Ya, its good stuff..

Fast response by the way.

So called "organic" foods are often not as good for you as you think.

http://todayhealth.today.msnbc.msn.com/_news/2012/02/16/10425025-high-arsenic-levels-found-in-organic-foods-baby-formula?chromedomain=vitals

Also, organic food production is a nice idea but until someone figures out how to cut food consumption down signigicantly it is unrealistic. Organic farms at best operate at only 80-90% of the production rate of non-organic operations. The world is already facing a global food shortage and reducing output by 10-20% would only serve as an accelerator to the crisis.

What we need is high production sustainable farming, and while organic food production can absolutely be called sustainable it is not high production. Current high production farming techniques are not sustainable because of the overuse of fertilizers and pesticides which has a destructive effect on the ecosystem. Sustainable high production farming is about optimizing the use of fertilizers and pesticides in order to increase output without damaging the ecosystem over time.

http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v418/n6898/full/nature01014.html

Shredder, the whole arsenic thing...wtf that's called bad policy. Whoever was inspecting the farmer's soil was doing a shitty job of it. Also, why the F*CK are we feeding infants sugar? I was breast fed until my mom ran out of milk, and then probably put on this sugar bullshit, but why the F*CK are we doing it in the first place?

If you look at sustainable organic, you'll find that instead of building huge farms just to grow one crop, you take all of that land and mix all sorts of complimentary plants and animals. That way, you don't need to over-fertilize and you don't need pesticides because the plants and animals watch out for each other. Furthermore, choosing varieties of similar crops instead of a single variety increases crop yields and in actuality brings costs in line with those of non-organic farming.

We should dump a shitload of mycelium on Africa and bring back the soil there. It'll take 30 years but it can be a side project.

Every study on farm production I have ever seen has shown that a true organic process can at best only hit 80-90% of the production levels of non-organic. The same studies also demonstrate that the indiscriminate use of pesticides and fertilizers is unsustainable due to long term damage of the ecosystem that supports the farm. The only thing that will work to increase yields, eliminate ecosystem degradation, and produce safer product is optimizing the use of pesticides and fertilizers. Intelligent use of pesticides and fertilizers actually does increase production significantly, and if we don't just spray the crap everywhere all the time the product will be safer as well. Basically don't throw the baby out with the bath water.

There is no doubt that foods produced using strictly organic processes are better quality and better for you, but there really is no way it can meet the production levels to satisfy the world food supply. Demand on food production is expected to increase 50% by 2050, and we need an answer by then because at that point demand will exceed supply. Going organic results in a net decrease in production, it can't work on a large scale.

It can so work on a large scale but before that happens, the large scale must be diffused into a smaller and greater number of individual operations. This can be a relatively easy task to accomplish through the promotion and proliferation of farming. Going back to family farms and even stepping up to the adoption of urban grow operations using such technologies as Aquaponics and Permaculture would make great haste of this expansion of food supply.

Supporting the right of individuals to trade without fear of legal harrassment (ever seen those news clips of a local farmer being trolled by federal authorities for giving his raw milk products to neighbors, free of charge?) will go far in supporting the food needs of our present and even future populations. Any person who has excess supply, well it is up to the individual how to proceed but I'm certain that there are a fair number of people who care enough about world hunger that a portion of inventory would be set aside for humanitarian donation. Municipalities could even go so far as to encourage through regulation the provision that a percentage of excess crops be set aside to be stockpiled at local food banks for distribution within or outside the respective community as necessary. Good farmers will know that should they need to withdraw from such a food bank, that what they need would be readily available to them.

An addendum to this would be that the United States alone, as a whole, produces more than enough food to feed the world over. The dilemma lies in the profit motive.

Phuket, Thailand:


Also:

Seattle, WA

We do not live in an agrarian society, and that style of life could never work in today's world. The math is simple, but the numbers are huge which is why it is easy to underestimate the problem. Trying to downsize high production farming operations and reverting to small scale farms will only decrease efficiency and reduce output. There are just too many people, and pure organic farming can't match existing high production processes as far as output. Too many mouths to feed and too many more on the way...the problem cannot be ignored.

The idea that we can all grow our own food is unrealistic. I don't know what you do for a living right now, but if it is not already the case then believe me there will come a day when you will earn far more doing whatever you do with the time you need to invest to support your food consumption by being a small scale farmer.

We need sustainable high yield food production. Pure organic is sustainable but not high yield. Existing processes can meet the needs of today, but they are not sustainable and therefore will not meet the needs of tomorrow. The answer is to modify current high yield production processes to become more sustainable through intelligent use of fertilizers and pesticides. The real issue with today's farming processes is not the use of those things, it is overuse.

The whole 'agrarian vs technological' society from your perspective sounds pretty impossible to harmonize. Even in this, I say there is a balance because a LOT of people who have shit jobs would be better off and much happier, doing work which leans more toward the permaculture end of things.

If you don't understand why there needs to be a radical shift from a pretty much technologically-leaning society toward a better harmonization with natural systems, I suggest reading the book "A Brave New World Revisited", by Aldous Huxley. In it, he explains quite vividly the issue we have been confronted with.

An excerpt describing the mental state of people who seem to find advancing with the status quo to be perfectly right and normal is as follows (and yes I'm including you and even myself in this):



I'm afraid, Shredder, that this is the sort of life which you and perhaps a great deal of people here on n00bfest and around the world in general tend to see...as being normal.

It is not normal, it is a steady slope toward a concentration of power and intelligence leading up to a singularity of ridiculous proportions out of which both the greatest good and the greatest evil could simultaneously coalesce into manifest existence.

