> Part of the current waste is a desire for photogenic foods; minor blemishes don’t sell as well as pristine items.
Agreed, often to the detriment of your second point.
> Another part (not counted in the statistics if I understand right), is obesity. We over-consume to the point of illness.
Also agree, most cultivars are created not for taste, quality or nutrient density/availability but for shelf life and transport robustness. Which when looking at this from a biological metabolic satiation feedback system standpoint, specifically those damaged from processed foods and, you get that end result. Its actually really dark when you think about how poor the Human physiology and psychology has responded to excess in the modern age, and we al do it to ourselves to some degree.
> Another part is deliberate over-production in good years so that we don’t go hungry in bad years. This part ought to be considered as unavoidable.
Agree again, the key difference is if best practices are put into place: food shelters, food banks can be well supplied for those in need and value added products can be made to recapture perceived waste and sent to Market, what isn't used from that is fed to livestock or composted and returned to the soil.
> Another part is the types of food. Meat is, in general, a wasteful indirection between sunlight and us. Even ignoring any argument about vegetarian/vegan diets, I accept that this isn’t universally so, as some land (I don’t know about fish vs. seaweed) is unsuitable for growing human crops. However, it remains broadly true.
Partly agree, its way over-consumed in the North and South America in relation to the rest of the World. I took it particularly hard when I realized how accustomed I had become to it, especially after 15+ hours of exhausting farm work. My body had come to depend on it for recovery, and mood enhancement.
However, I think/know it can be done correctly with proper field grazing and rotation systems: part of my apprenticeship was tending to 45 dairy cows at the base of the Swiss alps on less than 35 acres in Spring, while keeping quality and yield of milk near or at same and within budget. Its hard, actually really hard... but it can be done. Its about putting the right incentives in place, that milk was bought for 2,5 CHF a liter from a a well-renown local Cheese artisan. When they go up the Alps in the summer-fall its closer to 5 CHF as its much higher quality and more desired by cheese makers, but are smaller yields with higher transport costs.
> In principle, though perhaps not in practice, indoor farming (not just artificial lighting, also greenhouses etc.) could supply a more consistent yield. I can’t comment on the economics of that, not even a little. However, as farming as a whole represents a very small, and still diminishing, fraction of the west’s GDP, my guess is that it could become achievable even if it is not yet achievable.
I think your post underscores how easy people can get lost in the superficial view derived from focusing on just statistics and averages, can you quantify that statistical analysis in GDP without seeing the loss in all economic activity if food shelves are empty? Agriculture/Food is actually the World biggest Industry [1] its just impossible to properly quantify.
Also, Modern Greenhouses can be very efficient at creating profits when correctly modeled: I worked in Germany on a farm that had 2 half hectare glass houses with temperature/humidity controlled sensors, self watering and auto-lifting panels. I've only ever seen this for large scale, well funded MJ operations in the US. But, the yield was amazing for things like nightshades in one, and quick growing greens in the other.
The fact that we could charge 5 euros for a healthy Eggplant, 3,5 euros for a head of salad, and 4 euros/Kg for tomatoes because of Biodynamic prices (with more demand than supply) made this a lucrative operation.
The few days I did at the Farmer's Market for that Farm were eye opening to say the least; the main issues with this model I saw were infrastructure costs and labour as they require a long pay-back period but when it does it pays well if you're a multi-generational farming family as they were.
I wrote a proposal in my, later stolen, journal and notebook about how if Ag subsidies shifted from crop insurance to solely infrastructure/equipment based models how the food supply would change. I didn't get far, as I couldn't apply any analysis or experimentation to it but you just reminded me of that idea I had.
Slight misunderstanding, my apologies for being unclear.
I was trying to suggest greenhouses for staple crops like rice or wheat, so that the overproduction margin for famine years could be significantly reduced rather than totally eliminated.
I didn’t make that at all clear, sorry.
Do any greenhouses grow meaningful quantities of staple crops? This is far outside my area.
> Do any greenhouses grow meaningful quantities of staple crops? This is far outside my area.
None that I know of as its unlikely to be a good idea outside of a breeding program because of the opportunity costs; I imagine staples like wheat/rice/potatoes confined to such limited scale/size would not be able to recover the costs if profit from yield is the only source for ROI in its current model.
> I was trying to suggest greenhouses for staple crops like rice or wheat, so that the overproduction margin for famine years could be significantly reduced rather than totally eliminated.
