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Australia's "Foreign Correspondent" ABC TV program did a 30 minute documentary recently on this, interviewing the scientists involved, showing the methodology and features some beautiful German scenery:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tKpknKwbKsI

The farmers had an interesting response - since farming without chemicals results in much lower yield & less income, they were letting people "sponsor" chemical-free areas of their farm (think Patreon for farming). The more sponsorship they received, the more areas of farmland they converted. At a certain threshold, people could even pay to have the farmland replaced entirely with flowerbeds for bees.




Essentially what you’re saying is that farmers have convinced wealthy people to pay them to stop growing food. If this catches on in a major way then I can think of at least one reason this will turn out badly.


I admit your comment has amused me :) Rather than comment either way and inevitably offend someone on the internet, I'll link to the specific part of the documentary & include a transcript for those who would rather read:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tKpknKwbKsI&t=17m20s

FL: "At the bottom here, where you see this older leaf, you can see these very small black pustules there. The disease is called Septoria Tritic, and then you have a poor yield."

EC: "That's why you need pesticides?"

FL: "Correct. That's why you need pesticides, so you can protect this plant for the next eight weeks."

EC" "Is it possible to operate without pesticides or plant protection?"

FL: "Yes, it's possible of course. Our forefathers also did agriculture without using pesticides. But it has to be said that we have eight billion people on Earth, and without pesticide, without fertilisation, it is not possible to feed these people."

Franz Lehner says if Greenies in the city really want to help to change farming, they have to do more than sign petitions - they need to open their wallets. He's started a program for people to sponsor bee-friendly crops, and get their name on a stick for it.

EC: "This is interesting! Farmers like Franz are now leasing their land for people in the city to sponsor growing flowers to help bees and other insects. Rather than, what - Kartoffeln, oder? - rather than potatoes or something, people have to pay, or can pay, farmers to grow flowers. So instead of just signing the petition, they actually give money as well. Ok? Eine gut idee, ja? Gut für Bauern?"

FL: "Yes, good for farmers, good for the environment, good for the people in the city."

Other businesses are cashing in on the concerns. German and Dutch hardware stores are now featuring Bee-Friendly flowers, and Bee hotels.


They're giving an opportunity for wealthier patrons to subsidize the pesticide-free production of food.

Yes, they can ask for all of it to be bee playground, but markets still exist and food prices still will fluctuate


> They're giving an opportunity for wealthier patrons to subsidize the pesticide-free production of food.

No, they are just defending themselves with crappy arguments. The real truth is people are lazy and do not (those who have the possibility ) want to grow vegetables in their back yard. They prefer to buy the cheapest industrially produced food from the supermarket. This leads to increased demand for crap food and indirectly to use of pesticides.


My point is that if it becomes popular among wealthy people to sponsor the conversion of productive farmland into what is essentially wildlife preserve then food prices could go way up, threatening food security.


Highly unlikely, rich people give a significant amount of money to charities but in general it's a drop in the ocean compared to the overall economy and government spending. I wouldn't worry about it too much.


The US government pays farmers not to grow food--certain foods in varying amounts certain years--and I think that the EU surely must also.


> to stop growing food

More like removing the economic pressure of using poison to growing food, that is a different case


That approach sadly doesn't scale, however.

Especially going forward. Wages in non tech industries have already stagnated for years and inflation continues to rise.

Give it another ten to twenty years and there won't be enough money in the working class to sponsor such initiatives.

Heck, it can't scale even short term. The more farmers take part in that initiative, the less money there will be to actually do something with it.


Give it another ten to twenty years and there won't be enough money in the working class to sponsor such initiatives.

Luckily, (in the US, at least,) the DoA has been paying landowners for decades not to plant things on their land, so the working class doesn't need to foot the entire bill.

It's a reasonable and scalable approach, assuming government cooperation.


It took me a little bit of searching but in 2016 25% of USA farm income was subsidies. https://modernfarmer.com/2019/01/congress-finally-passed-a-n... I imagine with trade war subsidies this percentage has gone up in recent years.



I was specifically talking about farmers taking donations to stop using chemical pesticides and similar. Having a department sponsored by tax money could scale, if the lawmakers deem it necessary to increase their budget.

It's a very different approach from the parents example though


Unless the lower classes insist cost of living numbers can't always be made using the cheapest ingredients, they will be forced to accept every new method to make cheaper food as it keeps the poverty line from going up with inflation and sets the baseline of the entire hierarchy of roles and wages.


Actually, it's worse than that; the fact that price indexes include hedonic adjustments mean that the actual quantity of basic necessities that one can afford at the poverty line goes down with time, but this is “offset” because luxuries that that the poor can't support are qualitatively superior. That is the case even accepting that that basics necessities are made with the cheapest ingredients available, as new cost cutting techniques become available.


Yes, environmental sustainability and poverty elimination conflict in the short-term sometimes.


True, but I'm actually saying that poverty is being defined to allow resource savings to trickle up so you had a healthier and more sustainable life at the poverty line a decade ago than today.


It would scale if the technology to create these financial instruments easily and to monitor the land existed. There are startups working on it.


In Sweden, you can rent "lark squares". Basically you pay a farmer to not touch parts of his farmland in order to create breeding habitat for the (eurasian) skylark. The skylark has been in decline due to farming practises for decades. It has now been shown to have a proven effect. But can of course not be directly transformed to insect preservation.




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