Fantastic article and Substack overall. One question I am trying to dig into is - who is working to address some of these challenges? In other words, for those who want to be part of a positive solution where can we direct our attentions?
Right now I'm focusing on our problems before turning to solutions -- I think those discussions will make more sense if it's first clear what problems I'm looking to solve. Bear with me!
Thanks for this. As an innate capitalism fan, I know I will gain some useful perspective along the way. I have a quick question though. You have a quick little dig against factory farming but it seems to me that factory farming has been one of the big success stories of the past century, increasing production at a tremendous scale and enabling us to feed many more people than we would have thought possible.
Wouldn’t we want to keep that? Are you worried about environmental impacts? Or perhaps you’re focused on animal welfare? Just curious.
Fossil fuels and factory farming were both essential technologies for overcoming mass poverty. Neither though is well suited to sustaining and elaborating mass prosperity, and so we are going to need to grow past them. More on these topics later!
How can you call factory farming a big succes ? It is a shameful development. Profit is placed before the welfare of animals and of people. Many smaller farms went out of existence. Farmers even committed suicide after losing their livelihood. Profit is made by inhuman treatment of animals and use of the cheapest labor. The workers are often (illegal) immigrants.
We do not need that much meat and we do not need it that cheap. Although, if we count all the costs, and also the damage done to the environment etc., cheap turns out to be (again) rather expensive.
I don’t disagree with some of your points, especially about animal welfare. But without Big Farma millions of people would have died of starvation in the past couple of decades. Productivity of grains and some vegetables per acre has grown tremendously and mostly due to economies of scale. To me, anyway, that’s a success story. I like non-starving people.
I have less problems with larger scale production of food crops to feed people. But "America feeds the World" is bravado, loved by owners of large farms, producers of AG equipment and the banks. I agree with you that better seeds, better fertilizer etc. can be beneficial if used properly.
The large production of - subsidized - corn is in part used to make cheap high fructose sugar to use in sodas etc. Now the US has a lot more people with type2diabetes and about half the population over 50 has NAFLD (usually undiagnosed). All needing Rxmeds and tests and treatment. Other corn is used to feed cattle - cows should be eating grass and legumes ! Cows have no digestive system for corn (deer haven't either). But it makes for cheap patties in burger joints.
Industrial sized dairy farms produce cheap milk. But milk from grass&legumes-fed cows is healthier (and better for the environment). The producers know this too: their ads show cows frolicking in a meadow full of green grass, not the rows of cows forced to stand in open sheds along the CA99 with not one sprig of grass in sight.
Hunger elsewhere in the world is often caused by military conflicts - the US has no qualms to sell weapons and ammo to either party. Other causes are lack of infrastructure, roads, transportation. I remember a country having people starving in the south and the north was exporting produce to Europe. There were no roads N-S so no way to get the food there.
Fishing fleets from Japan and now also China, overfish oceans in large factory-ships that find the fish, catch it, fillet, can or pack/freeze. The waste is thrown overboard. The local people who caught fish for generations in small boats, now catch a lot less. The US sucks the Colorado river dry, in part for AG. The result: fisherman in the Gulf lost their livelihood. Same for the corn, Mexican farmers could not compete with much lower (subsidized) US prices, lost their farms. Many went to the US and are here now illegally, often working for the large farms.
A lot of original knowledge in South America, Asia, about farming got lost thanks to the idea that bigger is better. Peru had in ancient times about 4000 different types of potatoes that were farmed according to the soil and the micro-climate, on small pieces of land.
In an Asian country bigger/better experts told farmers not to go to the temple anymore to ask the priests for advice from the local goddess. After a lot of misery/mistakes someone realized that the priests did not perform a pagan ritual but had knowledge, a data-based expert-system going back decennia about when and where to plant, to water, to harvest, in specific areas.
In some African countries food brought in as food-help put local farmers out of business and destroyed local infrastructure.
