5
votes
What is the most sustainable way to convert forested land to farmland?
An organic ranch in Virginia would clear forest for pasture by first penning goats into the area for a year or so. The goats would clear out all of the underbrush while producing milk (turned into ...
- 1,479
5
votes
How does footprint per dollar vs footprint per kilo compare for different methods of raising livestock?
I have an incomplete answer, but at least this is something to get the conversation started. At the bottom of your comments, you restate the question as "is organic any better because it costs more, ...
4
votes
In what ways do GMOs harm or benefit the environment?
Yes, there are many concerns regarding the impact of GMOs on the environment. First, let us understand what a GMO is. This is when someone alters the genetic makeup of an organism by inserting genes ...
4
votes
How many people could be fed using the land currently used to grow feed for livestock?
Your question seems to be specifically limited to grain fed to livestock, even though a great deal of the feed grown for livestock is not grain, and most livestock are not fed, let alone fed grain. It'...
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4
votes
How much land can a full-time organic farmer take care of?
Research
This is probably extremely variable depending on the specific crops you are talking about. I tried to gather information from various sources. I looked mostly at studies of subsistence ...
- 1,077
4
votes
Can organic farming sustainably feed the world?
Sustainability & Production:
Production: Needs examples of well performing methods & techniques utilizing organic farming methods
There are tons of examples all over the place how Organic ...
- 346
4
votes
How much soya is needed to produce a glass of cow's milk?
To summarise @EnergyNumbers's response which applies for UK milk, I will quote a section from the report he linked:
"Between 60 and 112 litres of milk produced for each kilo of soya meal fed to cows,
...
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3
votes
Is sustainable living basically the opposite of industrialisation
Industrialization and globalization don't really want to "do" anything. These are social descriptions to abstract the behavior and actions of people. The problem is that a capitalistic society tends ...
- 261
3
votes
Accepted
How reliant is Corn on human intervention? Would it survive if humans couldn't tend to it?
A number of factors likely influence this.
Corn is an annual. A new plant grows from seed every year, produces new seed, and dies. The seeds of the corn plant are the kernels on the ear it produces....
- 1,654
3
votes
How does footprint per dollar vs footprint per kilo compare for different methods of raising livestock?
Since asking the question I have been thinking about this quite a bit, and I believe the fundamental difference boils down to the balance between preventing and repairing negative externalities:
...
- 12k
2
votes
What types of ducks are cold hardy, and do well in wetlands?
Google is your friend. Use it.
search cold weather ducks
http://thriftyhomesteader.com/2013/11/cold-ducks-keeping-ducks-in-winter.html
The above is in the Olympic mountains at 1000 feet. Heavy ...
- 7,257
2
votes
What type of cheese has the lowest carbon footprint?
Recently reported research carried out by Rocky De Nys of James Cook University, Australia, has found that a 2% seaweed feed supplement for cattle substantially reduces the methane production in ...
- 281
2
votes
Is cheese as bad as beef for the environment?
The simplest answer I could find comes from this 2019 New York Times interactive about food and climate change. Based on a serving with 50 grams of protein, the average greenhouse gas impact of beef ...
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2
votes
Accepted
Is crop production a net source or a net sink of carbon emissions?
Food is responsible for a third of global greenhouse gas emissions, and crops are no exception. For crop production, there are two major categories of emissions sources: Land use, and agricultural ...
- 12k
1
vote
Relationship between Protein Content of Wheat and the use of Pesticides
Summary: either there is no link, or no one did any research on this. The latter doesn't seem likely given the amount of research there has been on grain protein content. Most likely the farmer meant '...
- 14.6k
1
vote
Accepted
Relationship between Protein Content of Wheat and the use of Pesticides
Farmers wanting (or being forced) to avoid the use of pesticides have a wide variety of choices at their disposal. Most of them will in fact alter the quality of the crop, but most of the alternatives ...
- 570
1
vote
Book recommendation on traditional, pre-industrial homesteading
I know you asked for a book, but until then, have you ever come across this youtube channel? Townsends has videos not only about recipes but also about different techniques of building stuff around ...
- 261
1
vote
UK - would there be any problem with keeping bees on a plot if the neighbours have horses
If your local laws allow you to keep bees on your property, then you can keep bees, end of discussion. Your neighbor's horses don't come into consideration.
If you don't want your beekeeping to ...
- 386
1
vote
Can organic farming sustainably feed the world?
I would say it could.
This question has been here for quite long, so I'll try to answer it with my basic understanding of organic vs. "conventional" farming.
Say Organic farming produces 25%...
- 1,437
1
vote
What type of cheese has the lowest carbon footprint?
There is an extensive study by the UN Food and Agriculture Organization: Tackling climate change through livestock. Their key facts and findings summary has a comparison between cow and small ruminant ...
- 1,021
1
vote
What type of cheese has the lowest carbon footprint?
Vegan cheese has the lowest carbon footprint
First, let's take a look at cheese from dairy milk. Let's go with the lowest estimate and say that cheese has a carbon footprint of 5.13 kg CO2e/kg yield.
...
- 2,919
1
vote
What do developing nation farmers do when agribusiness stops sourcing products from deforested land?
If you see it this way, maybe it'll make sense to you:
This could be a solution to make ranchers simply stop deforesting, and grow soy for their beast onto existing deforested land.
Of course this ...
- 1,437
1
vote
What is the most sustainable way to convert forested land to farmland?
I would say a good sustainable way is to move to Agroforestry.
What is Agroforestry?
It is a farming technique of mixing trees, shrubs, herbs and plants on the same farming land. It is most ...
- 1,437
1
vote
What's the largest polyculture farm out there?
See Mark Shepperd's "Restoration Agriculture" for a good example.
Actual polyculture can be aggravating to run. Example:
Shepperd advocates rows of chestnuts, alternating with hazelnuts as the main ...
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Only top scored, non community-wiki answers of a minimum length are eligible