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by merlinran 1379 days ago
Industrialized agriculture would push most people out of land (no longer need that many people), and if the people can't find alternative for living they would be even poorer. If there are better alternatives, peasant farmers will chase them anyway.

There are also better ways for agriculture which can regenerate soil, maintain biodiversity while at the same time harvest more.
1 comments
Jeff_Brown 1379 days ago
> Industrialized agriculture would push most people out of land (no longer need that many people), and if the people can't find alternative for living they would be even poorer.

The places where industrial agriculture has taken off, that seems not to be the story. Grandparents in China are thrilled to see their children working city jobs. It's a hard life still, but much easier than they had.

> regenerate soil, maintain biodiversity while at the same time harvest more.

I very much want those things. And corporations do sometimes make stupid decisions. But it's hard for me to believe there are such free lunches on a large scale. If there were, some enterprising soul ought to go start a business exploiting them, make a killing, put Monsanto out of business, etc.

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ClumsyPilot 1379 days ago
biodiversity doesnt make you money

Also there are many potential biotech revolutions - like China developing rice that can use salt water - if our crops could use seawater like the mangroves, that wouod be huge.

Another massive thing, is perrenial crops - meaning you dont have to plant them every year. There are perrenial cousins of our staple foods like wheat, but firstly they are harder to automatically harvest/manage, secondly they do not benefit from thousands of years of selective breeding. So we gave to invest massive amounts of money to ger their yields up, and even if you do, there is no guarantee consumers will eat them - they taste a bit different

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Jeff_Brown 1379 days ago
If they're productive enough, they'll be cheap enough that consumers will accept a little taste difference.

Fun fact: Italians hated tomatoes for centuries.

https://lithub.com/unhealthy-smelly-and-strange-why-italians...

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ClumsyPilot 1378 days ago
You are talking a muti-billion investment that will take decades to yield fruit, that people might hate the taste for for centuries?

When most corporate leaders don't care what happens 2 years from now?

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