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Soil degradation threatens food supply and scientists are calling for action (www.abc.net.au)

submitted 1 month ago by [email protected] to c/[email protected]

7 comments fedilink hide all child comments

If we don't fix it, the planet will cease to function and humanity will be in trouble," Professor Alex McBratney from the University of Sydney's Institute of Agriculture said.

I guess were going to test the Professor's hypothesis :) no do overs though

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[–] [email protected] 5 points 1 month ago (1 children)

yup, soil depletion and too intense farming is why fruit and veg have decreased amounts of vitamins and minerals

[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 month ago

Big pretty hot house strawberries that taste of nothing.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 1 month ago (2 children)

A problem like this can be fixed more effectively than people may think at first.

Thats because farmers, generally, have a lot of something many city dwellers don't have agency over large tracts of land.

The problem with so many climate change issues is they're negative externalities of human activity, they suffer from the tragedy of the commons.

Soil on almost all the world has a primary owner, who is often also the primary beneficiary of the land being productive.

I'd be optimistic about this being solved more easily than other climate change issues.

Its also a good juxtaposition for the agency and ownership problem we have affecting the world today, particularly for stymieing climate action.

[–] KnitWit 4 points 1 month ago (1 children)

Remember the dust bowl? Also caused by the primary owners’ practices.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 month ago

So the dust bowl is a great example of what i'm saying.

Reading what i said back, i can see that people would assume i mean some neo-liberal/libertarian dogma about small government; let the farmers rip, yada-yada.

Thats not what i meant by agency. If you've heard about Nasim Talebs thoughts on peoples stake in an economy of a nation, his book on it is called Skin in the Game, thats what i mean.

So, a farmer has agency over their land and it's use, that gives them a greater stake in that country, and it means organisations like governments are often more responsive to their needs than others. We see it time and time again in Australia, farmers are supported in all kinds of ways because what they do is important, and their individual choices can have such wide effects.

In regards the dust bowl, look at all the government assistance that flowed into the dust bowl as part of the new deal in response to the mistakes the individual farmers made en-masse. Consider the interesting positioning the government took. They didn't come in and take the cattle, they bought the cattle at above market rates, they increased government support (through new department creation) and education for the farmers.

The reaction to the agency of farmers going awry was to come in and support them. Juxtapose this with habitat loss, or greenhouse gas emissions, these have relatively voiceless constituencies, few votes are lost when a bit of habitat is 'developed'. And its only recently becoming common that habitat loss starts lawsuits for loss and damages, even now the outcomes rarely add to much more than a slap on the wrist.

Tldr,

So many issues in the environmental space are all but voiceless, few short to mid-term economic interests align. Owners of agricultural land have always had a voice of reasonable power in the body politic of a nation, for obvious reasons. This means that soil degradation has an interested stakeholder, who can make a lot more noise even when its their own fuck ups. This is a strength a lot of other environmental issues lack.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 1 month ago (1 children)

Farmers in Australia don't have a good track record regarding the environment.

They deforested large areas, dammed creeks and rivers, brought rabbits and foxes, sparrows, starlings and Indian mynas, cane toads, they kill koalas,

and they persist until this day in laying too much phosphates down, polluting run off and thereby killing the Great Barrier Reef.

Farmers love climate change because they can blame the effects of their own crimes on something else.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 month ago

Hiya, see my response to [email protected], i've clarified my thoughts there.