Your use of the word "normal" makes me think you are an close-minded, objective HOMOSEXUAL Kwang who in the end thinks his perspective is the objective truth about existence and the outcome of various shit. Which kinda puts you in the realm of fundamentalist like i don't know...Cyning. which in turns makes anything I read from you completely wasteful of any remote time I possess.

Fix this.

The future, according to your sense of normal looks like this:



The future, according to my sense of normal:



I'm not against technological advancement. I simply believe that this advancement ought to include much greater environmental integration. For example, a technological achievement that I fully support is the Monolithic Dome Structure.



These things can be fully integrated into nature, and can withstand pretty much everything that nature can throw at them.

Who said I think the future looks like that?

Along with being objective you also like to assume a lot of things about your peers.

Here you go Kwang. Is this a good middle ground for your future(near future I mean?)

http://www.theenvironmentalblog.org/201 ... -makeover/

I only posted what I did after your post because if you're going to put me into the same category as Cyning I'm gonna put you in the same category as people who are derpy derp derp let technology tackle all of our woes.

@Caniboid, that building is only being designed with LEEDS platinum standards in mind, which is great, but it's just not the same (the initial plan for a vegetated façade was scrapped because of the added cost of making sure that the vegetation remained properly cared for).

@Shredder, the problem with conventional thought as relates to crop yields and farming have to do with the fact that the vast majority of farmers suck at farming in their mindset of what constitutes appropriate practices. This mindset is related to the food industry's apparent desire to have a specific variety of everything and/or few alternatives. An example of this would be McDonalds' need to have one specific variety of potato for their fries which in and of itself screws up crop yields due to the possibility of the entire crop being lost due to a disease that other varieties of potato might be resistant to.

You say we still have a long ways to go in providing adequate crop yields, but if you consider JUST the fast food industry alone, and McDonalds in particular you'll find that that one company is responsible for a majority of crop production and a huge amount of what is harvested gets thrown in the trash on a daily basis as part of the quick-serve business model.

My parents still farm 1500 acres. Corn, soybeans and wheat are all they plant. Most of the crops are animal grade feed only because of the pesticides and chemicals used. My mom has a garden that takes two people to take care of throughout the summer. This time of the year they are in their 1,000 square foot greenhouse planting. I should take a picture of our root cellar, we have literally thousands of canned shit from the garden. My mom lives for the shit, she does it 24/7.

We also have 7 goats with 2 that are milked twice daily, 2 pigs, 20+ sheep, 30+ rabbits, 2 miniature horses, 30+ ducks, 20+ chickens and your standard house pets. Goats are milked and then dried up for breeding. Sheep are bred and lambs slaughtered. Pigs are bought then raised for slaughter. Rabbits were supposed to be slaughtered but I'm the only one who will do it and its a 2 hour drive from my house to theirs. Chickens produce eggs and most are slaughtered in the fall for winter food. I think this year we are slaughtering the lambs ourselves, butcher prices are kind of insane considering it takes me less than an hour to process a deer from field to freezer (not that I do, deer hang for 4-5 days before butchering), a lamb should take about 30 minutes.

We also trade all our animals to keep bloodlines mixed so we don't get retarded goats and sheep. There are enough farmers in the area to trade for the winter then in the summer we make longer trips out of throughout the state. All of our animal feed comes from a certified organic feed supply company out of Bay City I think. We also purchase full cows butchered that are free range, they are pricey though.

I never said things don't need to change, and I agree that most farmers today suck at farming and take the easy way out by just dumping fertilizers and pesticides on crops. This overuse makes current practices unsustainable as it destroys the ecosystem in the process. All I am saying is that pure organic is not the answer since it cannot meet the production demands of the future either.

It does not matter how much food is thrown out today since current production meets the demand. What matters is our ability to meet the demand of tomorrow. I read a study a few years back that I cannot seem to find right now, but the net of it was that even with 100% efficiency in the production chain we will fall well short of that demand by 2050 if we do not change the way we produce food and develop sustainable high production techniques. These techniques marry the best practices of both organic and non-organic farming to minimize the use of pesticides and fertilizers while maximizing production and preserving the ecosystem for the future.

Extremist views are almost never correct no matter what the issue. The most correct answers consistently come out of a middle of the road approach. In this case trying to convert society to a 100% organic small farm production approach is just as ridiculous as continuing to dump massive amounts of fertilizers and pesticides on our crops. Neither one will solve the problem.

BTW - Your visions of the future look like they either involve wearing loincloths and rubbing sticks together to make fire or living in something that resembles a concrete prison where conformism is law and individuality is a crime, lol.

Just about everything is government mandated or influenced. They want farmers to do one thing then they will offer funding, over funding. Most farmers make more money from the government than they do from the crops themselves.

TL DR,,,, ill just keep eating my sugar foods, and taking multi vitamins and working out and enjoying my life..

I have spoken with people who are older than most of the posters combined, they say shit that is organic tastes like what they use to eat when they were kids back in the day, but it still doesnt feel right. so UNLESS YOU ARE GROWING THE SHIT YOURSELF, then you will never know it is organic

The majority of supermarket organics aren't true organics because they don't use heirloom varieties of seed. And even worse, many farmers are getting f'd in the a hard by Monsanto because those bastards want to own everything and even worse, the seed they sell is sterile and therefore destroys everything it touches.

@Shredder, I'll admit that in order to meet projected demand, we might have a problem either way. What I would work on isn't meeting projected demand, but rather, radically altering lifestyles to where demand isn't so much of an issue. Like holy shit, imagine if nobody on earth fucked and had a baby for one whole year.

In that same year, AFRICAN AMERICANS wont steal a single car, Mexicans won't jump a single border, Canadians stop saying Eh, and all Asians are born with round eyes.

lol don't count it out.