What is the best criticism of regenerative ag? Everything I see about it is so positive that it seems crazy everyone hasn't switched. Are there really no downsides and it's just institutional inertia/caution holding everyone back?
My biggest concern about it is that half its advocates say crazy things. For instance, down-thread we got the line:
"[Paul Wheaton] believes that in a decade the soil will be so rich in organic matter with healthy microbial activity (with no chemical history) could produce food that cures cancer. I believe that in an environment where human body is not weakened by the constant bombardment of chemical compounds, it could heal itself from cancer."
I do my best to keep an open mind because, hey, a lot of bits and pieces sound plausible, but whenever I get to lines about cancer-curing food, I begin to doubt the truth, validity or factual nature of anything else that was said on the topic.
Aside from that, the biggest question is always going to be "Does it scale to growing sufficient food for 10 billion people?" Maybe it does, maybe it doesn't, but whenever food comes up keep in mind that end game. If a particular agricultural system could produce food at lower energy costs, more sustainably, "better", but could only feed a billion people applied globally, it's only an acceptable solution in very particular moral frameworks.
That's a reasonable response, but it's actually totally normal to have expertise in one domain and totally wacky ideas in another one.
It's even possible to combine these things, although that's a dangerous game to play. Biodynamic agriculture is a great example of this, Rudolph Steiner's model of how agriculture (and scientific matters in general) is... heterodox... but biodynamic farms regularly produce good crops of quality food, and the practices cultivate healthy soil by any objective measure you would care for.
I wouldn't go casually trying this with medicine, where practitioners are more likely to do the wrong thing for the wrong reasons, rather than the right thing for the wrong reasons.
Paul Wheaton is a grifter, petty tyrant, and mini Hubbard who has built a cult around himself.
He bans anyone from the permaculture subreddit who disagrees with him, which is why there are multiple off-shoot subreddits, including one specifically dedicated to his malfeasance which broaches into criminality.
This guy has control of the permaculture subreddit? That's awful. Permaculture is a great and important movement.
Does anybody know why movements rooted in holism keep getting taken over by people like this? It seems like every movement that starts out by wanting to incorporate high-level perspectives ends up getting burdened with the crystal-spinners and magic-cancer-curers of the world.
I've experienced this, and I've learned to search for the grains of truth. At core, the people doing this are highly disagreeable, and so they form their own opinions and go deep.
I think going deep into crazy is natural, and the hard question is trying to balance that out with a deeper truth. At core, I think there is a deeper value in being the control group outside of the modern world.
So, can food cure cancer? I don't know, but it may be worth looking into. Amish, for instance, have 40% less cancer. Is it the food? the air? the bacteria? the hard work? No Idea!
Myself, I'm getting firmly on the fasting train. I eat every other day, and I feel great.
The study of cancer among the Amish found lower incidence of only a subset of cancers, essentially the ones related to not drinking or smoking, sun exposure (wearing long clothes and big hats), and having few sexual partners.
Life expectancy should really only be talked about in terms of expected lifespan of someone who's already made it to say 3 years old.
Otherwise, we get a very distorted view of modern medicine's ability to stave off death. Modern medicine has really done well at reducing infant mortality though.
A person could totally be an expert on soil and sustainable agriculture and know nothing useful about medicine. In fact, that is what I would expect. Listen to the experts on their subject of expertise, and take the rest with a huge grain of salt.
The problem is deciding whether someone is actually an expect in a subject area where I'm not.
People can say things that are patently absurd about one field while being an expert in another, but I also can't just be completely credulous in treating any assertion about any subject I do not understand as true. I don't really have much else to do but build out from a network of trust rooted in people who seem competent and clear-minded by whatever criteria I can judge.
Replies to your questions are good. I'd say the yield downside is the most glaring. Farmers really can't afford a have a self-imposed 'bad' year while they try to adopt new practices. Bankers and lenders (which farmers rely on for operating loans might not even approve--IDK). It absolutely takes some trial and error as no 2 farms are the same. This also hurts testing things out in a smaller scale on your farm. You need to borrow/rent equipment or buy the equipment. But when you buy equipment without the scale, it basically adds overhead (with additional risk to the downside for yields).
People don't like to admit it, but yields under current intense monoculture, fertilizer happy are best-case scenario. This is obvious and intended, we're squeezing as much yield as possible without care for long-term consequences. Those yields might not be achievable under regenerative practices (but they might be in certain farms). For some reason, we have this mindset where we can't give up any yield, but in reality, if the economic models and government subsidies were redesigned, we absolutely could.