Perishability is an inherit and unavoidable factor, and famines are not uniform throughout the Earth which is why I think optimizing the Global Food Supply Chain, rather than entirely abandoning it is the goal; the Citrus Industry in Florida nearly collapsed a few years ago due to a psyllid issue that destroyed nearly 1/2 of Florida's orange groves [1], only to find out in PR (after failed studies in China and Mexico) where topology differences revealed that its preferable to grow citrus at higher elevation to avoid the disease they were seeing below that--after a certain elevation, reported at 600M, the groves weren't as susceptible to infestation from the psyllid.
Having data, metrics and analytics in place accessible in Real Time in a readily available and comprehensible system for producers to work with is critical moving forward in the 21st Century; adapting an Ag model to suit this is no longer a luxury but has become a necessity if we have any chance of surviving on this planet as Climate Change, and nearly unpredictable weather patterns/disasters are becoming ever more prevalent and even more severe.
Again, the opportunity costs in not addressing this problem is so unbelievably immense to anyone who takes the time to just look; we can see the 2 million chicken culling and its subsequent waste and be outraged--and it would be justifiable--but more importantly I hope it serves as indication of what is seen as common practices and serves as a catalyst for change as this cannot go on any longer without severe widely felt repercussions.
Agreed, often to the detriment of your second point.
> Another part (not counted in the statistics if I understand right), is obesity. We over-consume to the point of illness.
Also agree, most cultivars are created not for taste, quality or nutrient density/availability but for shelf life and transport robustness. Which when looking at this from a biological metabolic satiation feedback system standpoint, specifically those damaged from processed foods and, you get that end result. Its actually really dark when you think about how poor the Human physiology and psychology has responded to excess in the modern age, and we al do it to ourselves to some degree.
> Another part is deliberate over-production in good years so that we don’t go hungry in bad years. This part ought to be considered as unavoidable.
Agree again, the key difference is if best practices are put into place: food shelters, food banks can be well supplied for those in need and value added products can be made to recapture perceived waste and sent to Market, what isn't used from that is fed to livestock or composted and returned to the soil.
> Another part is the types of food. Meat is, in general, a wasteful indirection between sunlight and us. Even ignoring any argument about vegetarian/vegan diets, I accept that this isn’t universally so, as some land (I don’t know about fish vs. seaweed) is unsuitable for growing human crops. However, it remains broadly true.
Partly agree, its way over-consumed in the North and South America in relation to the rest of the World. I took it particularly hard when I realized how accustomed I had become to it, especially after 15+ hours of exhausting farm work. My body had come to depend on it for recovery, and mood enhancement.
However, I think/know it can be done correctly with proper field grazing and rotation systems: part of my apprenticeship was tending to 45 dairy cows at the base of the Swiss alps on less than 35 acres in Spring, while keeping quality and yield of milk near or at same and within budget. Its hard, actually really hard... but it can be done. Its about putting the right incentives in place, that milk was bought for 2,5 CHF a liter from a a well-renown local Cheese artisan. When they go up the Alps in the summer-fall its closer to 5 CHF as its much higher quality and more desired by cheese makers, but are smaller yields with higher transport costs.
> In principle, though perhaps not in practice, indoor farming (not just artificial lighting, also greenhouses etc.) could supply a more consistent yield. I can’t comment on the economics of that, not even a little. However, as farming as a whole represents a very small, and still diminishing, fraction of the west’s GDP, my guess is that it could become achievable even if it is not yet achievable.
I think your post underscores how easy people can get lost in the superficial view derived from focusing on just statistics and averages, can you quantify that statistical analysis in GDP without seeing the loss in all economic activity if food shelves are empty? Agriculture/Food is actually the World biggest Industry [1] its just impossible to properly quantify.
Also, Modern Greenhouses can be very efficient at creating profits when correctly modeled: I worked in Germany on a farm that had 2 half hectare glass houses with temperature/humidity controlled sensors, self watering and auto-lifting panels. I've only ever seen this for large scale, well funded MJ operations in the US. But, the yield was amazing for things like nightshades in one, and quick growing greens in the other.
The fact that we could charge 5 euros for a healthy Eggplant, 3,5 euros for a head of salad, and 4 euros/Kg for tomatoes because of Biodynamic prices (with more demand than supply) made this a lucrative operation.
The few days I did at the Farmer's Market for that Farm were eye opening to say the least; the main issues with this model I saw were infrastructure costs and labour as they require a long pay-back period but when it does it pays well if you're a multi-generational farming family as they were.
I wrote a proposal in my, later stolen, journal and notebook about how if Ag subsidies shifted from crop insurance to solely infrastructure/equipment based models how the food supply would change. I didn't get far, as I couldn't apply any analysis or experimentation to it but you just reminded me of that idea I had.