By: Admin – Climate Depot
Organic agriculture everywhere can today, optimistically, support 4.7 billion people
— Bjorn Lomborg (@BjornLomborg) April 19, 2023
Industrial agriculture everywhere can today, optimistically, support 12 billion
The global population is 8 billion
you do the math https://t.co/qGxjs2k9jZ
The alarmist forecast of 12 billion is only a projection of current trends, ignoring factors that make it unlikely or impossible. Fertility is crashing almost everywhere, even societies where experts confidently predicted it wouldn’t (eg, Iran).https://t.co/hNsxup80V1
— Fabius Maximus (Ed.) (@FabiusMaximus01) April 19, 2023
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Obviously, we need to get rid of 7.3 billion people. Volunteers?……Never mind.
Perhaps all those self sterilizing Trans people might volunteer (they certainly won’t be contributing to the future gene pool), or those eco warriors who feel the world is currently overpopulated, or possibly all those politicos that feel we should eat bugs, worms and grubs might volunteer. Perhaps even those Vegans that strain the farmed food supplies because they refuse to supplement their consumption with Beef Calories and insist on consuming more than their fair share of vegetation
If you were a WEF puppeteer looking to achieve a collapse in fertility without a backlash against forced sterilization, wouldn’t you think it would be a great idea to use social media to relentlessly bombard hormonal teens with propaganda that makes them question their sexuality and voluntarily opt out of reproduction?
“propaganda that makes them question their sexuality”
When I was a teen, back in the ’60s – no propaganda would have succeeded in having me question my sexuality. 🙂
We was trisexual; we’d try have sex with every girl we met. Then came Baal’s best fiend Frauci with his AIDS and destroyed our youth.
…but that’s where we learned the wisdom of Mom; she warned us against running after everything in a skirt… Just in time, too!
Do be careful about what is in a skirt these days.
Anymore a pre date DNA test could be required
Especially if it’s got a sporran in front of it!
And a Wee Dirk beneath
Yeah when we were teens it was not considered cool to be queer. Very much the opposite.
Very very few kids would act on any confusion because that would make them outcasts and targets of abuse. (Not condoning that). Now it can be a way to get attention even if they’re not really confused.
Trying too hard. Streaming video and cheap snack food.
“Perhaps all those self sterilizing Trans people might volunteer”
There aren’t that many of them.
right, but stories about them make up a great deal of the MSM- too much
Not as a single set but as a subset of all mentioned a good beginning
Self-sterilizing is still rare, thankfully. Most of them don’t go past the surface with this.
But these TikTokKids are messed up. Their identity is like choosing an avatar in a video game – whatever they’re told is cool and gets them pretend friends.
Lately, in middle school, the trend is identifying as pets. The kids wear tails in back, bark and meow at each other. It’s not that common yet, but it’s a thing now.
Like the officer said in Jaws, “we’re going to need a bigger bathroom.”
Or like Lt. Ripley in the Aliens movie where she says, “Did IQ’s suddenly drop while I was gone?”
Planned Parenthood for forward-looking “burdens”. Planned Parent/hood for preexisting “burdens”. Planned Populationhood for diverse “burdens” unaccounted.
Notably, Biochymyst wants to kill off over half the current population. How appropriate that biodynamic agriculture (AKA organic) was a hobbyhorse of the NSDAP. It sounds like Heinrich Himmler in a candid moment.
Dreams of Herr Mengele in progress. Dreams of Mein Fuhrer to come.
Trying to sound even more ignorant of modern history that Tom?
P.S. Why am I respponding to a 1990’s email spambot? They have not even fixed its syntax!
An interesting projection of current technology, however, the application of GMO technology is in its infancy, and unfettered energy development could reduce spoilage (currently 30%) at least by half. There is no inevitability of a limit to population.
It looks to me like population is self-limiting. Birth rates are falling all over the world. Perhaps because of societies around the world becoming more affluent.
right- more affluent thanks to fossil fuels
Fossil fuels free up women to participate in economic activity and more affluent women limit their fertility. I have long believed that the best thing to happen for women is affordable electricity.
hmmm… maybe 2nd best thing 🙂
So, optimistically, organic farming could kill well over 3 billion people. Okay. Good to know.
It would seem that people haven’t bothered to read the article. The authors state clearly that:
“A reduction of animal proteins in diets to 26%, as recommended in healthy diets (Supplementary Table 3), would allow feeding ~13.6 billion people in B1–B3 and ~12.2 billion in B5” where B5 is the organic farming model.
Now the authors do state that current farming models are insufficient to feed everone using organic farming but also that it is possible to do so using improved nitrogen use and a reduction in animal proteins. If everyone was vegan or vegetarian then the number of people that could be supported would be even higher.
It is also amusing to note how quickly people here accept the output of models when they support the conclusions that they want to believe (e.g. organic farming is bad) but not when they disagree with them.
It seems to be an extremely difficult concept to grasp that cropping and grazing are complementary activities.
“It is also amusing to note how quickly people here accept the output of models when they support the conclusions that they want to believe (e.g. organic farming is bad) but not when they disagree with them.”
Did you have a canned smear already typed up on your computer?
Scanning the comments I see exactly zero people uncritically accepting the results of the study model!
Now if you are attempting to apply a broader filter and say this crowd crows about “organic farming” being bad, then you are at least half right.
However, our seeming calumny of organic farming is not based on models. The actual productivity of organic farming is demonstrably and measurably less than modern farming with the use of fertilizers.