Thanks very much for the info and link. I never said "America feeds the world" so I am not sure why you bring that up. But some of your other points are salient and important. Certainly, many farming practices can and should be improved.
One of the reasons crop yields have increased so much is due to the economies of scale that large farms can achieve and small ones can't. That cutting-edge technology then becomes cheaper over time and can be diffused across smaller farms and other sectors. Here is an example of some of the technologies that this might apply to in the future: https://medium.datadriveninvestor.com/how-technology-is-being-implemented-in-agriculture-sector-657b2a8b86
If you're interested in reading from a different perspective, try the book "Resetting the Table" by Robert Paarlberg. I believe he does a good job of highlighting the benefits of Large Farma without glossing over the bad effects. Of course, you may disagree.
I'm very interested to see how Brink combines our two perspectives into a vision for the future. Thanks again for yours.
It would be useful to address the question: is part of the crisis a decline in future orientation, i.e. a decine in our cultural desire, or ability to coordinate, to lay foundations for a much better world for our children? Subquestions would include:
-- How would we measure whether this is occurring?
-- What is known about whether and how future orientation varies across cultures and times?
-- If future orientation is declining, do we have any clues as to why or what would fix it?
-- If future orientation is not declining, how do we explain the extreme difficulty of coordinating on pretty obvious investment areas, e.g. pandemic prevention, pollution reduction, healthspan and cognitive capacity extension, which have very high 50-100 year ROI we are "leaving on the table"? Is it just that these are harder coordination problems somehow than our ancestors faced and we need to up our game?
I love this comment. One thing I have been wrestling with is our current lack of a ‘story’. For most of human history, people lived in communities with very defined ‘stories’ (religious or otherwise). Without a unifying story we cannot dream of utopia and actively act on it.
Fantastic article and Substack overall. One question I am trying to dig into is - who is working to address some of these challenges? In other words, for those who want to be part of a positive solution where can we direct our attentions?
Right now I'm focusing on our problems before turning to solutions -- I think those discussions will make more sense if it's first clear what problems I'm looking to solve. Bear with me!
Really excellent. Keep recommending books too please.
Thanks for this. As an innate capitalism fan, I know I will gain some useful perspective along the way. I have a quick question though. You have a quick little dig against factory farming but it seems to me that factory farming has been one of the big success stories of the past century, increasing production at a tremendous scale and enabling us to feed many more people than we would have thought possible.
Wouldn’t we want to keep that? Are you worried about environmental impacts? Or perhaps you’re focused on animal welfare? Just curious.
Fossil fuels and factory farming were both essential technologies for overcoming mass poverty. Neither though is well suited to sustaining and elaborating mass prosperity, and so we are going to need to grow past them. More on these topics later!
How can you call factory farming a big succes ? It is a shameful development. Profit is placed before the welfare of animals and of people. Many smaller farms went out of existence. Farmers even committed suicide after losing their livelihood. Profit is made by inhuman treatment of animals and use of the cheapest labor. The workers are often (illegal) immigrants.
We do not need that much meat and we do not need it that cheap. Although, if we count all the costs, and also the damage done to the environment etc., cheap turns out to be (again) rather expensive.
I don’t disagree with some of your points, especially about animal welfare. But without Big Farma millions of people would have died of starvation in the past couple of decades. Productivity of grains and some vegetables per acre has grown tremendously and mostly due to economies of scale. To me, anyway, that’s a success story. I like non-starving people.
I have less problems with larger scale production of food crops to feed people. But "America feeds the World" is bravado, loved by owners of large farms, producers of AG equipment and the banks. I agree with you that better seeds, better fertilizer etc. can be beneficial if used properly.
The large production of - subsidized - corn is in part used to make cheap high fructose sugar to use in sodas etc. Now the US has a lot more people with type2diabetes and about half the population over 50 has NAFLD (usually undiagnosed). All needing Rxmeds and tests and treatment. Other corn is used to feed cattle - cows should be eating grass and legumes ! Cows have no digestive system for corn (deer haven't either). But it makes for cheap patties in burger joints.
