[markdown]

> And as much as people complain about technology companies being spoiled, farmers as a whole generally have to be forced to not do things that are extremely dangerous to the environment.

"Farmers" is doing some work here. You mean corporations.

[pixl97]

No, I mean farmers. I come from a family of farmers that have been doing it long before corporations owned the world (yea, even the east India company). When poisons came out and massively increased crop yield they used that because it increased profits. When grain prices were high they'd till marginal land that was at risk of erosion because more money is better than less. Spraying huge amounts of fertilizer was fine because it more than paid for itself at the time, who cares if the rivers turn green.

We get regulations because both individuals and corporations tend to maximize the short term while intentionally neglecting or being ignorant of the long term consequences. Farmers reaped the rewards of the green revolution, but it came at a pretty great cost.

[fellowniusmonk]

I have a buddy who runs a very large and super crunchy co-op.

He's been doing it decades now, after the first 4-5 years he dropped all his small holding farmers are good and honest talk.

Verify, always verify. It's easy to tell simple and wrong stories if you neglect verification. You want someone to be honest, have a track record of verification and contracts to back it up.

[linkregister]

Farmers in Sumeria over-irrigated the land until it was rendered unusable due to oversalination. This was a gradual process occurring over hundreds of years. That occurred before the limited liability corporation was invented.

[JuniperMesos]

There's zero contradiction between these two things.