Indian Farming Faces Collapse.

[mr friendly guy]

They have similar yields and taste, and intergenerational survivability (tested to an extent), but the crops may not be stable enough.

What do you mean "not stable." Do you mean the producers have to provide new seeds to farmers every year / few years etc.

[K. A. Pital]

They have similar yields and taste, and intergenerational survivability (tested to an extent), but the crops may not be stable enough.

What do you mean "not stable." Do you mean the producers have to provide new seeds to farmers every year / few years etc.

Yes, so far some of the plants survive for four generations or about that. That's a very good record actually; some plants die in a generation or are unable to produce stable offspring (i.e. offspring having the same characteristics allowing it to survive).

So that would mean constant re-creation of seeds. Plants need a little more stability than that. At least, if I understand the mechanics correctly - the plant offspring shoudln't lose the characteristics of the original GM variety.

You can read more here
http://www.mindfully.org/GE/GE2/China-S ... gation.htm

[mr friendly guy]

Thats an interesting first step. From what I understand of a lot of GM crops being grown in developing nations, the farmers have to buy new crops from the GM company after one season anyway, so this might help even if they don't manage to get it to live more than the current four generations.

Yeah, science fuck yeah.

[cosmicalstorm]

I realize there are some possible remedies such as nuclear power combined with massive desalinization efforts, super GM plants, measures to curb population growth.

- But realistically, will any of these measures be introduced in the right time, and in the right amount to ward of this problem?

- When will this stop being an exclusive problem for dirt poor third worlders and start becoming a real problem for people in Europe or the US?

- What will happen to the ordinary citizen of Europe or the US when this problem begins to unfold "for real"? (i.e reduced standards of life or death by starvation?)

[Broomstick]

Column A is easy. Restrict women to having no more than two children.

So... a woman is only permitted 2 children, but a man can have as many as he wants by serially impregnating women? I'm going to be generous and assume you meant individuals can only have two children. Either that was clumsily worded or sexist. (I will remind you that societies with greater equality for women tend to have lower birth rates.)

And then watch western democracies crumble because most women (not to mention men) likely don't want to have such limits even if it makes sense,

I thought it was the western democracies where people are reproducing under the replacement rate.

Were that not an issue, however, you can watch the global population slowly decline to a more manageable number through attrition. Accidents still happen. Not all children will reach an adult age where they can make more children.

That, and not all adults can have children, nor do all adults want children.

[Broomstick]

They have similar yields and taste, and intergenerational survivability (tested to an extent), but the crops may not be stable enough.

What do you mean "not stable." Do you mean the producers have to provide new seeds to farmers every year / few years etc.

Yes, so far some of the plants survive for four generations or about that. That's a very good record actually; some plants die in a generation or are unable to produce stable offspring (i.e. offspring having the same characteristics allowing it to survive).

So that would mean constant re-creation of seeds. Plants need a little more stability than that. At least, if I understand the mechanics correctly - the plant offspring shoudln't lose the characteristics of the original GM variety.

Hybrid crops - the vast majority grown commercially - aren't "stable" in that sense at all (the next generation do not retain the characteristics of the parents) and require production of new hybrid seeds every year, yet that has not impeded their use. Then again, I'm presuming it costs less to produce hybrids rather than GM plants, which may be a significant factor there.

[Kuroji]

So... a woman is only permitted 2 children, but a man can have as many as he wants by serially impregnating women? I'm going to be generous and assume you meant individuals can only have two children. Either that was clumsily worded or sexist. (I will remind you that societies with greater equality for women tend to have lower birth rates.)

Clumsily worded, yes. It simply occurred to me that the easiest way would be to sterilize after the second child is born, but it shouldn't just be women undergoing it, no. As to your other point, I was chalking that up to attrition as well. It would take a while to bring the numbers back down, but reducing the world's population would require a concentrated and global effort.

Quite frankly before global population controls could be put into place you'd need a unified world government.

[Alyrium Denryle]

Both steps will require time. Seawater irrigation alleviates some problems, but it can't fully alleviate the production crunch in freshwater-irrigated lands, unless I'm badly mistaken about it's territorial capacity (because plants still need soils, etc.). It's useful to turn shores and salty swamps near ocean shores into farmland, but that's the end of it. You can't plant without soil.

The problem with that is that we also need coastal wetlands. They act as storm buffers, and act as very very very important steps in global nutrient cycles. If we were to convert our coastline over to crops, these functions would be lost, and only a very few crops can be grown in waterlogged soils in the first place because they have issues dealing with the hypoxia in their root systems that comes with being flooded.

More than that, in order to get high crop yields out of these methods we would still need to pour nutrients into the soil. Now, rather than have to head down a watershed and get at least partially taken up by plants and sequestered in soils, these nutrients would go direction into the ocean and cause massive algal blooms. Red tide frequency would increase (more than the x200 increase they have in recent decades), and massive swaths of coastal ocean would become hypoxic and fatal to all life that uses anything but extreme benthic waters during any stage of its life cycle.

