Technocrat's Opinions on Organic Agriculture (Organic vs Sustainable?).

  1. Raúl Duke
    Raúl Duke
    I bet many of you have already heard of organic agriculture...I would like to hear your opinions on it.

    I also heard of sustainable agriculture, and sometimes people refer to organic agriculture as sustainable agriculture, but this is not always the case I think.

    In what things does organic agriculture and sustainable agriculture diverge?
  2. MarxSchmarx
    MarxSchmarx
    In what things does organic agriculture and sustainable agriculture diverge?
    Artificial fertilizers, insecticide and feed. There is nothing, in principle, unsustainable about manufactured fertilizer. It has only failed to be so because so much of it is based on non-renewable fossil fuels for their production.

    If anything, organic agriculture is less sustainable, because the only way you can solve some problems (like increasing yield) without the use of chemicals is to clear more land - an unsustainable goal if we are serious about feeding the entire human race.
  3. Joe Hill's Ghost
    Joe Hill's Ghost
    Organic agriculture is actually quite sustainable, and when intensively cultivated, very productive. Its all a matter of how you do it. For example, the Iroquois nation utilized the 3 sisters system where they grew corn, squash and beans. Beans fixed nitrogen in the soil, corn provided a pole for the beans to grow and the squash acted as a natural mulch. This allowed the Iroquois to develop a sedentary, high pop density, essentially anarchist/communist society. Small scale, organic plots can provide enough food. However I'm more in favor of high rise vertical farms for most communities. You can still utilize organic methods, but it would provide yields far higher than solely ground based farming.
  4. MarxSchmarx
    MarxSchmarx
    Organic agriculture is actually quite sustainable, and when intensively cultivated, very productive. Its all a matter of how you do it. For example, the Iroquois nation utilized the 3 sisters system where they grew corn, squash and beans. Beans fixed nitrogen in the soil, corn provided a pole for the beans to grow and the squash acted as a natural mulch. This allowed the Iroquois to develop a sedentary, high pop density, essentially anarchist/communist society. Small scale, organic plots can provide enough food. However I'm more in favor of high rise vertical farms for most communities. You can still utilize organic methods, but it would provide yields far higher than solely ground based farming.
    If the Iroquois were truly self-sufficient and "anarchist/communist", why did they invade their neighbors like the Seneca and maintain a powerful military?
  5. Dimentio
    I bet many of you have already heard of organic agriculture...I would like to hear your opinions on it.

    I also heard of sustainable agriculture, and sometimes people refer to organic agriculture as sustainable agriculture, but this is not always the case I think.

    In what things does organic agriculture and sustainable agriculture diverge?
    Andrew Wallace is actually trying to create an organic farm.
  6. Joe Hill's Ghost
    Joe Hill's Ghost
    If the Iroquois were truly self-sufficient and "anarchist/communist", why did they invade their neighbors like the Seneca and maintain a powerful military?
    Never said they were perfect, though the wars were pretty limited until the introduction of Europeans. Smallpox alone led to massive population gaps, which needed to be filled,often through hostage wars. It was then further exacerbated by the fur trade, which set the nation against non nation tribes.