There is much more to organic farming than just not using mineral-based fertilizers. Almost all herbicides are excluded as well, as are the majority of pesticides. Certification requirements probably vary widely as well, but there tends to be a requirement to not have used any of the excluded inputs on the paddock within the preceding 5 years. This results in using “organic farming” methods for 5 years before being able to obtain the price premium of certified organic crops.
Recent articles seem to have concentrated on Nitrogenous fertilizers. These are actually the least of the worries, because rotation with legune grain crops can keep yields and returns quite reasonable.
The bigger concern is the trace elements (mostly Zn and Mg) and major elements (P and K) which are depleted over time by cropping, and don’t seem to have a readily available organically certified source.
I thought the beauty of guano was that is supplied P and K along with the nitrogen?
Where are we going to get all of the sustainably-sourced guano for organic farming if the wind turbines keep chopping up all of the birds and the bats?
guano was the main source of phosphate fertilizers until sources became more difficult and expensive to utilise.
Those birds and bats would need to be fed on castor oil to keep up with the demand if rock phosphates are sent to the naughty corner.
Even at that, organic farming has an almost 30% reduction in productivity.
over traditional farming.
And here is a comparison of Organic production as a relative percentage of traditional farming
For example, Organically grown Apples produce 84% of what traditional farming produces and Organic.Carrots produce just 37% of what traditional farming produces
http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-cSP2QfocNjo/UXRYoKgujoI/AAAAAAAAAf4/3icYkVSVvlE/s1600/Some+Organic+Yields.jpg
To think that Organic farming alone can support our current population is idiotic, to think that it could feed even more people with an all vegan diet is ludicrous
That’s a bit of a snag. They don’t seem to be making a terrible lot more surface area on the planet.
Even if your graph was properly captioned, I can still exercise my middle finger and tell you I would rather have one clean carrot, than a whole pound of GMO rubbish that has never once been proven safe to eat in any clinical trial anywhere.
You anti-organics are so impressed with your own propaganda, you refuse to even look at contrary evidence. But I don’t blame you, you have been food-poisoned to the point where you feed little children with grains soaked in Roundup.
I think it’s nice to have some organic foods in our diets- but no need to go 100%. What’s best to avoid/minimize is foods with heavy use of pesticides- like grapes. Far more important than organic foods- is to avoid foods with added sugars. Personally, I favor a Keto diet.
Then you would be 1 of 30 people competing for that 1 clean carrot
…which is why intelligent people are campaigning to grow more of them?
Or are we to just accept cancer and dementia as a “normal” part of growing old?
Speaking of tinfoil hats.
People used to die at 30.If longevity keeps increasing, who knows what else we’ll find.
I have heard the theory about cancer only becoming prevalent because we live longer. Your statistics ignore the fact that though a large percentage died early (esp childhood/ infants), the long-lived are just the same. The difference is two generations ago dementia and other neuropathologies were much rarer.
Zoom out your graph, brother, let us see the whole picture, know what I mean?
No. Both my grandmothers died with severe senile dementia. But we get proportionately more because people are living longer, and in the modern world cognitive impairment is more noticeable earlier.
“…which is why intelligent people are campaigning to grow more of them?”
It is Left wing governments around the world that are deliberately reducing the amount of farm land so that we will grow “less of them”.
Good to know that you acknowledge “Left wing” and “intelligent” are antonyms!
Are you implying the desire to obtain unpolluted nutrition is the preoccupation of libtards/ commies/ poofters?
Just so you know, the FBI has long ago classified orthorexics as possible Enemies of the State. Radicals. Together with religious folk and people who jog. Apparently it shows a ” tendency to overvalue individualism”.
I somehow think I was supposed to be insulted?
Who said anything about “GMO”?
Sigh. What do you think “industrial farming” means? Doyou even realise how much of the food you eat is GMO? Did you know hardly anybody ever complained about peanut allergies, until it turned into the most manipulated genome? Soy, wheat, oats, the FDA just authorised GMO pork…
And no-one has ever proven GM organisms to be safe, or even just properly digestible (including metabolising the fractions).
Practically EVERYTHING you eat is GMO, some from a lab but most through traditional genetics.
Grampa used Selective Breeding, he never forced a horse radish up a cow’s oochie to make fast milk, or Modified the Genome to create a novel, patent-worthy Organism. The fact that you do not know the difference between the two, tells me you’ve never spent a second thought on the subject.
It’s disturbing that you know of such practices, even though Grandpa never indulged in them.
Industrial farming is utilizing CO2 enrichment and mass produced nitrogen fertilizers to sustain life. How would you feed more than 2B vegans growing crops at 300ppm CO2 and no inexpensive fertilizer.
A Carrot grown at 420ppm CO2 with nitrogen fertilizer (top)
A Carrot grown at 300ppm CO2 and no fertilizer (bottom)
Which will feed a hungry world better
Maybe the bottom one went for a swim on a winter’s morning? Who knows…
that’s funny right there, I don’t care who y’are 🙂
Surely you’re not suggesting that correlation = causation?
and yes, I’ll stop calling you Shirley.
Just a note. GMO wheat was developed but not commercialized because the GMO wheat berries can just be replanted. GMO corn is successful because the hybrid varieties are useless if replanted. Soy is problematic because it can be but farmers are not supposed to. GMO golden rice was intended to be replanted free, to add vitamin A to the poor in Southeast Asia and prevent millions of childhood blindness cases per year.
Yes, Rud, the justifications are beautiful. Now show me the safety studies.
Also, go search for the so-called suicide gene, isolated from naturally occuring strains, improved and possibly weaponised, mostly to prevent us from replanting their Frankenseeds.
