“Let’s go Brandon”
That’s terrible!
Who did those farmers vote for?
If only there were some way they could have known this would happen ahead of time and then done something about it!!
Yep I fully expect my job to be impacted by end of summer. Which sucks. But farmers voted for this. All of them iny area are bitching badly about prices right now. but none have done the math on who to blame. They would figure it out quick if a Democrat was in power but right now they seem clueless as to why this is happening
Oh, they’ve done the math on who to blame. They’re just working on the math for how to blame the democrats.
What I hate is the government is already heavily involved in what people grow…
There should be incentives for proper crop rotations and natural methods like spreading manure.
But there aren’t many “rural farmer” left, it’s by far a corporate thing now.
when the first time farmers was affected in trumps first term, they were hopeful he would come around and save them, most dint survive. and these"farmers" are likely the owners who hire immigrants anyways.
This is why they’ll never learn. They never go past step one of thinking.
Waiting patiently for thr farmers revolt. Aaaaaaaaannnnnnyyyyyyyy day now.
Oh no! If only someone had warned them! Or they’d learned from the last time! When exactly the same shit went down! They couldn’t have known!
Damn liberals, next time they will not let a false republican fool then!
Now they’re crying, what were they thinking when they voted? Instant Karma.
Yeah, but the end result is famine for people who voted against trump.
Even worse than that, poorer countries will starve because of this. America is rich. They have the money to pay more for 3rd world food than the locals can, so it’ll be exported to the US instead of feeding the hungry at home. It’ll be the Irish Potato Famine all over again.
And their kids, who are innocent and likely suffering under their parents already.
most of its usually alfalfa crops, or soybeans anyways. nuts, fruits, etc are usually grown in california mostly and citruses too, in florida. anything tropical like coffee, mangoes,etc require tropical countries.
So what? The US causes famine all over the world whenever it wants to for political reasons. Look what Cuba is going through simply because they won’t change government to what the US wants. If there is any karma, Americans should feel some of the pain they so blithely inflict on others.
It’s wild that you want over 300 million people to suffer because a psychopath got a bunch of other psychopaths to rig an election.
First 2-3minutes are worth a watch.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eXNLaHsKMz8&t=0
The Strait of Hormuz is not only a shipping route for oil, but also for fertilizers and helium. So things are going to start to get worse before they get better, and the ripple caused by this is slowly starting to hit North America.
Also helium is used in chip manufacturing so DRAM is about to get even a hell of a lot more expensive, then it already is…
Liquid Helium is also vital in cooling the magnets in MRI machines.
Even without helium, magnets are still very cool.
And surgery :(
Hormuz*
What did you call me?
Gracias
Fertilizer is finite anyways
People think it’s still throwing poop on fields, and I legit grew up doing that.
But the vast amount is nonrenewable resources (or needs them in the process) mined in the Middle East or China.
Eventually we’re gonna run out of them, even tho it won’t be in our lifetimes.
This is just a sneak peak of what’s coming.
Also there’s an issue with soil microbes and soil exhaustion. It’s been a minute since I heard about it, but I had a friend at a government lab who was testing soil in various areas, and found a shockingly low number of crop cycles before the soil is depleted into a dead substance. So that’ll be neat because we sure won’t reckon with it in advance.
Is that what caused the dust bowl?
I always get sad when I see a new subdivision and they plow all the topsoil into a huge mound and do nothing with it.
That takes thousands of years to generate a few inches! It’s as precious as gold.
They’re not doing “nothing” with it. They typically sell it to a topsoil dealer so you can buy it back at a much higher price!
The movie Interstellar depicted dust storms caused by something called blight. I like to think it was due to the soils being so depleted of nutrients that crops would no longer grow causing the soil to essentially suffocate the planet.
The “dead substance” for soil doesn’t exist on the planet. There is always something going on.
First off there is no “normal” level of soil microbial activity. Every native soil varies dramatically in species composition and activity. The highest species activity is usually undisturbed native soil. This is due the varied plant species producing a vast complex of chemicals that effect the microbiome & lots of plant material being decomposed (mostly carbohydrates).
All types agriculture causes massive environmental damage without exceptions. Organic agriculture is overall the most damaging to the environment per Kg produced. Next is conventional farming non-irrigated. Then is irrigated production in arid environments. The least damaging is protected culture (greenhouses, screenhouses etc) because of the massive increase in production/acre.