Global nutrient cycles would be thrown into more chaos than they already are, and the ocean would die.

- But realistically, will any of these measures be introduced in the right time, and in the right amount to ward of this problem?

Nope. Billions of people are fucked, and nature will be raped wholesale in a failed effort to save them.

- When will this stop being an exclusive problem for dirt poor third worlders and start becoming a real problem for people in Europe or the US?

Maybe, but for the most part, brown people are going to die.

[Broomstick]

You know, I am not comfortable with using the code phrase "brown people" for "people in the third world". The real distinction between survival and death in the worst-case scenarios being thrown about is not skin color but location - the brown people in North America, Europe, Australia, and some parts of Asia will likely survive at the same rate as Caucasians in those locations. Likewise, white people in third world shitholes will die at the same rate as the brown people (barring those who can go elsewhere - but that would also apply to brown people, as some are more able to go elsewhere than others).

Yes, there will be a higher percentage of brown faces among the starving, and a higher percentage of white faces among the fed, but the real difference here is wealth. Regardless of complexion, the wealthy are more likely to survive than the poor. It's about money more than race, even if race is a factor in how likely you are to be wealthy.

[Broomstick]

And doesn't this typically lead to wrangling over whether or not they should be able to use water from the Great Lakes? I recall hearing about this every now and then, usually beginning over some small town barely outside the Great Lakes watershed that wants to use that water, and talking about the reverse flow of the Chicago River as justification.

People out west have been trying to float the idea of using water from the Great Lakes for western farming. Those who live near the great lakes laugh at the notion because:

1) As noted, even towns in close proximity to the great lakes but on the wrong side of the watershed divide don't even have access to lake water, much less some place like Arizona and Nevada, and

2) After seeing what's happened to rivers like the Colorado there ain't no way in hell anyone in the great lakes watershed is going to consent to shipping the water elsewhere.

[MKSheppard]

Is Alyrium always this retarded? No wait, he is.

Step 1.) Build Nuclear Power.

Step 2.) Build giant greenhouses.

Step 3.) Pipe salt water to greenhouses.

Step 4.) PROFITTTT!

There are already pilots that show the way forward for greenhouse farms; f'r example there's Backyard Farms which has a nice huge 1 million square foot greenhouse (six wal mart super centers or 20 football fields) which cranks out tomahtoes year round........in MAINE.



The place can grow 240,000 tomahto plants, and produces a million tomahtoes a WEEK of consistent quality, because when the sun isn't shining that well, grow lamps come on (there comes in NUKCLEAR POWER).

The big bonus that stands out to me other than a year round growing season in the greenhouse is that there would be virtually no pests at all; thus dramatically reducing the amount of pesticides you need to spay.

The biggest problem in supplying these places would be in the amount of water they'd require for year round growing operations -- but that's where SALT WATER GM CROPS COME IN. You can just situate them a mile or two inland from the ocean; and pump the saltwater over via huge pumps (and NUKLEAR POWER).

You'd also need some sort of filtration pond near the greenhouse, since even with much reduced pesticide and fertilizer needs (since you have a year round growing season, you don't need to fertilize the fuck out of the place); over a 365 day growing season, you'd get plenty of contaminants which would need to be filtered out.

Yeah...this is all feasible.

The fun would be when it is deployed on a large scale, with factory farming driving out traditional farmers in the coastal states.

[Einzige]

Bullshit. That requires massive government investing which we cannot now afford and you well fucking know it. If we had hundreds of billions to throw away on pipe-dreams and licorice, maybe. But there is thankfully no public will to undertake so massive a public works' project.

[MKSheppard]

Bullshit. That requires massive government investing which we cannot now afford and you well fucking know it.

Considering that the above thing was put together for uh....$25 million with private venture funding. Ha yeah, you can go fuck yourself.

[Einzige]

Bullshit. That requires massive government investing which we cannot now afford and you well fucking know it.

Considering that the above thing was put together for uh....$25 million with private venture funding. Ha yeah, you can go fuck yourself.

That plant produces fifty-two million tomatoes a year. The typical American consumes "about 80 pounds of tomatoes per year." Assuming America's population remains stagnant at exactly three-hundred and fifty million persons, and generously assigning each tomato a weight of one pound, you'd need over two thousand such facilities simply to match present tomato intake. You will not get private investment enough to construct two thousand tomato growing operations. In short, it's a ridiculous fucking idea and not at all a solution except on - perhaps - a local level.

[Serafina]

Sure, because every big project has to be done in one giant leap instead of, oh, i don't know - building a couple each year, increasing the numbers as experience makes the building process cheaper?

[Einzige]

Sure, because every big project has to be done in one giant leap instead of, oh, i don't know - building a couple each year, increasing the numbers as experience makes the building process cheaper?

In the event of a full-scale farming collapse in India, which is what I gathered from the initial article, why yes, it does.