The relationship of “organic” to “GMO” or “non-GMO” is a non-sequitur. You can have non-organic non-GMO foods, and you can have organic non-GMO foods, probably not organic GMO, depending on your regulations in your area. But “organic” refers to whether or not artificial fertilizers and pesticides are used in the production of the foods. I note that using animal manure where the animals have been fed foods grown with fertilizers does not meet the standards for organic foods in most places. So you need to know where the food your animals are being fed comes from.
If you come take the manure from our horse barn–and please do, the pile is getting big–it will most likely not qualify as organic, because the horses are fed grain and hay that has been fertilized.
A. If you think GMO counts as organic, in other words safe, clean and healthy, please supply references to non-industry financed research proving the safety of GMOs. Start with Gates’ patent on that enzyme found in wheat, that sterilises almost any organism that eats the wheat.
B. I specifically note in my post that “Organic” is a licensing issue, not of any specific nutritional value (the poor sods argued for years whether volcanic dust counts as organic fertiliser).
C. I’ll shovel yours, if you shovel mine. But only if you promise not to let it pile up like yours!
To sum up, it seems to me someone is elevating the term Organic into the realms of conspiracy theory, so all the good sensible people can poke fun at it, even if it means they studiously avoid the serious health degradation caused by the methodologies of monopolised food manufacturing and the concomitant poisoning of the food chain, from horse to babe.
…and now Baal Gates needs you to eat your organic salad, because he has GMO’d a little surprise for you…
No conspiracy, just pragmatism. Just do the math, and it is evident. Greenies don’t do math.
If you think CO2 and nitrogen based fertilizers are pollutants and bad for the environment, please provide references to Non Government Non Billionaire funded research
Wha? Who said what?
“never once been proven safe to eat in any clinical trial anywhere”
plus
“feed little children with grains soaked in Roundup”
The words are framed very strongly, but if you think of what both actually mean, the contradiction emerges. Millions of kids eating GMO Wheaties creates an enormous trial.
Ooh, a live one!
Where shall we start? Asthma? “ADHD”? Cancer? Acid reflux? Depression? The urge to self-destruction? Reproduction issues? Slow healing and frequent infections? Poor brain development? Poor cognition?
Yeah, our children are doing great! Or are all the statistics lying now?
P.S. Have I mentioned the longer-term test subjects? How many people still manage to leave an inheritance, once the cancer “treatment” stop “working”? Not that they remember much, anyway, eh? Eh?
P.P.S. I actually have a copy of a paper studying rats on Roundup, GMO and Roundup+GMO. Shocking, I tell you. But it’s okay, they just cut the tumors out and put the rats back in the study…
I am told the amount of Roundup in mother’s milk is now commonly higher than the manufacturer’s specified maximum doses of (external?) exposure. Wheaties, it transpires after testing, is soaked in the sh
So are all other common commercial brands, even some “Organic” ones.
IQ score and longevity.
Longevity is usually a terrible argument because longevity has too many drivers, but nutrition is one of its most basic requirements.
‘never once been proven safe to eat in any clinical trial anywhere.’
But has also never been proven unsafe, either.
Disputin, even if your statement was true (it isn’t) it would still be a dangerously stupid argument. Will you let your child pick up something and eat it, without checking?
You would? oh well…
Your GMO fear is very unscientific. GMO adds genes for one or two proteins from other species, to serve crop protective purposes (Roundup Ready) or (in the case of golden rice) the vitaminA precursor betacarotine. All food proteins are digested down to their constituent 20 different amino acids. No protein or protein fragment passes the gut barrier into the bloodstream; else it would trigger an immune response, which amino acids don’t. So there is NO digested GMO anything to worry about.
In the case of ciliac disease, gluten protein irritates the gut itself before being fully broken down.
Rud, my opinions on GMO are informed by hundreds, if not thousands of papers, reports and also personal experience.
The problem with my sources is, they keep going missing, it’s like someone is paying people to not put Monsatano and company in the spotlight… and the ones I save on my drive don’t have quick links to send you. But here’s a taster:
https://gmwatch.org/en/106-news/latest-news/19345-call-for-retraction-of-eu-funded-g-twyst-study-on-gm-maize
More analysis required to reach conclusion “to think that it could feed even more people with an all vegan diet is ludicrous“.
The conclusion depends on the relative grain cost of what the meat sources eat – I think that’s why the study mentions adjusting protein intake to adjust maximum population.
A farmer here in Woke-achusetts told me that to get certified to produce organic milk, he may not use any fields that were ever fertilized- so he needs to open up new acreage. Maybe there’s a time period after which the old fields can be used for organic milk production but he didn’t say.
Prime example of the Organic scam. In the end, the only consideration for that pasture would be; does it contaminate the milk?
But the little twerp in his fancy suit and accreditation badge knows as much about farming as he does about the thirteenth gender: Everything he was told by thirteenth-gendered experts, yah? “Five years, the lord proclaimeth, five years!” said another commenter.
I have not actually heard of any such agent doing chemical/ nutritional analysis, and if the Health Ranger is right, they absolutely resist independent laboratory testing. The only thing that matters, is the certificate, and the “integrity of the accreditation process”.
Now that makes one drink, no?
“they absolutely resist independent laboratory testing”
Resistance to testing probably depends on who’s expected to pay for it.
Accordingto the Health Ranger, he was going to test it before putting on his shop site. A number of suppliers withdrew rather than have the quality of their product tested, for free.
I retell from memory, been a few years 4/5?
I have heard similar stories regarding organics. But then, have you seen Gangreen when one starts doing the basic numbers on power consumption, generation and storage?
