The reason to have hope is human innovation: 
Discussion
Id like to get the Collins on Nostr to see what they think on topics like these. Like if the world population is going to plummet, maybe we can get america to have grasslands taller than a horse again 🤷♂️
The interesting thing about that chart is that much of the improvement is from corn- an important feedstock for CAFO livestock.
Wheat and rice are more direct food sources and haven’t benefited as dramatically from the types of innovation we see in corn and soybeans.
I absolutely believe wheat yield can be pushed in high management systems, but instances of doing that are rare, and often rotational to achieve other ends.
Another thing of note- Stock to Use ratio really hasn’t changed much over the timeline. So we are raising more crop on fewer acres to feed and fuel a greater number of people. At the same time, urban sprawl is steadily chewing into some the most productive lands- hardly the highest and best use from an agronomic point of view.
I would love to visit with a mob theory or chaos theory person about where this all goes. Some market theory states “Resources will find their highest and best use in an unregulated system”. That is an impossibility. Every system is regulated by a number of factors- ecological, climate, finance, time, capacity, and so forth then eventually bias and preference which we can call human policy. This might be a great topic for your podcast, if you can find an interesting person to visit with.
Sorry for the reply in triplicate. I am unused to the latency in Damus and tapped “Post” three times before I saw evidence of activity.
I hadn’t even considered that soy/corn was counted as a cereal as I was just thinking wheat barley.
As for the impact of market regulation. I talk about this all the time. We have literally no idea how much our crop land would change as for uses if the government finger wasn’t pushing the scale so hard for ethanol and crop insurance based off last 3-5 year look backs.
Just like how the landscape changers when you let ecology go in a natural way (beavers create damns which generate oxbows and lakes) our physical environment would be nearly unrecognizable if the scales were pushed even slightly less bit that won’t happen until the centralized government runs out of money.
The interesting thing about that chart is that much of the improvement is from corn- an important feedstock for CAFO livestock.
Wheat and rice are more direct food sources and haven’t benefited as dramatically from the types of innovation we see in corn and soybeans.
I absolutely believe wheat yield can be pushed in high management systems, but instances of doing that are rare, and often rotational to achieve other ends.
Another thing of note- Stock to Use ratio really hasn’t changed much over the timeline. So we are raising more crop on fewer acres to feed and fuel a greater number of people. At the same time, urban sprawl is steadily chewing into some the most productive lands- hardly the highest and best use from an agronomic point of view.
I would love to visit with a mob theory or chaos theory person about where this all goes. Some market theory states “Resources will find their highest and best use in an unregulated system”. That is an impossibility. Every system is regulated by a number of factors- ecological, climate, finance, time, capacity, and so forth then eventually bias and preference which we can call human policy. This might be a great topic for your podcast, if you can find an interesting person to visit with.
The interesting thing about that chart is that much of the improvement is from corn- an important feedstock for CAFO livestock.
Wheat and rice are more direct food sources and haven’t benefited as dramatically from the types of innovation we see in corn and soybeans.
I absolutely believe wheat yield can be pushed in high management systems, but instances of doing that are rare, and often rotational to achieve other ends.
Another thing of note- Stock to Use ratio really hasn’t changed much over the timeline. So we are raising more crop on fewer acres to feed and fuel a greater number of people. At the same time, urban sprawl is steadily chewing into some the most productive lands- hardly the highest and best use from an agronomic point of view.
I would love to visit with a mob theory or chaos theory person about where this all goes. Some market theory states “Resources will find their highest and best use in an unregulated system”. That is an impossibility. Every system is regulated by a number of factors- ecological, climate, finance, time, capacity, and so forth then eventually bias and preference which we can call human policy. This might be a great topic for your podcast, if you can find an interesting person to visit with.