I suspected as much. I guess I misread it.
I've read a few books by Dawkins (not his anti-religious texts, though I support most of his position) and a few papers from genetic evolutionists. I've tended to think of things in terms of biology since HS. I understand the Cycle of Life and the importance of biodiversity, so you're preaching to the choir here..
That still doesn't change my opinion of genetic modification and engineering. Nature Herself makes more mutations than we could ever hope to introduce into the system in the near to mid-term future. We changed the bio-landscape a hell of a lot more with farms and pastures and we keep adding to that acreage every year. Where is the outrage from that? Nowhere to be seen because we need it for survival. I'd rather see genetically engineered plants and maybe some modified bugs instead of more herbicides, pesticides, and decreasing natural acreage.
The human population is going to continue to grow so we need to make some choices. Genetic modification and engineering OR a decrease in natural areas and more chemicals in the environment. I've made my choice, how about you?
"Humans have been farming for 10,000 years. Sixty years ago, after World War II, we started industrializing U.S. farming operations through a mix of policy decisions and accidents of history. This method of farming is neither inevitable nor efficient. More to the point, it can't be sustained." :
Industrial Agriculture | Pesticide Action Network
The Industrial Revolution for Dummies (World History) - YouTube
To behave like a cancer and then fool yourself into thinking you have the cure with more cancerous behavior is not an option in my book.
Unfortunately many humans have decided to let others do all the hard (less important in their view) labor type work while they devote their lives to the pursuit of miscalculated perceptions of 'convenience' and 'efficiency' due largely to their schooling or training = minds conditioned to think certain ways.
One of the main reasons the land has been done the way you say is because people turned their backs on the land that feeds them in pursuit of 'loftier' goals such as going to school to become molecular biologist's or a chemical engineer's etc and within that training process the mind is mined for any and all conscience related thinking and replaced with a framed or boxed in type of thinking that accepts certain premisses without question and within that initial acceptance of the 'framework' one finds justifiable excuses to set aside ones conscience or redefine/rewire it backwards. Such training convinces the student that critical thinking exists within that higher edu framework when all the while its like teaching someone that suicide is actually survival...a very profitable game that.
First thing one must do when bidding for central control of everything is to redesign the social structure and culture etc and the first job in that effort is to lure folks out of the garden, its easy, you just hold up a bright shinny well waxed apple because such is apparently irresistible to humans.
Once folks are lured out of the garden and no longer 'grow their own', they then are simply helpless lambs for the slaughter because now they have become dependent on their 'big brother' for food and clothing and shelter and everything else.
The land can only support us if we each partner with it as our ancestors did.
Corporate interests influence everything, including the notion of how much land it takes to feed one human, more boxed in thinking etc.
The truth is a very large amount of food can be grown in a very small area if working with nature instead of against it.
Grow your own...
6,000 lbs of food on 1/10th acre - Urban Farm - Urban Homestead
"Crop yields are only part of the organic vs. conventional farming debate"
By Parke Wilde, 3 May 2012
"A version of this post originally appeared on U.S. Food Policy.
Photo by Alternative Heat."
"The journal Nature recently had an interesting meta-analysis — or quantitative literature review — about yields from organic agriculture. It’s called “Organic farming is rarely enough,” and the accompanying summary says, “Conventional agriculture gives higher yields under most situations.” This is probably true.
Yet even environmentalists are overreacting to the study. A recent article by Bryan Walsh at TIME magazine’s Ecocentric blog is titled, “Why Organic Agriculture May Not Be So Sustainable.”
The evidence Walsh presents fails to support the headline, though the article does begin with two good points: Organic agriculture does often produce less food per acre (see the Nature article above). And environmentalists should care about efficiency. Getting more output for lower resource cost is good environmentalism.
Mostly, though, Walsh repeats common overstatements of the advantages of conventional agriculture. He writes, “Conventional industrial agriculture has become incredibly efficient on a simple land to food basis. Thanks to fertilizers, mechanization and irrigation, each American farmer feeds over 155 people worldwide.”
But environmentalists discussing conventional agriculture should also remember several key themes.
Not all productive technology improves the environment. Many technologies used in conventional agriculture are designed to save labor, not to save land. In Walsh’s quote above, huge mechanized combines elevate the number of people fed per American farmer, but they make little difference to yields per unit of land (the key environmental issue addressed by the Nature study). From one sentence to the next, Walsh conflates food per American farmer with efficiency “on a simple land to food basis.”
Yield is not the same as efficiency. Organic agriculture commonly requires a trade-off, giving up some yield and undertaking some additional labor and management cost in order to gain something of value for the producer and for the environment. Advocates for organic agriculture say the trade-off is efficient — getting the most output for the lowest resource cost when all environmental costs are accounted. Walsh’s first sentence boasts of the “efficiency” of industrial agriculture, but the following argument fails to support the boast.
Producing more grain is not the same as feeding the world. Any time the high yields of U.S. corn production are mentioned, it should be noted that most U.S. corn goes to ethanol and animal feed. Walsh seems to think that Iowa corn farmers do well at feeding the most people possible for the least land, which is false. If the goal is to feed the world, then most of the calories produced in Iowa corn fields are squandered already, and this loss matters more than the organic yield penalty matters.
Most hard-headed, well-grounded advocates for organic agriculture already understand the yield tradeoffs, and they already value efficiency. For example, Rodale studies over the years have always claimed that lower chemical input costs offset modest yield differences — a claim that may be nearly consistent the new Nature study.
I have sometimes met beginning organic farmers who are dismissive of yields and efficiency. But I have never met an organic farmer who has been in business for five years and remains dismissive of yields and efficiency.
There is one lesson in this whole argument for organic advocates. It is important to speak plainly about yield differences and about efficiency. Perhaps Walsh was not sufficiently familiar with hard-headed, well-grounded research on organic practices, but instead may have been reading some excessively optimistic pro-organic public relations. Then, when the PR message was contradicted by the Nature study, Walsh overreacted. It is best all around to state the relative advantages of environmentally sound production practices plainly and precisely from the start.
Parke Wilde is a food economist. He teaches graduate-level courses in statistics and U.S. food policy for the Friedman School at Tufts University and edits the U.S. Food Policy blog."
eaceCan you dig it?