“Every cockerel is king on his own dung heap” Momma used to say.
Eh? I’m not sure whether my one-sentence reaction has drawn me into defending something much bigger.
Maybe 4/5 were just not good at the farming business?
“Now the authors do state that current farming models are insufficient to feed everone using organic farming but also that it is possible to do so using improved nitrogen use and a reduction in animal proteins. If everyone was vegan or vegetarian then the number of people that could be supported would be even higher.”
I frequently see similar expositions from the CAGW fear crowd. This seems to be based on the assumption that all surface acres of land are equivalent.
In this case, I don’t know if the pointy-headed intellectuals that couldn’t grow a lima bean in a cup are wrong, or if my “local knowledge” is wrong because it is NOT more widely applicable.
In my region, there is very little “protein production” on potential farmland. Crop ROI is much higher than grazing ROI. All of the cattle range land is either too rocky for agriculture or too arid for agriculture and does not have ample groundwater. These acres cannot be converted to farmland.
I do agree that the second order effect certainly does reduce the amount of plant calories available to support humans. Corn for animal feed does take up a significant portion of the some of the best farmland acres in the U.S.
However, the “get rid of grass-fed beef crowd” seems ludicrously uninformed to me if you ever hear them try to speak extemporaneously.
Well said. Eliminating animal agriculture would economically destroy vast areas and communities who produce hay and graze livestock on soils and in climates that are unsuited to crops. Everyone focuses on the finishing stage for livestock in concentrated animal feeding operations (CAFOs), but most of the production from birth to marketable size occurs on these vast rangelands.
“pillageidiot”
“CAGW fear crowd”
“pointy-headed intellectuals”
“couldn’t grow a lima bean in a cup”
“get rid of grass-fed beef crowd”
“ludicrously uninformed”
Lots of anger.
You are correct in your observations.
However, I am not sure that “anger” is exactly the correct word for my diatribe.
However, I DO NOT support starving to death the most desperately poor people in the world. I certainly take umbrage with the proclamations of those that do!
Yeah, that’s a good point.
Grass fed Beef and lamb are using vegetation that is indigestible to man ,turning grass into meat .
As I have written here many times that methane from farmed livestock is a closed cycle and it should never have been included in any countries emissions profile .
Grazing on land that is not ideal for arable cropping , in fact a lot of farm land in New Zealand and other countries is quite steep .
Also continuously grazed pasture builds up carbon in the soil and is a carbon sink .
When land is cultivated carbon is released but it has been stored there from when animals were farmed on that land .
The attack on farm animals is a straight out hoax thought up by anti farming groups .
It is an attack on sustainably produced food started by animal rights groups and taken over by useful idiots who have been brain washed into believing that the methane from farming animals will heat the world .
I certainly disagree that if the whole worlds population became vegan that the it would be easier to feed the world.
How much corn is being grown for ethanol production in the US?
How much food value can a human get out of a plate full of grass?
I met a run holder from South Australia who had a180 hereford beef cows and I asked him how big was his cattle station .
The answer was 180,000 acres of semi desert country .1000 acres for each cow and calf plus replacement heifers and bulls.Producing meat out of a dry area that certainly not be cropped.
Can somebody please explain this carbon from tilled land to me? On the internet I find only assertions and truisms, no actual proof beyond some figures showing CO2 in the air during planting season. How do we know it is from the soil?
I can imagine some soil microbes decomposing after being exposed to dry air and heat, but surely that is an insignificant issue on factory farms, where soil bacteria have been replaced with chemicals?
Besides, you are going to plant there, right? With plants,. right? Made mostly of water and carbon, right?
My ignorance lays upon me like that time when that heavy thing fell on me…
Organic matter in the soil is always being broken down. Year-round vegetation cover puts more back in than it takes out. Grazing stimulates growth, and grazing animals also return organic matter to the soil.
Most crops are annuals, with a relatively short growing period. Once they have gone to seed, they die, so aren’t returning organic matter to the soil.
Burning stubble tends to turn the carbohydrates in the straw to CO2 as well, but burning off is far less common these days
No, stubble / crop residues do return carbon to the soil, but the C:N ratio is too high to provide much available N to growing crops. Soil organic matter content and fertility management have long been a focus of soil science, and farming practices have been adapted to conserve or promote soil organic carbon and fertility.
A big mistake made by city-dwelling activists who do not know from where their food comes is their assumption that farmers are stupid, knuckle-draggers who are ignorant of soil, water and environmental conservation. The bad farmers quickly deplete their resources and go out of business. Successful modern agriculture is all about sustainable practices in the correct sense of the words (not social justice or wokeness).
That is certainly the case if the stubble is ploughed back in.
Grazing the stubble or high clearance tillage equipment with standing stubble (I think that was a Canadian innovation) work around this without having to burn off. Burning off is mostly for disease control these days.
Dwarf varieties certainly help with the stubble as well.
This might be of some help cilo.
When land is plowed or disced to form a seed bed the exposed soil releases some carbon material
But just remember that grazing animals digest fodder and deposit it back on the soil surface .Earth worms take the dung down into soil but even ungrazed land builds up carbon matter as the decaying plants become incorporated into the soil
The bison grazed on the great plains of North America for probably thousands of years building up very rich soil over time.
Soils vary from place to place depending on their composition and in their natural state they may grow forests or if lacking soil minerals they might only grow scrub or fern .
I have bulldozed access tracks around hillsides exposing red clay .
Within 5 years these tracks are covered with a layer of black top soil growing good pasture .
The black soil is mostly carbon deposited from the grazing animals .
