground can be farmed.

On 7/11/2023 5:12 AM, Dean Hoffman wrote:
> Farmers usually plant straight north-south or east-west. They ignore the
> hills. It would be better if they contour farmed but most don't. They don't
> do all of the cultivating farmers of my dad's generation did. He'd usually
> cultivate 3 times to kill weeds and ditch the rows so he could irrigate.
> Chemicals are being used now to control weeds instead of all the field work.

Have "coated" seedstocks made it into the market in a significant way?

> There is an organic farm just west of me a couple miles. It was in corn the
> last time I went by it. What a mess it was. Weeds everywhere.

If you eschew chemicals, you need "manual" labor! (no wonder folks opt for
chemicals)

> The local natural resources district does have a tree planting program. I'm
> not sure if many take advantage of of it. Most of the windbreaks I see are
> mature. I suspect there are fewer trees than in the past. Farms are
> growing and farmsteads are being abandoned. Someone eventually cleans them
> out so the ground can be farmed.

When will we see the return of the dust bowl? <frown>

On Tuesday, July 11, 2023 at 12:01:06 PM UTC-5, Don Y wrote:
> On 7/11/2023 5:12 AM, Dean Hoffman wrote:
> > Farmers usually plant straight north-south or east-west. They ignore the
> > hills. It would be better if they contour farmed but most don't. They don't
> > do all of the cultivating farmers of my dad's generation did. He'd usually
> > cultivate 3 times to kill weeds and ditch the rows so he could irrigate..
> > Chemicals are being used now to control weeds instead of all the field work.
> Have "coated" seedstocks made it into the market in a significant way?

Seed corn has been treated since I was a kid. It's pink. I'm on Social Security now.
I don't know if seed corn has made it into the normal channels of corn fed to cattle and such.
It would be foolish for the farmer to mix it in with regular corn. Seed corn is terribly expensive.
Dad used to put some sort of black coating on his soybeans before he planted them
A little about modern treatment of seed beans.
<https://www.pioneer.com/us/products/soybeans/soybean-seed-treatment.html>
Seed corn for farmers to plant is a different crop than the corn fed to animals and used for
ethanol. Canned corn for us to eat is sweet corn which is another crop.
> > There is an organic farm just west of me a couple miles. It was in corn the
> > last time I went by it. What a mess it was. Weeds everywhere.
> If you eschew chemicals, you need "manual" labor! (no wonder folks opt for
> chemicals)
> > The local natural resources district does have a tree planting program. I'm
> > not sure if many take advantage of of it. Most of the windbreaks I see are
> > mature. I suspect there are fewer trees than in the past. Farms are
> > growing and farmsteads are being abandoned. Someone eventually cleans them
> > out so the ground can be farmed.
> When will we see the return of the dust bowl? <frown>

On 7/11/2023 12:21 PM, Dean Hoffman wrote:
> On Tuesday, July 11, 2023 at 12:01:06 PM UTC-5, Don Y wrote:
>> On 7/11/2023 5:12 AM, Dean Hoffman wrote:
>>> Farmers usually plant straight north-south or east-west. They ignore the
>>> hills. It would be better if they contour farmed but most don't. They don't
>>> do all of the cultivating farmers of my dad's generation did. He'd usually
>>> cultivate 3 times to kill weeds and ditch the rows so he could irrigate.
>>> Chemicals are being used now to control weeds instead of all the field work.
>> Have "coated" seedstocks made it into the market in a significant way?
>
> Seed corn has been treated since I was a kid. It's pink. I'm on Social Security now.

This is likely a newer process (mid 1980's). I think it was intended to offer
additional "features" to the seed than just herbicide/insecticide/fertilizer
(e.g., delaying germination so it can be planted at more advantageous times;
protecting the seed from sprayed on insecticides; etc.)

It was an outgrowth of pharmaceutical solid dose technology
(e.g., enteric coatings on tablets so they aren't attacked
by the acids in your stomach allowing more actives to reach your
intestines for better absorption).

[You can do alot to a tablet to effect how, when/where and at what
rate the actives are released; imagine that in reverse for a seed]

> I don't know if seed corn has made it into the normal channels of corn fed to cattle and such.
> It would be foolish for the farmer to mix it in with regular corn. Seed corn is terribly expensive.
> Dad used to put some sort of black coating on his soybeans before he planted them
> A little about modern treatment of seed beans.
> <https://www.pioneer.com/us/products/soybeans/soybean-seed-treatment.html>
> Seed corn for farmers to plant is a different crop than the corn fed to animals and used for
> ethanol. Canned corn for us to eat is sweet corn which is another crop.

On 7/11/2023 12:53 PM, Don Y wrote:
> It was an outgrowth of pharmaceutical solid dose technology
> (e.g., enteric coatings on tablets so they aren't attacked
> by the acids in your stomach allowing more actives to reach your
> intestines for better absorption).

Think of a "peanut M&M": the nut being the seed, the chocolate
surrounding it being "something important to the seed/crop" and
the "candy shell" being something to hold it together and
control the conditions under which the shell "cracks".