I don’t think the yield downside is a given though. Gabe Brown sees >20% more yield than his counties average using regenerative methods. I want to see more data but I’m hopeful that as regenerative ag practices begin to be improved and honed across the United States, the yield problem will go away.
Yield is an important measurement though. Nutrition is a fine metric, but some things grown in permaculture are not nutritive. They may grow nitrogen-fixers, shade plants, fodder, etc. These don't provide 'yield', but reduce outside inputs.
The most important thing is to change how you think about yield. Yield/acre needs to take into account how much outside inputs are involved (trucked in fertilizers, mechanical inputs, etc).
It's absolutely correct to measure how we're doing. It's tricky when the units of measurement are not the same. It's harder still where there are so many types of soil/climate conditions and so many types of output to measure. But we can't just ignore output if we want to improve or give prospective adopters some idea of risk (they are literally betting their farms on it afterall).
It should be, but isn't for many crops. Commodity crops are incentivized for quantity. Many fruits and vegetables are bred for storage and transportability, not nutritional value or taste.
As i've said in other threads we have many misaligned incentives in agriculture that we're seeing play out. if you click my bio, I post blogs about these topics and more
No-till agriculture, as an example, usually requires different capital equipment for the farm.
It's not a blocker, but financing the capital equipment takes some investment and risk. Farms are fairly dialed into their operations already, and getting people to change (especially when they need to pay money to do it) is a slow process.
One of the problems with no till is that the equipment, or at least some of it, hasn't been invented yet and could be considered 'cutting edge' in that manner.
No till farming is widespread especially in Australia for decades. Nearly all dryland farms take this approach. It just means controlling fallow weeds without tillage, usually with herbicide. Then plant straight through the previous crop residue. This preserves moisture in the soil and the soil structure. Planters mostly do this fine. I'm not sure what has not yet been invented elsewhere.
Crops can be integrated and still planted and harvested mechanically. Planting differing height crops or same height crops with different seed sizes you can still use machines and harvest multiple crops from the same time/land.
Yield for some crops is actually more after the ~3 year transition period. However, for all crops quality is greatly improved. Better quality means you need to eat less to be satiated.
If there were a way to differentiate higher quality food in the store it doesn't need to cost more. People will prefer the higher quality produce and the low quality producers will need to adapt or die.
Higher quality food should cost more - it costs more to produce.
I'm envious of Japan's 'designer produce' tied to their gift culture. America doesn't really have much "This fruit is so much better, people are willing to pay 10x+ for it". I think our food system would be much better if we had $20 versions of all produce to get people to stop treating produce as fungible commodities.
Produce grown regeneratively doesnt cost more to produce mostly because of the lessened or eliminated chemical inputs. That doesnt mean that regenerative farmers arent getting a premium for their product. But, that is more the demand warrants a premium than a higher cost to produce.
American farms can be truely vast, so any statement on averages is swayed by this. The article says they are planting 4,500 acres this year.
When you look up average US farm sizes it is hard to know what to compare it to as monocropping or single breed farming seem to be the standard. However you do it, the farm planting is a lot smaller than 4500 acres.
They might not be farming at a scale big ag run at, but it’s no small operation.
The below link says “The midpoint acreage for U.S. cropland nearly doubled between 1982 and 2007, from 589 acres to 1,105.”
Would disagree with the automated comment. Most thing in regenerative ag are just as automated as conventional ag, unless you're thinking of something specific?
I'm probably thinking along the lines of perma-culture and bio-mimicry where things are all mixed up in a more natural way. Essentially, you don't have giant machines since there are too many edge cases.
It takes about 3 years for the soil to come back to life and it does take more management. During the transition period yields are reduced. Regenerative Ag also takes more farmers as a singer farmer can't manage as much land.
It is crazy that everyone hasn't switched. It is more profitable but it is a leap of faith to switch and most ag extensions are still recommending high chem use. There are some hang ups with crop subsidies making it difficult to change also.
But, the tide has changed as evidenced by this article. General Mills is pushing for 1 million regenerative farmed acres by 2030. The transition is happening but as with any paradigm shift it takes time to convince everybody that there is a better way.
It's more that it requires to leave the mainstream system, because the fertilizer and pesticides that destroyed your soil are the money-making machines of "Big Ag" corporations.
Regenerative ag will not make you very rich either, so you have not much money to invest in lobbying activities, to go against the flow.
How do you figure? Regenerative ag is still relatively new, and it’s practices are being honed. Idk what you define as rich but I’d venture to guess that Joel Salatin and Gabe Brown are extremely wealthy.
Look into Chris Newman at Sylvanaqua farms. Scale and social-economic accessibility are some of the big ones. He critiques a pattern of "circle citation" within the community.