I am sure that grazing land is a carbon sink but those in charge don’t want to measure it .Trees and shelter belts on farms are also se-questing carbon but they (governments) wont measure that also because they might find that they were paying millions to land owners for carbon se questing.
Thank you both for commenting, and I know all that, but I still have no answer, unless I concur with you fellas, and conclude the idea is preposterous nonsense. Which, of course, was my default standpoint…
I reckon the whole thing is a financial scam, so they can pay themselves millions for capturing carbon (planting seaweed, soy fields and plankton) and charging you for doing it wrong (growing food and shelter for working people).
Yet, they aver they measure elevated CO2 during the ploughing season. Anybody got this data for us to look at?
Could be worth a whole article, not so? A fun little game of “Misname the Correlation”…
If organic veganism and banning of oil based products both happen at the same time where are cold climate clothes and shoes coming from?
Wool and cotton have been replaced/supplemented by manmade fibres and leathers from oil.
Animal husbandry banned and land rewilded means no wool or leather, growing cotton or food which takes priority?
There’s not much of the world where the Naked Ape can survive without clothes.
4.7 billion seems optimistic to me
“I certainly disagree that if the whole worlds population became vegan that the it would be easier to feed the world.”
Whether people go vegan seems outside-the-thesis. If a pointy-headed acedemic made a spreadsheet that listed all possible farming inputs, and calculated maximum possible farming outputs based of info researched by any group of experienced farmers, then one configuration of farming would “win”. In Bjorn’s case the metric for calculating maximum production appears to be “calories”. Depending on the metric, and o.t. AI would have time to try them all, vegan might be the way to maximize supportable population.
I’m not sure that maximizing supportable population is the right goal.
The “all go vegan” argument totally misses the fact that grazing and cropping are complementary activities, so growing less meat doesn’t give more crops.
The abstract of the paywalled “Nature” paper did at least seem to recognise that feed vs food (intensive livestock) is a subset of animal production.
Interesting that the English author of a vegan cookbook, and popular celebrity in the UK, Bear Grylls (who served in the Territorial Army with 21 SAS as a trooper for 3 years) has condemned veganism and now eats only meat.
I note from Wikipedia that his rise as a celebrity figure was concurrent with his 2004 award of the honorary rank of lieutenant commander in the Royal Naval Reserve. Then in 2013 he was awarded the honorary rank of lieutenant colonel in the Royal Marines Reserve, and promoted to Honorary Colonel in June 2021.
Funny what a celebrity vegan can achieve.
Didn’t he do one of those “eat whatever you find” “survive in hostile environments” TV shows?
Yes, but Major Les Hiddins (The Bush Tucker Man) he ain’t.
Les is the real deal.
He’s also Chief Scout.
First time I saw BG on TV- he was in a helicopter heading towards some isolated island. He jumped out without a parachute, landed in the water, then swam a few miles to the island, which had no shore, only cliffs- then he climbed out the water and straight up a cliff. I was impressed!
(he could have stayed in the copter)
His short military career ended when he jumped out a chopper and his chute didn’t open. I don’t think he hit water.
Right Izzy. We’re all basing our opinions on that dubious model SRILANKA22. Imagine believing your eyes instead of a proper computer model! How unscientific and backward. It may not work in practice, but surely it works in theory.
Wasn’t it one of your kooks who said 4.7b are still too many? So on what basis could we imply 3.3b need to die? (Other than basic arithmetic). How illogical of us. They’re too many, they’re extra, so of course that implies that we’re not going to starve them to death, right? How could anyone come to that outrageous interpretation of the phrase “too many”?
Maybe we’re just going to sterilize them or abort all their children? Patience, we can wait a generation to achieve the genocide.
Oh my mistake, no ethics concerns here whatsoever. Move along people! Nothing to see here!
It’s OK to have some organic farming to provide for those who prefer it or who like some in their diet- but not to force it on everyone.
“My right to swing my fist ends where your nose begins.”
Supposedly said by Abe Lincoln
I thought it was Heinlein, but he may well have been quoting somebody else.
Lincoln seems like an iffy source, but the words certainly come from before Heinlein.
Reading my message now, I see my meaning isn’t obvious – I was pulling a theme from what Joseph wrote, like “a Vegan’s right to advocate vegetables ends where your menu begins.”
Nonsense! We all have the right to choose organic food. We just don’t have the right NOT to choose organic food. But thank a generic non-gendered deity that we have the sacred right to choose.
In any cropping or livestock system, production involves the removal of nutrients from the soil in the form of the plant matter harvested from the soil plus losses to air or water. Soil fertility must be managed to maintain yields, which means some outside source of nutrients must be added to the soil. High yield agriculture accomplishes this, especially for nitrogen, through soil amendments with synthetic fertilizers. There is nothing evil or bad about these. It is just chemistry. Rotation planting of legumes may help, as well as leaving stubble, no till, and precision fertilizer application, but even legumes only supplement but do not fully replace harvested nitrogen.
Organic farming prohibits the use of cheap, plentiful synthetic fertilizers, but the same is true as for high yield agriculture. Some outside source of nutrients must be added to replenish nutrients that are harvested or lost to air or water. According to USDA, organic farmers must rely on materials such as manures, compost or bone meal. From where do these materials come? Largely livestock and composted food waste.
Much like the problems with higher penetration of wind energy in power grids, as organic agriculture expands, there will not be nearly enough available manure or compost to maintain worldwide soil fertility and produce food needed to feed the world. If the lunatic greens have their way, reducing or eliminating animal husbandry, available manures will be further reduced. Moreover, much livestock production prior to feedlot finishing occurs far away from farms needing the manure, so there is also a costly transportation problem.
