Has Agriculture Reached Its Peak?

   / Has Agriculture Reached Its Peak? #1  

DFB

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This study suggests just that.

The study by scientists at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln argues that there have been abrupt declines or plateaus in the rate of production of major crops which undermine optimistic projections of constantly increasing crop yields.

Seems corn, grain, and rice production has reached it limits with no serious increases over the past decade...

A concern is that despite the increase in investment in agricultural R&D and education during this period, the relative rate of yield gain for the major food crops has decreased over time together with evidence of upper yield plateaus in some of the most productive domains.

It also criticizes most other yield projection models which predict compound or exponential production increases over coming years and decades, saying these do not occur in the real world. And that such growth rates are not feasible over the long term because average farm yields eventually approach a yield potential ceiling determined by biophysical limits on crop growth rates and yield.

And goes on to say that five decades of perpetually increasing crop yields were driven by rapid adoption of technologies that were largely one-time innovations

The new research raises critical questions about the capacity of traditional industrial agricultural methods to sustain global food production for a growing world population.

And according to other links attached to the news release on the study, food production will need to increase by about 60% by 2050 to meet demand and also suggests that from another report that agro ecology based on sustainable, small-scale, organic methods could potentially double food production in entire regions facing persistent hunger, over five to 10 years.

Read more here

Dramatic decline in industrial agriculture could herald 叢eak food | The Raw Story
 
   / Has Agriculture Reached Its Peak? #2  
There is plenty of food for the future! Just watch the movie "Soylent Green" with Charlton Heston. :)
 
   / Has Agriculture Reached Its Peak? #3  
The new research raises critical questions about the capacity of traditional industrial agricultural methods to sustain global food production for a growing world population.

When the fossil fuels are exhausted, mass starvation will result. Solar powered tractors are not feasible.
 
   / Has Agriculture Reached Its Peak? #4  
When the fossil fuels are exhausted, mass starvation will result. Solar powered tractors are not feasible.

I am glad to hear that... well not the tractor part:)
 
   / Has Agriculture Reached Its Peak? #5  
Solar powered tractors are feasible, in a sense. There are already people producing net surpluses of food running tractors (or walk-behind tractors) running off of biodiesel produced on site. If I recall correctly, the oil crop was sunflowers.
 
   / Has Agriculture Reached Its Peak? #6  
When the fossil fuels are exhausted, mass starvation will result. Solar powered tractors are not feasible.

What about electric tractors recharged by wind or solar?

Electric tractors already exist. Not in mass production, but the possibility exists.
 
   / Has Agriculture Reached Its Peak? #7  
What about electric tractors recharged by wind or solar?

Electric tractors already exist. Not in mass production, but the possibility exists.

Anything is possible, much better batteries would need to be invented. It's not just tractors, our whole industrial society (and over population) is dependent on fossil fuels.
 
   / Has Agriculture Reached Its Peak? #8  
Anything is possible, much better batteries would need to be invented. It's not just tractors, our whole industrial society (and over population) is dependent on fossil fuels.

At the present. Like all technologies, once a breakthrough happens, things move pretty quickly. Think about personal computers. We have more computing power in our phones than NASA had during the first moon mission.
 
   / Has Agriculture Reached Its Peak? #9  
That's a good point. Things especially move quickly when survival is involved.
 
   / Has Agriculture Reached Its Peak? #10  
Thanks for posting the link.

The authors discuss the "yield potential ceiling determined by biophysical limits on crop growth rates and yield." This made me think about hybrid corn. If agronomists had estimated a yield potential for corn before the 1920s, could they have anticipated the yield increases that hybridization produced?

Who knows, there may be unanticipated biotechnological innovations that redefine yield potential.

Steve
 
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