[Serafina]

Sure, because every big project has to be done in one giant leap instead of, oh, i don't know - building a couple each year, increasing the numbers as experience makes the building process cheaper?

In the event of a full-scale farming collapse in India, which is what I gathered from the initial article, why yes, it does.

But in that case, it would also safe thousands or millions of lifes. That would certainly be worth such an investment, don't you think?

[Phantasee]

I'm sure your hot houses and nuclear power could save the tomatoes, Shep. What do you plan on doing about grains like wheat?

Whether it's practical or not, I'd prefer to not be surrounded by huge domes, and I'm sure the people of the Ukraine and the Punjab would feel similarly.

[Einzige]

Sure, because every big project has to be done in one giant leap instead of, oh, i don't know - building a couple each year, increasing the numbers as experience makes the building process cheaper?

In the event of a full-scale farming collapse in India, which is what I gathered from the initial article, why yes, it does.

But in that case, it would also safe thousands or millions of lifes. That would certainly be worth such an investment, don't you think?

Look at it this way: we're not talking just about building a couple thousand massive greenhouses, but also, at least in Shep's masturbatory fantasy, the nuclear generators to power grow-lamps. Building one generator is always a multi-year construction project, and usually a government initiative. It's simply not doable in any reasonable time-frame. If the nuclear infrastructure was already in place, then yes, I'd say go for it. But it isn't, and it's hard to tackle massive construction projects when your work-force is famished.

[Alyrium Denryle]

You'd also need some sort of filtration pond near the greenhouse, since even with much reduced pesticide and fertilizer needs (since you have a year round growing season, you don't need to fertilize the fuck out of the place); over a 365 day growing season, you'd get plenty of contaminants which would need to be filtered out.

Einzige managed to pin the tail on the donkey with the logistical problems of doing this. To say nothing of the costs, and cost inflation to farmers due to proprietary "wetware". You forget the scaling. Sure. That works to produce tomatoes on a small scale. Good for them. However for the US's tomato consumption alone you need 2000 of them, assuming the same population which is a false assumption. What about wheat, corn, cabage, lettuce, rice? Do I need to go on you myopic sociopathic sack of shit? Hell, where are you going to get the nuclear plants required exactly? It would be great if the political will existed to do this. However it does not. By the time it does, it will be too late because we only have a few decades.

As for the fertilizer. No shep. We do not fertilize crops because of a limited growing season, or to compensate for a lack of light. We fertilize them because there is not enough nitrogen and phosphorus in the soil to meet the growth rates we squeeze out of the plants. The rate at which bacterial can facilitate nitrification of organically bound nitrogen, and fix atmospheric nitrogen into forms plants can take up and use is fixed. So we dump already useable nitrogen (and phosphorus) into the soil in massive quantities.

Learn what the fuck you are talking about before you speak.

[Serafina]

Regarding Einzige:
I mostly conceed my points. I still think that it is an interesting approach, but i honestly failed to consider the logistical implementations.

Therefore:
/Conceeded

[MKSheppard]

Assuming America's population remains stagnant at exactly three-hundred and fifty million persons, and generously assigning each tomato a weight of one pound, you'd need over two thousand such facilities simply to match present tomato intake.

The funny thing is greenhouse grown tomatos as an industry is experiencing solid steady growth -- because guess what, the economics on producing the stuff in greenhouses makes it insanely competitive, allowing it to be grown economically and at a profit in states other than florida.

[Phantasee]

Assuming America's population remains stagnant at exactly three-hundred and fifty million persons, and generously assigning each tomato a weight of one pound, you'd need over two thousand such facilities simply to match present tomato intake.

The funny thing is greenhouse grown tomatos as an industry is experiencing solid steady growth -- because guess what, the economics on producing the stuff in greenhouses makes it insanely competitive, allowing it to be grown economically and at a profit in states other than florida.

But how well does it do growing things other than tomatoes? Last I checked, the Prairies and the Ukraine and the Punjab weren't huge tomato exporters.

[Alyrium Denryle]

You know, I am not comfortable with using the code phrase "brown people" for "people in the third world". The real distinction between survival and death in the worst-case scenarios being thrown about is not skin color but location - the brown people in North America, Europe, Australia, and some parts of Asia will likely survive at the same rate as Caucasians in those locations

Yes, but countries that are predominantly brown will get hit harder and will garner less sympathy in the developed world than white folks in the third world will. Maybe I am just being cynical.

[Alyrium Denryle]

Assuming America's population remains stagnant at exactly three-hundred and fifty million persons, and generously assigning each tomato a weight of one pound, you'd need over two thousand such facilities simply to match present tomato intake.

The funny thing is greenhouse grown tomatos as an industry is experiencing solid steady growth -- because guess what, the economics on producing the stuff in greenhouses makes it insanely competitive, allowing it to be grown economically and at a profit in states other than florida.

Is the growth rate enough for it to take over production of pretty much every food crop within 20 years? If not, shut the fuck up.