Any grocery shopper knows intuitively that organic farming is inefficient and lower yield. Simply compare prices. Wealthier shoppers, fooled by the false claims of organic as being healthier or more nutrient-rich, can afford to pay unnecessarily high prices because food is only a very small part of their budgets, as they load their reusable bags into their unaffordable, virtue-signaling Teslas. Of course, the wealthy largely do not cook from scratch in their $50,000 kitchens anyhow.
Personally, while I could afford organic, I refuse to buy it.
“Wealthier shoppers, fooled by the false claims of organic as being healthier or more nutrient-rich, can afford to pay unnecessarily high prices because food is only a very small part of their budgets”
Perpetuates delusion that wealthy people are easily fooled. How may people have I heard with a product or business idea that depends on some variation of the idea “rich people will buy anything.”? If further explaining is required…
How many people above 12 billion could the Earth support if we increased the CO2 fertilization component of the atmosphere to 550 ppm?
There’s a good question.
I think NASA says current plant growth has increased about 14 percent at current CO2 levels.
CO2 aside, I’ve run back-of-the-envelope calculations and concluded that humans are far from food-limited. The earth could probably feed 100 billion, but those would likely not be living comfortable lives. Other resources would become limiting long before population could swell that far. The biggest issues with food today (I.e., famines and starvation) have much more to do with corrupt and totalitarian governments.
Considering how overweight we tend to be in the US, it seems like there could easily be 600m Americans without increasing food supplies. Oh wait, I guess that’s what Biden is already working on with the open border.
But it’s not so much their food intake that’s driving the weight problems, it’s gallons & gallons of soda pop (liquid sugar).
That’s food intake as well.
For our grandkids it’s not.
Calories is calories, Sol.
There are many hidden assumptions in an article like this. It makes me very skeptical of the conclusions one way or another.
Who measured the “typical” yields of the two kinds of farms? Did they have any financial interest in chemical companies or existing industrial agriculture? I have seen plenty of studies by those with some vested interest in “organic.” Surprise!: they show that organic has higher yields and twice the nutrient density.
Ultimately, the current “industrial” farming–poison-based monocropping–destroys ecosystems leading to deserts, and reduces soil mineralization, and affects soil texture in ways that result in very high local temperatures, and floods, and droughts–real man-made climate change (mostly very local). Therefore, poison-based monocropping is unsustainable, that is, it cannot possibly be sustained on a global basis. What CANNOT be, WILL not be.
We are learning many new techniques that can increase total yields. One of them that is a lot of fun to look at and play with is Sonic Bloom, http://www.originalsonicbloom.com Sonic Bloom is an organic growing method, but it does not require organic to work.
A lot of fairy dust buzzwords you spout there. Activists who use terms like “industrial” farming–poison-based monocropping” generally have no idea how real-world farming and ranching works.
I am an optimist that increases in the worlds population will slow down and eventually stabilize.
Many countries have low birth rates with an increasing number of older people and a scarcity of workers .
Many countries are thinking of raising their retirement age as pensions are now a huge cost paid for by the people who are still working .
In many counties the birth rate is below the replacement rate .Europe North America Australia New Zealand ,Japan , China, India ,Turkey and Russia .
Where as the African continent ,some Pacific Islands and a few outliers like Afghanistan and Yemen have by far the highest birth rates, more than 3 births per woman.
The world can feed the current population using nitrogen fertilizer plus a boost from higher levels of CO2 plus a warmer climates with less frosts .
Nitrogen fertilizer grows food to feed 4 billion people around the world .
Any restrictions on availability with extreme price increases will cause a world wide food shortage .
We all know what inflation is but how can an essential fertilizer increase in price within a year from nz $380 to nz $1400 per tonne over a year .
This nitrogen fertilizer grows food to feed the world so some one has certainly attempted to curtail supplies .
Restrictions on gas supplies will cause famines
I would think that those responsible should be tried before the world court for crimes against humanity,including our former Prime minister Jacinda Ardern who banned all furter oil and gas exploration around New Zealands coasts .
The birth rate has drastically declined to below replacement in every developed country, leading inevitably to population decline in the near future. Some like Italy and Japan are already shrinking. China will lose almost half its population by 2100. The most likely scenario on this UN population projection barely exceeds 10 billion, only 25% more than today, then declines. With current agricultural methods, that’s easily sustainable. Unless we do a Sri Lanka. Or a Venezuela.
The peak keeps pushing rightward – I’ve been watching similar charts for a long time.
Organic orschmamic. How do you know somebody does not know much about farming? He thinks “organic” is some kind of arcane barbarism. The division between organic, traditional, industrial and factory farming seems to be defined by whomever holds the keyboard. Very helpful.
Okay, for those who are interested in what they ingest, may I suggest the following: Learn to grow food before these dumbfarks outlaw humans. Also, if you see a label on your food that says: Natural or Organic or Pure, put it back on the shelf, it is worthless posturing. Obtaining an organic certification is similar to earning the Heart Foundation badge; be sure to pay your annual subscription fees!
What we cattle call Factory Farming looks like this: One large corporation, like Tyson, will enter an area/ province/state and make contract with one or two large farmers with dollar signs in their eyes. They will pay handsomely for the farmer’s produce, while endeavoring to deliver customer value. IOW, they undercut all competition. Soon, all the smaller farmers die out, the bigger ones join the wonderful new financial vehicle, and they increase production by many percents, whoo hah!