In agriculture the soil microbial activity and species varies dramatically with different crops and soil types. The amount of microbial activity is mostly linked to available carbohydrates and fertility. Soil microbial activity is only weakly correlated to agricultural productivity. High microbial activity can compete with plants for nutrients. Low microbial activity is usually linked to nutrients being unavailable.
4 most important parts of artificial fertiliser are nitrogen, phosphorus, potassium and sulfur.
Nitrogen is Infinite. It’s made from the air which is 78% nitrogen. Energy is needed to fix it. Usually its natural gas but it doesn’t have to be. Electricity can also be used. There are real world plants who use hydro or wild energy to make it, even if they are few today.
Phosphorus is plentiful on Earth, both in soil, rock and sea water. However in most natural sources the concentration is too low to actually refine today. Phosphate rock which is the main source today is limited. 70% of the current Reserves are in one single country, Morocco. All world reserves combined should last for a our 300 years. After that we will either have to extract phosphorus from less phosphorus dense sources or we have to recycle it better from human excrete. Nevertheless we have plenty of time to come up with that technology. Main problem right now is not it running out but the risk of how concentrated it is. What if Morocco doesn’t want to share?
Potassium is extremely plentiful around the world. It’s 2,6% of the Earth’s mass and even the potassium rich minerals we currently use are expected to last hundreds if not thousands of years. Mined all over the world but mostly in Canada, china and Russia and Belarus. Not really a problem. Also plentiful in seawater.
Sulfur has many different sources and in most it’s a byproduct. Main source is as a biproduct of refining fossil fuels but it’s also created as a byproduct of mining for other minerals. The amount needed for agriculture is also comparably small. There is so much sulfur out there it’s even mixed into concrete just to get rid of it. I don’t see sulfur as a main concern.
So to summarize I’m really not concerned about any of them except for phosphorus and for that one it’s mostly the question of how willing Morocco is to share it. Long term when sulfate rock runs out 300 years I’m quite secure we have found out how to commercially extract it from a less dense mineral. Either that or we have finally started seriously recycling it from human excrete. Phosphorus is very easily recycled. The technology is already here. More sewage plants would just have to do it. And if we are starting to slowly reach peak phosphorus the pure financial incentives will make sewage plants start recovering it. Now it doesn’t happen because the mineral phosphorus is just too cheap and convenient.
I live in Tillamook, land of cheese. We still use poop here, very few do otherwise though :(
FYI, Tillamook region is steadily a declining part of Tillamook Cheese. The main plant is a mega-dairy and farm outside of Boardman, OR. They have 93,000 acres of land (threemile canyon farms a subsidiary of RD Offut).
The reason: due to the arid conditions, hot temperatures, and access to irrigation water from the Columbia River, the region produces 2.5-3x per acre more feed than the cool, very wet, Tillamook area. In gross production of crops per acre, they are one of the highest production regions/acre on the planet. They use varieties developed for the southern Mid-west (113-120 day corn). However their average yeilds are 20% higher than the southern Mid-west.
Dairy farming in Tillamook is environmentally terrible. The large amounts of rain causes constant runoff and leaching of nutrients. Most of the nutrients from the manure they spread washes away with the winter rain. Because of the lack of heat units, they use varieties that are adapted to the northern Canadian corn belt (67-72 day corn).
I mean nitrogen fertilizer is effectively infinite as long as you have energy. Cheap nitrogen fertilizer is not.
A good source is potash! Canada produces a lot of it.
Potash is one part.
It doesn’t do everything, but it is one of the essential parts.
But…
You need LNG (liquid natural gas) which is a fossil fuel to produce it.
I wonder who they voted for?
It is fantastic that they voted for this.
Fuck 'em, it’s what they voted for.
That’s crazy, who could have predicted that Trump would be worse for them!? I know didn’t 🙄. But I certainly didn’t see endless “MAGA”, “I did that!”, and “Fuck Biden” signs gleefully hanging everywhere in farming areas…
What is going on with the other 40%? Are theirs is getting better?
There are many different kinds of farms and they all need different inputs. Most impacted would be the corn and soy farms who produce a low value good for a lot of inputs in the form of fertilizer, seeds, sprays, fuel for heavy machinery etc. Least impacted would be beef producers who use wild grazing. Almost no inputs as the land produced the grazing by itself, at the same time they produce a high value good.
Of course there are lots of intermediates but those would be the extremes.
39.9% of the rest are lying. 0.1% are insider trading.
Boo hoo. Farmers are some of the biggest corporate welfare there is.
and some of them are even paid for things not being grown too.
