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Comment by briga | Hacker News Reader

Many of the large shallow lakes in the Prairie provinces are drying up as well. For example Miquelon lake in central Alberta has shrunk by at least half since European settlers arrived. Not to mention the fact that many smaller lakes are now overgrown with algal blooms during the summer months due to fertilizer runoff. There is very little natural prairie left in the west, and pressure from agriculture and development are growing every year.

Question is, is there anything we can do about it, or is it just the price we pay for human development? When you look at the ecological sterilization that happened in places like the San Joaquin valley in California things start to look pretty bleak.

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It only takes a small, vocal minority to turn the tide of civilization.

Vote with your wallet, and demand organic produce and pasture raised, locally butchered meat. The uptick in price is quite small, and the differences (both health and flavor) are huge:

- Pasture grasslands sequester carbon and increase topsoil quantity/quality

- Industrial farming, livestock finishing and meat processing is of dramatically lower quality, both ethically and nutritionally

Just 5% of the population expressing their refusal to consume industrially raised and finished meat, and non-organic produce would up-end the supply chain -- because even non-interested parties would begin to change their buying habits, to satisfy the "wacko" uncle or cousin who only eats organic, pasture-raised stuff...

In the US, 'organic' does not mean sustainable. Voting with your wallet is not enough. This situation requires large scale change and regulation to remedy.

And even if it was, the uptick in price is usually quite high; it seems most groceries have the highest margins on things marketed as healthy/sustainable.

Don't confuse margins with prices. I can't speak for the grocery stores, but at the producer level organic growing practices are higher cost. The farmer may get a higher price and yet also have a lower margin. That is certainly true for broad-field crops such as organic soy beans -- the higher price for organic at the grain terminal often does not make up for lower yields and higher input costs. I have seen broad-field crop farmers attempt organic and give it up as a risky, often money losing venture. (Source: I am a fly-over country landlord with skin in the game.)

Yeah, your point about the production costs is correct and seems easily generalizable. I don't think I can generalize the grocers the same way. This is an anecdote from 6 years ago, so take it that way, but in my area the average margin over all the stores and all of their items was just under 2%. Iirc, most grocers were taking losses on certain staples while maintaining a +50% markup on food marketable as healthy. I don't mean organic, just things perceived to be healthy. Some discount grocers and farmers' markets have opened business since then, so it may not be the same anymore.

> 'organic' does not mean sustainable

Certainly true. There is a particular sustainability problem I have been thinking about for some time: the "organic" versus "low till" conundrum.

Reducing chemical usage through organic farming practices is good. Reducing tillage is very good for the soil biome -- soil that has been undisturbed for 5 years has hugely more organic matter, hugely more worms and other healthy organism, better water retention, better aeration, the list goes on.

Here is the conflict: In order to achieve low- or no-till farming, chemical weed control is usually necessary. In order to avoid chemicals and stay organic, mechanic weed control is the norm, causing much soil disruption.

Wholesale conversion to organic farming practices will never let us restore the soil biome unless we come up with a new solution for weed control that is cost competitive.

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