Industrial sized dairy farms produce cheap milk. But milk from grass&legumes-fed cows is healthier (and better for the environment). The producers know this too: their ads show cows frolicking in a meadow full of green grass, not the rows of cows forced to stand in open sheds along the CA99 with not one sprig of grass in sight.
Hunger elsewhere in the world is often caused by military conflicts - the US has no qualms to sell weapons and ammo to either party. Other causes are lack of infrastructure, roads, transportation. I remember a country having people starving in the south and the north was exporting produce to Europe. There were no roads N-S so no way to get the food there.
Fishing fleets from Japan and now also China, overfish oceans in large factory-ships that find the fish, catch it, fillet, can or pack/freeze. The waste is thrown overboard. The local people who caught fish for generations in small boats, now catch a lot less. The US sucks the Colorado river dry, in part for AG. The result: fisherman in the Gulf lost their livelihood. Same for the corn, Mexican farmers could not compete with much lower (subsidized) US prices, lost their farms. Many went to the US and are here now illegally, often working for the large farms.
A lot of original knowledge in South America, Asia, about farming got lost thanks to the idea that bigger is better. Peru had in ancient times about 4000 different types of potatoes that were farmed according to the soil and the micro-climate, on small pieces of land.
In an Asian country bigger/better experts told farmers not to go to the temple anymore to ask the priests for advice from the local goddess. After a lot of misery/mistakes someone realized that the priests did not perform a pagan ritual but had knowledge, a data-based expert-system going back decennia about when and where to plant, to water, to harvest, in specific areas.
In some African countries food brought in as food-help put local farmers out of business and destroyed local infrastructure.
Some more information:
https://www.ewg.org/research/feeding-world
Thanks very much for the info and link. I never said "America feeds the world" so I am not sure why you bring that up. But some of your other points are salient and important. Certainly, many farming practices can and should be improved.
But I come back to the fact that crop yields have grown tremendously in the past hundred-plus years. Here is one of many links on the subject:: https://ourworldindata.org/yields-vs-land-use-how-has-the-world-produced-enough-food-for-a-growing-population
One of the reasons crop yields have increased so much is due to the economies of scale that large farms can achieve and small ones can't. That cutting-edge technology then becomes cheaper over time and can be diffused across smaller farms and other sectors. Here is an example of some of the technologies that this might apply to in the future: https://medium.datadriveninvestor.com/how-technology-is-being-implemented-in-agriculture-sector-657b2a8b86
If you're interested in reading from a different perspective, try the book "Resetting the Table" by Robert Paarlberg. I believe he does a good job of highlighting the benefits of Large Farma without glossing over the bad effects. Of course, you may disagree.
I'm very interested to see how Brink combines our two perspectives into a vision for the future. Thanks again for yours.
It would be useful to address the question: is part of the crisis a decline in future orientation, i.e. a decine in our cultural desire, or ability to coordinate, to lay foundations for a much better world for our children? Subquestions would include:
-- How would we measure whether this is occurring?
-- What is known about whether and how future orientation varies across cultures and times?
-- If future orientation is declining, do we have any clues as to why or what would fix it?
-- If future orientation is not declining, how do we explain the extreme difficulty of coordinating on pretty obvious investment areas, e.g. pandemic prevention, pollution reduction, healthspan and cognitive capacity extension, which have very high 50-100 year ROI we are "leaving on the table"? Is it just that these are harder coordination problems somehow than our ancestors faced and we need to up our game?
I love this comment. One thing I have been wrestling with is our current lack of a ‘story’. For most of human history, people lived in communities with very defined ‘stories’ (religious or otherwise). Without a unifying story we cannot dream of utopia and actively act on it.
Great comment -- I hope to dig into all of this over time.