
The world needs topsoil to grow 95% of its food – but it's rapidly disappearing - mettamage
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2019/may/30/topsoil-farming-agriculture-food-toxic-america
======
mettamage
I just talked to someone who is pretty knowledgeable about issues regarding:

Global warming

Too few trees reuptaking water

Top soil being depleted

He said that top soil being depleted is arguably the worst problem of the
three. So I simply looked up the first recent article about it and submitted
it.

I have never heard of this issue and I suspect many of you haven’t either.

Disclaimer: the person I talked to has a startup that replants trees in very
innovative ways (by using robotics and by employing techniques so that plants
can uptake water way deeper from the ground than normally). I am not
affiliated with him, I simply met him at a dinner party.

~~~
KnightOfWords
I'm certainly no expert, but topsoil depletion scares more than any other
environmental problem - it can take a few centuries to replace an inch. Even
in the absence of climate change we'd be heading for trouble but increasing
temperatures are only going to increase the rate of depletion.

~~~
collyw
I am no expert either, but you can make compost pretty easily in far less
time. Its good for growing plants.

Could composting on a large scale be a solution?

~~~
thatcat
No, compost is just organic material. Good top soil has <10%-20% organics by
volume. Also, since the organics in compost will break down over time, they
will need to be re-applied. Sand and clay are needed for structure and
minerals.

------
andrei_says_
I’d like to recommend the documentary The Biggest Little Farm. Among other
things it illustrates the contrast between industrial farming and its soil
treatment (optimized for cost and short term profit) and alternatives
(rebuilding rich soil which captures water etc.)

It’s incredibly inspiring.

------
m0llusk
Topsoil loss is a major problem for the environment, but it is worth pointing
out that we do not need topsoil to grow food. We have hydroponics and
aeroponics and a range of other solutions that do not use land in traditional
ways. There is also reason to believe that an increasing fraction of our food
will be grown in this way rather than on the land if only because the vast
majority of farmable land is already farmed.

~~~
jasonlaramburu
Only crops that are mostly water (lettuce, tomatoes) can be economically grown
hydroponically. We need topsoil to grow cereals (corn, wheat etc).

~~~
DocTomoe
Given that cereals tend to not be too good for us ... maybe we should limit
them anyways?

~~~
jasonlaramburu
Perhaps but we also use cereals and row crops to feed livestock (corn), make
vegetarian protein (soybeans, canola, wheat) and make our clothes (cotton).
None of these can be grown hydroponically.

~~~
wampwamp
Hemp gives you all those things and grows extremely well hydroponically.

~~~
nate_meurer
More importantly, hemp grows well in poor soils.

------
growlist
> 'If we continue to degrade the soil at the rate we are now, the world could
> run out of topsoil in about 60 years, according to Maria-Helena Semedo of
> the UN’s Food and Agriculture Organization.'

I don't personally find these type of 'we only have x years to save y!!!!'
statements have much impact on me any longer because firstly there seems to be
a new one every week, and secondly humanity would act to prevent whatever
cataclysm is prophesied (as it is, in fits and starts, with climate change).

And on this one in particular, and as I always say when it comes to ecological
catastrophes: what about population control?

~~~
pizzazzaro
As for not responding to deadlines for large social issues - when is the last
time you saw a tropical depression form over the US? And then b-line to the
gulf of Mexico, to become a freaking Hurricane, and then attack the US?

Al Gore was right.

"I dont respond well to X." "I dont want that to be true." "I dont want to
believe that."

Facts and Stats dont care about "whether you respond" \- you sound just like a
MAGA-hat when confronted with the actual damning contents of the Mueller
report.

Welcome to the fruits of Capitalism - if there is a resource to exploit, we're
going to burn through it until its gone. Exponentially fast. Whether that's
topsoil for food, or sand for circuit-board silicon, or oil underneath the
dirt. Or helium for lasers, balloons, etc...

Here we are, able to see it coming. And you're letting the most
evolutionarily-throwback-ish part of your brain hijack your thinking. "If I
hold still and close my eyes as a little lizard, there wont be a problem."

Have some discipline. Maybe show that you've evolved. Maybe, just maybe...
Understand that civilization is not as robust as you think.

We can all be like Detroit. Coast to coast United Serfs in Abandonia. That was
the Great Depression.

We can burn out the land. The Bronze Age Collapse, the Dust Bowl, the Mound-
builders' corn collapse, the desertification of Egypt's Nile-adjacent
farmland. All of these cultures simply disappeared.

Human Civilization faces extinction, I want you to understand that your toys
will not save us. You children and their children, your entire civilization
will suffer and die, and leave nothing living behind but roaches and vines.

All because you thought it was fine to say, "fuck it, I got mine."

~~~
growlist
That's not what I'm saying at all! I'm firstly criticising the use of a
particular rhetorical device that I think has become ineffective, and secondly
pointing out the inconsistency when those that would advocate all kinds of
draconian interventions in our daily lives yet refuse hysterically any
contemplation whatsoever of controlling our numbers as a species.

~~~
lotsofpulp
While reducing population is necessary and helpful, humans’ ability to consume
is infinite, especially as it is a good proxy for power and hence a mating
signal. An attitude change in our want to consume is also necessary.

------
ckdarby
Why would it not be possible to switch to aquaponics?

I'm assuming the cost would be greater but this article makes it seem like the
world would end and there wouldn't be any way of growing nutritious food.

~~~
pizzazzaro
Aquaponics demands a LOT more resources. Petrochemical fertilizers to dissolve
in massive amounts of water... This does not sound like a way to sustain a
society into perpetuity.

~~~
kfk
Do you have any links? Because as far as I can see we can easily grow larvae
from biomass (including food scraps) and we can feed larvae to fish. I guess
throw some genetic engineering in there and it should work. What am I missing?

~~~
munchbunny
"I guess throw some genetic engineering in there and it should work."

If you are a programmer, you should have felt a pang of sympathy for the
biologist who is in the background screaming "that's not how it works".