Next, Tyson starts pleading poverty, and the farmers get squashed for more product at the same price, then the price is serially raped until only the three international corporations are left standing. Then “food inflation” rips through society, and we import drugged and medicated chicken straight from the source: Tyson’s “sustainable” farms someplace where labour is free and life even cheaper. Then we all have to eat GMO Frankenchow and get cancer…
Factory farming kills agriculture, impoverishes nations, poisons the food chain, and is a major link in the chain of food security. You know, where all the food is securely locked away from the poor, to make sure the properly licensed individuals will always be able to buy some?
But nothing of it matters, because our messianic lord and saviour, our Injector with Roundup inside, his majesty Baal Gates hath declared, 300 million people be enough for His earth.
Poor little Björn – congenitally blind
(there’s ‘something’ about Sweden isn’t there – probably all the alcohol they sink despite gobsmacking taxation on the stuff. Lack of Vitamin D won’t help either)
What Björn cannot see and never has been able, is the difference between Information and Knowledge. Bjorn is a minutia miner par excellence. He is obsessed by trivia and big numbers
But ho-hum, he is most definitely in a very large majority with that.
Well done Björn, you’re guaranteed a wide and adoring audience – among people for whom Original Thinking is frightening and scary.
‘Thinking’ is = ‘Work’ and nobody likes that.
Enough of the Ad Homs: I came upon this a little while ago, somehow I managed to download the actual thing – maybe you can too = 262 pdf pages
Search for: Tainter, Joseph A. The collapse of complex societies. (New studies in archaeology)
Here’s a little taster, all you need is the 1st para/intro
https://renegadeinc.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/09/The-Collapse-Of-Complex-Societies.pdf
The screen shot from the Main Thing is nice in how it describes 2 recent phenomena:
1/ You are reading Global Greening there….. where deserted (in every sense) farmland is overtaken by trees = Mesquite in The Sahel for example.
(Some folks in the US are actually, despite best efforts by Drax, getting all concerned/worried about trees advancing across previous grasslands)
Especially how Tainter tells how the pollens of the arable plants ‘fell off a cliff’ at the peak of the Roman Warm Period and the whole rest of (the then) civilisation promptly followed them
2/ Also how it mentions: More Food = More People.
Our example being how Bob Geldof (Live Aid) in 1984 saved 20 million Starving Africans from starvation. By shipping them shiploads of sugar. sigh
They then very promptly repaid his/our generosity & good-intentions by quadrupling their population. There are now over 80 million starving and drought-stricken Africans where once there were 20.
Well done Bob, you can stop clapping now.
(That was Bono wasn’t it? – jumped up on stage and killed a kid every time he clapped)
Meanwhile Björn – what’s in your minutia mine on these little coincidences:
Start with end of WW2 and the arrival, in bulk, of Ammonia Nitrate on farms worldwide.
Those things all started around the time Nitrogen fertiliser arrived on farms
What about Autism as seen in kids?
Then in 1973, Glyphosate arrived on farms and Monsanto set about telling The Most Grotesque Lie there ever was – and gullible lazy people still believe it.
Is that causation, correlation, coincidence for Glyphosate vs Autism?
Can anyone plot a trend-line for that?
(There’s that sense of humour at work again- Autistic people find it impossible to tell lies)
The changes in the rate of autism are largely definitional.
That’s exactly right. We went from saying “slow” or “quiet” to “on the spectrum”. And from “badly raised” or “delinquent” to “ADHD”.
Also died of “old age” to “heart disease”
In addition to looking at the tonnage of food that can be grown conventionally versus organically or Regeneratively, we need to look at the positive medical benefits of eliminating exposure to the pesticide, fungicide and herbicide residue we currently consume as part of our food. We could be spending more on medical treatments than we do on food. Not good.
Do you see that you’ve decided to appeal as “we” instead of “me”?
“Organic agriculture everywhere can today, optimistically, support 4.7 billion people”
And at what INCREASED cost? I can afford to buy some organic foods, but billions of people cannot.
The only way organic agriculture can support so many people is if most of them work in the agriculture industry. And the only way those workers can afford the food they grow is if they get paid very well to do the work. There is a reason we all do not grow our own food–we get paid way more to do other things, and can go buy the food.
It is amusing that the arguments focus on either/or without a consideration for combination methods. The goal of agriculture is the same as any venture. Maximum profits and production with minimum inputs, and sustaining this model.
Every farm unit is different and requires different approaches for the best productivity. Approaches may include animal husbandry and organic methods as well as chemical fertilizers and pesticides. Often more than one method of production can be incorporated on the same farm. It all depends on efficiency and thus profitability which is usually tied to maximizing productivity.
The main component of agriculture are soils and water. some types of mono culture can burn through soil and water resources in a relatively short period of time. This is evident in many areas including newer populations like the U.S.A.. There lies the importance of sustainability as a management consideration.
Several points on why not to panic.
“Personally, I’d like to see the developed East and West return to above replacement levels of fertility”
“ banter and debate tends to bifurcate everything into opposing clean neat categories”
—-
“the developed East and West”
“tends to bifurcate everything into opposing clean neat categories”
—-
“East and West”
“bifurcate into categories”
—
It’s difficult to have opinions without defining terms.
Thanks Kevin for the constructive criticism. Much appreciated.
I will define them as best I can.
“East and West” developed countries:
East: China, Russia, Korea, Japan etc how have fertility rates well below replacement levels where there is serious risk of population collapse
West: USA, Commonwealth countries, Europe, Brazil etc… below replacement fertility rates who are sustaining populations with immigration.
