From my perspective this “pinnacle of human ingenuity” is actually a farse, because it relies on a monoculture and is therefore unsustainable in the long term.
Don’t get me wrong, the engineering is cool and I understand how important the mass production of food has been up to this point in human history, but there is another side of the story. The advent of machinery like this is part of why modern farmers use so many pesticides, herbicides, and fertilizers - a monoculture depletes the soil of its nutrients and decreases natural pest control, necessitating the use of chemicals. The use of those chemicals has in turn driven huge ecosystem changes that we are only just beginning to understand the impact of (such as mass pollinator die-offs, changes to soil microbiology, pollution of fresh water sources, pollution of cropland soil, and more) as well as impacting humans in ways we don’t understand since some of those chemicals make their way into our bodies.
Any farming will deplete the soil of nutrients over time simply because we harvest things from the plants and ship them elsewhere and don’t ship the waste or replacement nutrients back. Especially considering the insect die off, which at least moved some nutrients at random, though still not likely enough to make up for removing them at an industrial scale.
Came in to make a similar comment. Giant machines like this are a huge part of the problem in a number of ways. Their rigid design limits the kinds of environments that you can farm on, if you’re trying to run at competitive scale. It also limits you to monocropping as you said, whereas a complex polycultural system would both more efficiently build soil over time, but naturally deters pests if properly designed and maintained.
They also contribute to soil infertility by overly compacting soils due to their mammoth weight. And they are not at all cheap either, and one of the contributing factors to so many farmers ending up hopelessly in debt.
The bottom line is that industrial farming is not sustainable, and like it or not, homescale and small community agriculture is going to have to play larger roles in our lives if we want to have any hope of staving off famine as resources become more scarce.
From my perspective this “pinnacle of human ingenuity” is actually a farse, because it relies on a monoculture and is therefore unsustainable in the long term.
Don’t get me wrong, the engineering is cool and I understand how important the mass production of food has been up to this point in human history, but there is another side of the story. The advent of machinery like this is part of why modern farmers use so many pesticides, herbicides, and fertilizers - a monoculture depletes the soil of its nutrients and decreases natural pest control, necessitating the use of chemicals. The use of those chemicals has in turn driven huge ecosystem changes that we are only just beginning to understand the impact of (such as mass pollinator die-offs, changes to soil microbiology, pollution of fresh water sources, pollution of cropland soil, and more) as well as impacting humans in ways we don’t understand since some of those chemicals make their way into our bodies.
One 4 meter line wheat and the next one a different crop, with 3 or 4 crops alternating, would be fine too. Especially with kilometers long fields.
Edit: sonething like this:
is this solarpunk 🫴🦋
Any farming will deplete the soil of nutrients over time simply because we harvest things from the plants and ship them elsewhere and don’t ship the waste or replacement nutrients back. Especially considering the insect die off, which at least moved some nutrients at random, though still not likely enough to make up for removing them at an industrial scale.
deleted by creator
Came in to make a similar comment. Giant machines like this are a huge part of the problem in a number of ways. Their rigid design limits the kinds of environments that you can farm on, if you’re trying to run at competitive scale. It also limits you to monocropping as you said, whereas a complex polycultural system would both more efficiently build soil over time, but naturally deters pests if properly designed and maintained.
They also contribute to soil infertility by overly compacting soils due to their mammoth weight. And they are not at all cheap either, and one of the contributing factors to so many farmers ending up hopelessly in debt.
The bottom line is that industrial farming is not sustainable, and like it or not, homescale and small community agriculture is going to have to play larger roles in our lives if we want to have any hope of staving off famine as resources become more scarce.
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