Can Crops’ Wild Relatives Save Troubled Agriculture?(daily.jstor.org)
daily.jstor.org
Can Crops’ Wild Relatives Save Troubled Agriculture?
https://daily.jstor.org/can-crops-wild-relatives-save-troubled-agriculture/
10 comments
Not yet, but our current agricultural practices are not only unsustainable, but actively destructive to future crops.
Check out this list of bullet points from the Union of Concerned Scientists -
https://www.ucsusa.org/resources/hidden-costs-industrial-agr...
Not really, but we do have a growing global population and with that comes concerns with how we're going to feed everyone. Aside from there there's growing issues land overuse, rendering once farmable land useless.
Yes, there is troubled agriculture about, with many issues about to implode.
Over-used pesticides (Glyphosate, etc) or insecticides (e.g. neonicotin-based) which became systemic, heavily used (x times volumes of usage vs 20 yrs ago) and which in light of new research have either shown that produce side efects in environment or end-'consumer', i.e. humans or had side effect of 'developing' super-x (super-weeds, etc) which are no longer affected by initial substances, forcing agriculture producers to use even stronger substances (e.g. Dicamba).
Many of such systemic substances have started to be forbidden in civilized countries (see EU trends of banning some of them).
On top of which there is the black-swan called climate-change which with its sydtemic complexity has potential to produce systemic crop failures.
In not too long distant future farmers will have to assume an agriculture hard-reset (in terms of inputs) which will assume high double-digit Y-o-Y decrease in outputs/production.
My 2 cents.
Over-used pesticides (Glyphosate, etc) or insecticides (e.g. neonicotin-based) which became systemic, heavily used (x times volumes of usage vs 20 yrs ago) and which in light of new research have either shown that produce side efects in environment or end-'consumer', i.e. humans or had side effect of 'developing' super-x (super-weeds, etc) which are no longer affected by initial substances, forcing agriculture producers to use even stronger substances (e.g. Dicamba).
Many of such systemic substances have started to be forbidden in civilized countries (see EU trends of banning some of them).
On top of which there is the black-swan called climate-change which with its sydtemic complexity has potential to produce systemic crop failures.
In not too long distant future farmers will have to assume an agriculture hard-reset (in terms of inputs) which will assume high double-digit Y-o-Y decrease in outputs/production.
My 2 cents.
Not to mention peak oil, which is going to make mechanized agriculture financially impossible.
Plus acid raid, which is going to cause continued crop loss every year.
Plus acid raid, which is going to cause continued crop loss every year.
Great, more crossing-breeding with untested species we aren't used to ingesting. I wonder what weird and wonderful food allergies we'll be able to enjoy now?
Is there any evidence that this has created food allergies?
Gluten sensitivity comes to mind: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3573730/
The study finds that gluten consumption hasn't increased over the past few decades and that a culprit is more likely "wheat genetics"
Anecdotally, I don't know if you know many genuinely GF people, but the ones I know have all said that they can eat bread while in European countries, but have bad reactions back home.
The study finds that gluten consumption hasn't increased over the past few decades and that a culprit is more likely "wheat genetics"
Anecdotally, I don't know if you know many genuinely GF people, but the ones I know have all said that they can eat bread while in European countries, but have bad reactions back home.
There are two types of industrialized wheat. Dwarf and semi-dwarf. Compared to ancient wheats like eikorn we're probably now realizing how bad these are impacting health. Diabetes, celiac, etc. There are, at least, studies focusing on it now [0].
[0] https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5397290/
[0] https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5397290/
Possibly, but seed sellers put farmers into a corner and essentially force them to use their proprietary seeds. So as with everything else wrong in the world, good ol' capitalism wins again.
Is there some global famine going on that I somehow missed?