And many people are dumb. The Haber process is one of the greatest inventions in the history of mankind. A majority of people alive today can directly trace their very existence to the food production yield increases from artificial fertilizer. It's estimated that 50% of the nitrogen in the average human comes from the Haber process.
Now I'm not going to try to pretend there are absolutely no downsides. Runoff from fields is a huge issue. But when you advocate for large scale returns to "natural" farming, you're taking a position that leads directly to ecofacism and genocide though famine. Or at least a radical restructuring of the global economy where much greater sections of land and the labor force would be required to be farmers.
In order to not downplay how much of an issue artificial fertilizer is in term of runoff, practically every fresh water lake in western countries have become poisoned. The whole Baltic Sea is turning into dead zone where even bacteria have a hard time surviving, and in many countries that have a coast, both humans and animals can't be in the water during long parts of the year for the risk of getting poisoned. If you have one ocean area where you test nuclear bombs, and the other where you have "normal" amount of runoff from artificial fertilizer, the nuclear bomb site will be healthier and have more diverse ecological environment.
We might not want to ban the stuff, but we need to start demanding that farming is a closed loop in term of artificial fertilizers.
If you dive in the coast of the Baltic Sea from may and for the rest of the year, this is what you will likely see: (https://www.azotelibrary.com/en/image/Omr%C3%A5de-med-syrebr...). Similar for most lakes, except the color is then only black and brown.
Miles and miles of grey, black and green mass of death.
> But when you advocate for large scale returns to "natural" farming, you're taking a position that leads directly to ecofacism and genocide though famine. Or at least a radical restructuring of the global economy where much greater sections of land and the labor force would be required to be farmers.
Actually I am designing an open source farming robot focused on regenerative agriculture so that everyone can move to automated regenerative agriculture in an affordable way. Honestly I really think you are talking a big game without really knowing what you are saying.
very cool, i am going to check this out. we are converting our own yard to small scale farm / aquaponic system, and automating it is something i would love to do!
Your take is very opinionated but doesn’t seem to include any helpful solutions.
Habitat and environment is more important than profit margin because we are a super apex predator and rely on the planet’s eco system to survive…not just thrive.
Genocide through famine occurred in India when the British exported Indian cotton and tobacco and turning fields of grain into cash crops. It was not ‘eco fascism’ but colonialism that caused it.
Fertilizer run off, deadzones and poisoning of our water tables is just one side effect of Big Ag.
Long supply chains and cold supply chains and an animal based diet has caused more famine (not to mention food waste amongst the wealthy) than ecological focus on Ag. Not to mention an overpopulated planet that has long since crossed carrying capacity. Perhaps temper your hot takes with relevant inputs?
https://youtu.be/1BH0NkN6zHs