With climate change fucking everything up does traditional agriculture of any kind have hope for staying around? When i get in a doomer mood i think about everything having to be grown inside greenhouses or hydroponics and it freaks me out.
People talk about permaculture sometimes, and I hear its better in a lotta ways but is it more resilient too? is it even possible to grow things in a way that can survive huge shifts in temp?
Apparently its motherfucking WiFi-enabled vegetables :a-guy:
Terraforming the moon, all labour will be performed by child slaves supplied by Elon Musk.
In addition to things like hydroponic systems and GMO crops, in all likelihood it's just going to be a major shift in what crops grow where. Previously productive agricultural land might be pretty useless in general or niche use, and some other land that was before not suited to agriculture will be much more suited to it. In North America, the major centers of agricultural production will (probably) shift from places like Kansas, Nebraska, Iowa, and Missouri to further north like Michigan, the Dakotas, Wisconsin, Minnesota, and likely some parts of Canada. Overall, it will likely be a dramatic shift downwards in overall arable land area and will cause most, if not all farmers to either change what they're growing or sell the farm and move
Please be permaculture, please be permaculture, please be permaculture
I'm building an aquaponics greenhouse like this one right now. (Mine is much smaller) Traditional farming in dirt is still much cheaper than any other method. It will take mass water shortage to change that.
I'm going to can a bunch of shit up!
I'm also planning on growing mushrooms and eventually getting a few goats.
I want to be able to have a replenishing source of food for when something bad happens.
Doomer answer: increased centralization and utter destruction of topsoil as companies continue to race for the biggest savings possible through scale. Covid makes everything worse by putting massive pressure on smaller farmers, letting big megaproducers pick up more market share. Lots of producers will still massively produce dumb luxuries that are maximally profitable instead of using land for staple foods people can actually afford, driving up food prices but keeping brunch tables stocked. Pretty soon they'll have automated lots of low-pay agricultural jobs, leaving working families destitute. You'll get to see drones pick fruit though so that's pretty cool I guess.
Bloomer answer: People get increasingly fed up both with big agricultural companies and the government's nutrition programs, which absolutely do not provide enough for people to live off of. Food chain disruptions during Covid spark interest in creating local agricultural resilience. Decommodification of food increases as volunteerist efforts focus on expanding community gardens and nonprofit agricultural production. As the technology to produce food locally becomes cheaper, counties and municipalities become increasingly self-reliant and less dependent on the big producers. Permaculture, seen as appealing and cost effective because it provides consistent nutrition without much labor, increases in popularity as a local production technique.
If you're interested in a really powerful story about the strengths and dangers of localized agricultural production via a co-op vehicle, I recommend reading up on Fannie Lou Hamer's Freedom Farm Cooperative .
Depends really, in the colder climate for example north of the alps yields could increase, some crops would no longer me economically viable to plant like for example cabbages but others crops would give a larger yield so if you are living anywhere that's not constant rain, fog and misery agriculture is gonna get wiped greenhouses are expensive and hydroponics are for the most part only able to grow leafy greens and of course again expensive.
Lots of risks and rewards in agriculture!
Water is the most important thing for agriculture. Theoretically we can make it out of seawater, it's just prohibitively costly for energy and money. As energy gets cheaper or our use becomes more efficient, getting water to farmland becomes more predictable and consistent.
Soil is the next most important thing. It's depleting at a very scary rate and that NEEDS to be addressed. As soil breaks down it releases huge amounts of (unaccounted for) CO2. But building soil also draws carbon from the air - it's actually a way faster and more effective carbon sink than trees. Soil (and the infinity of microbial life it contains) has the ability to save us from climate change. It's magical stuff, one of my favourite substances. Seriously, read some pop science about soil it really is incredible.
Crop choice and varieties chosen will shift and change. The Cavendish banana will probably die/go extinct. Other clones will probably suffer the same fate. Genetic bottlenecking of popular fruits and vegetables isn't going anywhere
