O Canada! > Canadian > Canadian Chat > Any Canadian farmers care to comment?

reply to RTfM2010

Re: Any Canadian farmers care to comment?

Dandelions grow everywhere and under just about any condition. They're edible for human consumption, and in fact are quite healthy. Knowing this, he's probably not joking, and I'm surprised (... not really) that you would claim he was.

What does "high yield" have to do with calories and nutrition?

Fair enough, but you made it sound as if having a highly productive and profitable farming assembly-line operation resulted in improved nutrition or food quality. As far as the end product is concerned, it often results in neither. As anyone would know who has a decent home garden, or ever picked wild berries.
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"Everyone is entitled to their own opinion, but not their own facts."
― Daniel Patrick Moynihan

So the feeding of 7 billion people trumps everything else, at any cost?

reply to elwoodblues

Re: Any Canadian farmers care to comment?

reply to digitalfutur

reply to Gone
I find it deeply ironic that the same crowd that seems so concerned about feeding 7 billion people is not the least bit concerned about the most important prerequisite for successful and productive agriculture: a stable climate. The destabilization of the earth's climate systems being caused by their wonderful industrial and transportation systems burning fossil fuels with reckless abandon is potentially the greatest threat to the world's food supply since humanity invented agriculture. You can't grow crops or get decent yields when farmlands are either flooded or stricken by drought, destroyed by storms, or when crops are attacked by newly migrated non-indigenous pests.

Efficient food production is not the concern of the pro-business right-wingers, it's profit, pure and simple, and nothing but profit. If crop yields suffer the industry can of course charge astronomically higher prices for lesser quantities. None of which does a damn thing for the overall food supply or a starving population.

reply to Gone
According to this article, food product will have to double by 2050. That isn't going to happen without investment from the private sector. Reducing waste and improving efficiency is always part of the solution, but it's only a part of the problem. Capacity has to increase as well...the best management won't solve the problem if capacity is not increased by improving crop yields.

»www.scientificamerican.com/artic···age-maps

What is never part of the solution is an ideological war against the private sector by zealots with their "we know what's best for you because our values are better than yours."

Still waiting for the alternate plan if the private sector is out of the food production business...
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Logic requires one to deal with decisions that one's ego will not permit.
All that is necessary for the triumph of evil is that good men do nothing - Edmund Burke.

reply to Wolfie00
Good point. Global warming is a long neglected topic here on BBR. We should discuss it and shoe-horn it into each and every topic, regardless of any relevance, or attempts to separate topics into discernible sub-divisions like "threads". When your only tool is a hammer, every problem starts to look a lot like a nail, eh?

The good thing about it, is that, as we transition to 18th century farming technology, the resultant population die-off will have the much-needed benefit of having a lot fewer people around to drive cars, run factories, or require heating for their homes. So soon enough, the CO2 levels ought to pop right back down again.
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“Any claim that the root of a problem is simple should be treated the same as a claim that the root of a problem is Bigfoot. Simplicity and Bigfoot are found in the real world with about the same frequency.” – David Wong

In some circumstances, the "shoehorning" accusation might be valid. In this circumstance, it isn't, because the consequences of climate-induced massive crop failures have the potential to make all the other arguments about "high-yield crops" and "better living though chemically engineered pesticides" pale into insignificance by comparison. It's truly one of the major risks we face. That's all I plan to say about it in this thread, but I thought the comment was quite relevant. Assuming, of course, that the concern about how we continue to feed a growing world population is genuine.

reply to digitalfutur
I can't answer that question, but i do know that we can't keep modifying food the way we're doing to create large yields.

A book I read earlier in the year discussed how wheat has been so modified in the last 50yrs that it doesn't even come close to resembling what nature gave us.

The result is that its making people fat, where 50yrs ago, it didn't.
The same can be said with Corn,I watched a DOC called King Korn, and it showed how Corn has been so modified that it again doesn't resemble what nature gave us. The corn you buy frozen/in a can/fresh was never as "yellow" like it it today.

The biggest issue is that you can no longer plant anything without paying the agrochemical companies. Remember that lawsuit in Saskatchewan where some of the Monsanto modified canola migrated to his fields. Monsanto wanted $15/acre , he fought them all the way to the Supreme court, and won. All I can say is he must have been well bankrolled, because going up against Monsanto must have been very very expensive.»www.percyschmeiser.com/conflict.htm

Then we can start talking about modifying living creatures like salmon. So instead of addressing the issue of waste, global warming,etc these chemical companies modify the crap out of food, so that we produce MORE, requiring more resources such as water.

It's not "profitable" to address Global Warming, or waste, so lets make more.

Great solution.
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No, I didn't. Honest... I ran out of gas. I... I had a flat tire. I didn't have enough money for cab fare. My tux didn't come back from the cleaners. An old friend came in from out of town. Someone stole my car. There was an earthquake.......