The undeveloped world of African, Central Asia, SE Asia, etc have fertility rates well above replacement levels.
What I want is the entire world to be above replacement levels because I do not buy the narrative that people will destroy the world via CO2. People will adapt.. Having a two tier world divided by growing populations and dying populations means future competition for people for labor and/or to sustain markets. This presents an extreme risk of victimization of masses of migrating disempowered people…. which is already happening. It’s better simply to develop the undeveloped countries and for the whole world to sustain and/or grow it’s population. We need to stop the dystopic narrative in the west about climate and economics and return to sanity before many families are harmed.
“Bifurcate into categories”. This means the current style of popular polemics tends to make distinctions of separation when in reality many things are “both/and” or are distinctions without separation…or complex and multi-faceted. Reality is complex and multifaced. In our current world of narrative management you are either “right or wrong” regardless of the rigor of the argument and facts. People are are advocating for one reality (Obama and Gates in other WUWT posts). To achieve “one reality” means narrative management to a massive degree. It also begs the question about the nature of reality ….that it can be controlled or shaped.
There is only one reality. Semantics aside, if there were many realities many of us would cease to exit within our purview due to the desynchronization of the now moment shared consciousness. LOL!.
Reply to JC.
We are told regularly that our food wastage in New Zealand is very high by one arm of government .
Then another arm of government ( food safety ) are deliberately causing more wastage .
Here is one example ,a group of me and my friends traveled over to the Bay of Plenty and brought back two tonne of gold kiwi fruit that had been rejected on the pack line at an export pack house .
Nice fruit but with small blemished on the outside skin.
We were not allowed to sell them but we delivered them to three retirement villages which included rest homes .The people were very grateful and could not thank us enough. The fourth rest home who knew us very well .had employed a contractor to do the cooking and they would not accept the free fruit for their people,citing food safety regulations .
Bloody ridiculous.
Thanks Graham,
Something has gone haywire globally in the West with food regulations that is causing much waste. I don’t understand it. It is a worthy topic of research and discussion.
In Pennsylvania where I live, there has been many efforts to regulate small growers and farmers markets and family garden road side stands…they have failed but the fight continues. I could make assumptions about where the push for stupid regulations are coming from but in our day of AI and people hardly remembering or paying attention or thinking through anything…..it is as if people have lost their minds and have capitulated to algorithm and programs without any knowledge of the actual outcomes. In the long run, we pay and they get the tax break and that is all that matters.
For instance, If I grew meat rabbits, I would have to sell them live for the people to take home and slaughter and butcher them. They cannot be butchered and sold retail unless is it coming from a large regulated plant. But I can butcher my on hogs and beef and sell them. What’s up with that?
There is huge waste on the front end as well… another topic for another post.
Until then, keep seeking and buying the spotted fruit…. it’s cheaper. LOL And canning and drying are a thing. Lemons and grapefruit are crazy expensive in the supermarket… .I got to second sales places and save 60% for so called defective fruit.
Amazing, the one child policy did not make my first few scroll-downs through population control comments. Some people must be more equal than others.
Still not mentioned. What had been the world’s most populous nation reducing itself by possibly half is not mentionable in a public forum. There must be reasons worth thinking about.
Lomborg is optimistic. In Gaia’s Limits in the long food chapter I went very carefully throughs lots of stuff. Caloric needs, dietary changes (more poultry with higher feed/food conversion ratio, less beef), arable land changes (irrigation) every regionally important crop with yield gains and pest losses… In the most optimistic scenario (no limitations on virtual water, no limitations of fertilizers, continued historical yield improvements…) the world can feed a maximum of about 10.3-10.5 billion people. That number will be reached per the UN about 2050.
I’ve often said buying organic food is a way to show you have way,way more money than brains…
Hello, is no one paying attention to the graphics on this site? There is no warming. Just look (Link)
Well Engineered Soil Restoration Programs for Revitalizing NORMAL Soil Biology to Agricultural Croplands has been demonstrated to produce yields equal to current “Dead Soil” Agriculture (“Industrial Ag” as Bjorn calls it) after only several years of transition. AND… Top “Soil Regen” Programs like AEG’s (Advancing Eco Agriculture) are more profitable even DURING The “risky” TRANSITION Phase (1st ~3-4 years).
Soil Restoration goes WAY BEYOND “Organic Farming”…. which still relies heavily on destructive tillage practices. The end product is 4 TIMES more Photosynthesis occurring in the Cash Crop and Cover Crop Plants… that EXTRA ENERGY feeds Soils with TONS and TONS of Organic Matter every year… while making plants nearly impervious to common diseases and pests. Soil Water retention improves 10 to 20 times (Incredible “Flood-Proof” 10″-20″/hour rainwater retention — refilling aquifers). Input Costs are eventually 75% lower and the end products are nutritionaly superior.
Cattle can be extremely valuable (and profitable) in the Soil Restoration Process while producing healthier and far more nutritious beef products (E.g. Great tasting beef with more Omega-3 Fatty Acids than Wild Salmon).
CO2 Sequestration Benchmarks are significant (up to 50 tons of CO2/Hectare after a decade)…enough to “suck” all the current CO2 from the air (which the Oceans would quickly “refill”, of course).
This new Soil Biology Science is something very much worth becoming acquainted with.
Start with YouTube Videos under “Soil Regeneration”. Amazing stuff.
If someone chooses to grow organic that is fine by me. If someone chooses to not go organic that is also fine. Organic farming as far as I know is mostly done by small family owned farms. I live in an area not conducive to large scale farming operations. Just so government stays out of your choice is of paramount importance.