It's actually pointless to introduce the solar energy input into the equation at all Crake. The sun has shone and will shine for far longer than human beings will ever manage to survive on this planet. When I and many others look at agricultural reform we look at those aspects of the food production chain that humans can control and can change. The 'facilitation' you talk about is the entire crux of the modern day agricultural dilemma. There are an infinite number of ways that facilitation could happen, and the concern and debate is whether or not the road industry has chosen for us is the one that will bare the most fruit. Clearly it has not. The reasons, myriad, I don't want to write a thesis on the sift.

And I agree, when you start looking at government crop subsidies the energy calculation does lose its relevance. Why? Because you have jumped a 100 steps up a chain that was problematic at its root. The agricultural subsidy issue is a whole other Pandora's box.

Again, it's not the Haber process itself that is unsustainable, it is the entire industrial agricultural framework. The Haber process's dependence on natural gas is problematic, and even with future technological developments aside, it's a reductionist solution that undermines the multitude of complimentary farming techniques that could naturally introduce nitrogen into the soil. It's the kind of simplified agricultural solution that corporate agribusiness monopolies love, and it's this mutual reinforcement that causes concern. Again, the Haber process is a small piece of huge puzzle, we digress.

And with regards to future developments, let me illustrate why future developments are almost irrelevant to many of the problems at hand. In India for example there is a 500 year old tradition of aquaculture, for shrimp specifically. Most of the farms are small, local and sustainably run using various aquaculture farming methods (if you are interested you could read up on the Bheri system of aquaculture, just one of the many traditional systems).

This 'third world' farming technique as some might call it is just as profitable and has yields just as large as the more intensive commercial and industrial aquaculture methods. It has stood the test of time and it also forms the back bone of India's shrimp export economy, the largest in the world.

Industrial shrimp farming has had dismal success around the world. Taiwan, China, Mexico, Ecuador, all these countries have had huge issues keeping commercial shrimp farming sustainable. Wherever commercial shrimp farming has been tried, it has failed to a large degree, usually due to major disease outbreaks. That's why the call it the 'rape and run' industry.

Isn't it strange that the more industrial shrimp farms are introduced in India (due to government subsidies and incentives), the more 'environmental issues' they have to deal with that just didn't exist with the 'traditional third world systems' . . . mangrove destruction, drinking water pollution (from antibiotics and pesticides add to the shrimp ponds to minimize disease) , salinization of groundwater, etc.

Now you might argue with me that the solution to this problem potentially lies with future developments . . . a better antibiotic maybe, perhaps genetically engineering shrimp to be more resistant to disease and pollution, etc, or maybe the solution lies in adopting farming techniques that have been slowly perfected for the last 500 years and are proven to work, where the only interventions that could be made were natural ones and success was determined by how well you could maintain a balanced relationship with your local ecosystem. It is these farming systems and the mindset that they embody that I would like to see the world adopt, improve upon and gravitate towards.

Pinning your hopes for improvement on future developments and technology is totally misguided, especially when the core of the modern industrial agricultural foundation is so rotten. I have nothing against technology, but I'm not going to let the problems, born of brutish and unsophisticated industrial thinking, be overlooked by a corporate apologist futurist mindset. I'm not implying that's how you feel about the issue, but that the stance that many people have. There is an utter lack of holistic thinking in the industrial agricultural world (and everywhere else pretty much) and the direction it is leading us in is potentially frightening.

>> ^cybrbeast:
>> ^ryanbennitt:
>> ^cybrbeast:
You know there is such a thing as aquaculture or fish farming.
Tell that to the massive fishing fleets driving species to extinction...

Regardless, that does not make your statement "We don't farm and cultivate the sea, we just hunt and poach the fish from it." any more true.
I speculate that before we drive the fish to extinction the massive fishing fleets will become uneconomical due to lack of fish. They will stop and species hopefully recover. This could be expedited by strict resolutions


A species could easily become extinct just by bringing the numbers down to a certain point. And other species could still become extinct in the process causing chain reactions. It seems like a pretty dangerous speculation.

If you're really interested in the subject. I'd suggest reading: "Cod, a Biography of the Fish That Changed the World" by Mark Kurlansky. It's a fascinating book in it's own right and definitely covers the dangers involved with this subject.

>> ^ryanbennitt:
>> ^cybrbeast:
You know there is such a thing as aquaculture or fish farming.
Tell that to the massive fishing fleets driving species to extinction...


Regardless, that does not make your statement "We don't farm and cultivate the sea, we just hunt and poach the fish from it." any more true.
I speculate that before we drive the fish to extinction the massive fishing fleets will become uneconomical due to lack of fish. They will stop and species hopefully recover. This could be expedited by strict resolutions

>> ^cybrbeast:
You know there is such a thing as aquaculture or fish farming.

Tell that to the massive fishing fleets driving species to extinction...

You know there is such a thing as aquaculture or fish farming.

http://www.worldwatch.org/node/5883
"Nearly half of the seafood we eat today is farmed"

>> ^ryanbennitt:
Well, by 2050 we'll have 9 billion people, but by that time all our fish stocks worldwide will have collapsed completely from overfishing. We don't farm and cultivate the sea, we just hunt and poach the fish from it.

*promote. Aquaculture continues to be a high-impact industry, and only a small fraction of the issues surrounding its practice are covered here.

Some more info here:
http://www.davidsuzuki.org/Oceans/Aquaculture/