Growing crops near a septic tank questions

[UndercoverElephant]

From that link;

They found that products such as organically-farmed peas in Sweden have a 50% bigger impact on the environment than food farmed non-organically.

The reason why organic food is so much worse for the climate is that the yields per hectare are much lower, primarily because fertilisers are not used.

To produce the same amount of organic food, you therefore need a much bigger area of land – and this has knock-on effects around the world.

Oops.

Well spotted, if it is true we really are well and truly fecked.

I don't know why this should surprise anyone. Why would we expect organic farming to be able to compete with industrialised farming in terms of output in the same area?

Well...the question is whether the people who did the measuring also counted all of the "external costs" - the costs to the environment of the extraction of raw materials, production and transportation costs for the industrial method, as well as the costs of CO2 emissions and other pollution. Part of our systemic problems is that these external costs typically aren't counted.

[clv101]

Yes, non-organic gets higher yields per area than organic. This is why the techno-modernists say we should embrace chemical agriculture and GM etc to REALLY maximise yields, minimise area and so free up some land for 'nature'. However, the organic, or regenerative agriculture response to that is that while the yields are a bit lower, requiring more acres, those acres can ALSO accommodate nature as well as farming so the net result is that a larger area, less insensitively farmed is, on balance better for nature than a smaller area of intensive (to the exclusion of all else) plus some rewilding.

If you also consider carbon or long term sustainability, organic etc win hands down. Far less fossil fuel intensive and can increase soil organic carbon.

[kenneal - lagger]

There have been plenty of predictions of a small number of harvests left on chemically farmed land because of loss of topsoil among other things. So what is worse? An eventual complete loss of production of a lower but sustainable level of production?

I would suggest that the latter is better and the UN has said that the future lies in small scale, organic food production.

[UndercoverElephant]

Also not being mentioned in this discussion is the population question. We aren't allowed to point it out, but we had an optimum population level then there would be plenty of space for feeding the entire population organically and large spaces allowed to rewild. We're only forced to have this debate because almost nobody is willing to accept that humans should not have a right to unlimited reproduction and that the optimum population of this planet is well below 1 billion.

[kenneal - lagger]

Also not being mentioned in this discussion is the population question. We aren't allowed to point it out, but we had an optimum population level then there would be plenty of space for feeding the entire population organically and large spaces allowed to rewild. We're only forced to have this debate because almost nobody is willing to accept that humans should not have a right to unlimited reproduction and that the optimum population of this planet is well below 1 billion.

But what about economic growth, UE? You've got to have more and more people to have more and more growth to stop the banks going bust! And we can't have the banks going bust because that would despoil the world economy!!

Environment? What that got to do with anything?

[emordnilap]

the UN has said that the future lies in small scale, organic food production.

Totally agree. The discussion has focussed on large-scale production but what we need is far more people organically growing food in small spaces. Once it's set up, a small allotment or garden requires little maintenance and can produce abundant food. Oh, and as UE points out, far fewer people.