Nov 3, 2021 08:00 PM
(This post was last modified: Nov 3, 2021 08:16 PM by C C.)
The Sri Lanka Organic Experiment
https://theness.com/neurologicablog/inde...xperiment/
EXCERPTS: Organic farming may sound good in principle (if you just listen to the ideological marketing), but in practice it is a disaster. Sri Lanka has decided to do what other countries have done before, namely impose from above a commandment on how to run an industry based entirely on the philosophical beliefs of the leader... Perhaps the most famous example of this is Lysenkoism in the former Soviet Union...
[...] The European Union ... has already done an analysis and found that organic farming is not sustainable, and it is worse for the environment, mainly through increased land use. Organic food is also not healthier than conventional produce, as is often implied by proponents...
[...] As a result, across all crops, Sri Lanka farmers have had a 19-25% drop in their productivity on average (not evenly distributed, with some crops having a 50% drop or even complete failure). That figure is in line with previous research, showing similar levels of reduced productivity from organic farming. This is a disaster for the industry, and also the people, leading to food shortages and spikes in prices. Because exports are also hit hard, this is another strain on the overall economy.
The limitations inherent to organic farming are also exacerbated by trying to massively increase the scale. Right now organic farming accounts for about 1.5% of worldwide food production. It is only 0.6% in the US, and 8.5% in the EU where it is very popular. As you try to scale up industries, new problems are introduced...
[...] Sri Lanka discovered this at the national level. They don’t have enough organic fertilizer to go around. They make about 2-3 tonnes of compost per year, but rice cultivation alone requires 4 million tonnes... Organic farming is bad for the environment because is requires greater land use. It is also more expensive because it requires greater labor as well (you have to pull all those weeds if you can’t use herbicide).
[...] The bottom line is that there is no real advantage to organic farming, and there are serious drawbacks. The negatives get exponentially worse if we try to scale up organic farming... (MORE - missing details)
After 9 months Biden's space policy is totally TBD
http://nasawatch.com/archives/2021/11/af...onths.html
EXCERPTS: In case you have not noticed, Joe Biden has stopped talking about Moon rocks and Mars Helicopters or NASA. But he does allude to "winning the space race" on occasion (whatever that means half a century later).
[...] There is a National Space Council which the VP's office decided to keep - but it needed a make over first to get rid of the Pence/Trump vibes. Although its membership is mostly set by charter we have heard nothing about that or when it will meet. After the first deadline for the Space Council's Users Advisory Group (UAG) membership solicitation came and went (low response rate apparently) they extended it another month.
The new date was 29 October so, given the glacial pace that space policy moves these days, it will be next year before we find out who is on the UAG. And of course we'll need to see when it meets and whether it will be yet another space policy Potemkin village with no real responsibilities. And when it comes to OSTP and NSC there's nothing but crickets there.
As for what NASA is doing policy wise, well, the NASA Office of International and Interagency Relations (OIIR) the folks who run that show still cannot figure out where the website links are for some crucial space policy documents - including the enabling charter for the National Space Council and the documents that codify international participation in the ISS program... (MORE - missing details)
https://theness.com/neurologicablog/inde...xperiment/
EXCERPTS: Organic farming may sound good in principle (if you just listen to the ideological marketing), but in practice it is a disaster. Sri Lanka has decided to do what other countries have done before, namely impose from above a commandment on how to run an industry based entirely on the philosophical beliefs of the leader... Perhaps the most famous example of this is Lysenkoism in the former Soviet Union...
[...] The European Union ... has already done an analysis and found that organic farming is not sustainable, and it is worse for the environment, mainly through increased land use. Organic food is also not healthier than conventional produce, as is often implied by proponents...
[...] As a result, across all crops, Sri Lanka farmers have had a 19-25% drop in their productivity on average (not evenly distributed, with some crops having a 50% drop or even complete failure). That figure is in line with previous research, showing similar levels of reduced productivity from organic farming. This is a disaster for the industry, and also the people, leading to food shortages and spikes in prices. Because exports are also hit hard, this is another strain on the overall economy.
The limitations inherent to organic farming are also exacerbated by trying to massively increase the scale. Right now organic farming accounts for about 1.5% of worldwide food production. It is only 0.6% in the US, and 8.5% in the EU where it is very popular. As you try to scale up industries, new problems are introduced...
[...] Sri Lanka discovered this at the national level. They don’t have enough organic fertilizer to go around. They make about 2-3 tonnes of compost per year, but rice cultivation alone requires 4 million tonnes... Organic farming is bad for the environment because is requires greater land use. It is also more expensive because it requires greater labor as well (you have to pull all those weeds if you can’t use herbicide).
[...] The bottom line is that there is no real advantage to organic farming, and there are serious drawbacks. The negatives get exponentially worse if we try to scale up organic farming... (MORE - missing details)
After 9 months Biden's space policy is totally TBD
http://nasawatch.com/archives/2021/11/af...onths.html
EXCERPTS: In case you have not noticed, Joe Biden has stopped talking about Moon rocks and Mars Helicopters or NASA. But he does allude to "winning the space race" on occasion (whatever that means half a century later).
[...] There is a National Space Council which the VP's office decided to keep - but it needed a make over first to get rid of the Pence/Trump vibes. Although its membership is mostly set by charter we have heard nothing about that or when it will meet. After the first deadline for the Space Council's Users Advisory Group (UAG) membership solicitation came and went (low response rate apparently) they extended it another month.
The new date was 29 October so, given the glacial pace that space policy moves these days, it will be next year before we find out who is on the UAG. And of course we'll need to see when it meets and whether it will be yet another space policy Potemkin village with no real responsibilities. And when it comes to OSTP and NSC there's nothing but crickets there.
As for what NASA is doing policy wise, well, the NASA Office of International and Interagency Relations (OIIR) the folks who run that show still cannot figure out where the website links are for some crucial space policy documents - including the enabling charter for the National Space Council and the documents that codify international participation in the ISS program... (MORE - missing details)