Quote:"Using USDA data, he found that broccoli, for example, had 130 mg of calcium in 1950. Today, that number is only 48 mg. What's going on? Davis believes it's due to the farming industry's desire to grow bigger vegetables faster. The very things that speed growth — selective breeding and synthetic fertilizers — decrease produce's ability to synthesize nutrients or absorb them from the soil.

 

"A different story is playing out with organic produce. "By avoiding synthetic fertilizers, organic farmers put more stress on plants, and when plants experience stress, they protect themselves by producing phytochemicals," explains Alyson Mitchell, PhD, a professor of nutrition science at the University of California, Davis. Her 10-year study in the Journal of Agricultural and Food Chemistry showed that organic tomatoes can have as much as 30 percent more phytochemicals than conventional ones."
<a class="bbc_url" href='http://www.nbcnews.com/id/37396355/ns/health-diet_and_nutrition/t/nutritional-value-fruits-veggies-dwindling/#.WNsFQqK1tPY'>http://www.nbcnews.com/id/37396355/ns/health-diet_and_nutrition/t/nutritional-value-fruits-veggies-dwindling/#.WNsFQqK1tPY</a>

 

"Soil erosion from farmland threatens the productivity of agricultural fields and causes a number of problems elsewhere in the environment. An average of 10 times as much soil erodes from American agricultural fields as is replaced by natural soil formation processes. Because it takes up to 300 years for 1 inch of agricultural topsoil to form, soil that is lost is essentially irreplaceable." <a class="bbc_url" href='http://psep.cce.cornell.edu/facts-slides-self/facts/mod-ag-grw85.aspx'>http://psep.cce.cornell.edu/facts-slides-self/facts/mod-ag-grw85.aspx</a>

 

"Over the past 50 years, the negative effects of soil erosion on farm productivity have been masked by improved technology and increasing use of fertilizers and pesticides. Ironically, many of these measures used to increase the short-term productivity of American farms are also causing excessive erosion, which threatens productivity over the long term."

 

"Even when soil erosion is not excessive, intensive agriculture can impair soil quality by depleting the natural supplies of trace elements and organic matter. In natural ecosystems, soil fertility is maintained by the diverse contributions and recycling of nutrients by a wide range of plant and animal species. When this diversity is replaced by a single species grown year after year, some trace elements are depleted if not replaced by fertilization. The organic content of the soil also diminishes unless crop residues or other organic materials are supplied in sufficient quantities to replace that consumed over time." <a class="bbc_url" href='http://psep.cce.cornell.edu/facts-slides-self/facts/mod-ag-grw85.aspx'>http://psep.cce.cornell.edu/facts-slides-self/facts/mod-ag-grw85.aspx</a>

 

So nutritional density is going down, top soil is being depleted at rates 10 times faster than it can be remade and fertilizer with mono-cultures is destroying the soil that's left. And all of that is here, in the US. I am in no way an 'environmentalist' but the problem is fairly obvious.

You probably don't engage in these practices (I hope), but there is no doubt that a majority do (although that's certainly changing/will change).

 

Actually rereading your comment, I don't think we actually disagree on anything other than whether this is occurring in US.

 

 

Edit: didn't like a source so I removed quote.

With all due respect, I'm not sure you fully understand what you're reading - or you're trying to move the goalpost on me.


Soil Erosion is the process of topsoil being physically carried away by either wind or flood irrigation. That's not what you were talking about when you said the farming system is making soil unusable, current fertilizers kill soil (anathema to any farmer), and take far more water. I'm not even sure how a fertilizer can take water.


Those are completely different issues. I can explain better for you if you like because the Cornell article you're citing is about 30 years out of date and I also don't think you're understanding that out of date data correctly.


Can you explain what you mean by a fertilizer with mono-cultures, and how exactly that is destroying the soil?


It kinda seems like your reading/misinterpreting the scary parts and ignoring the solutions to them, such as your bolded paragraph.

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