Pesticide safety limit for salmon farms watered down after industry lobbying
theferret.scot
theferret.scot
1. I believe the initial change from 12 to 131 ng/kg was science-based. Based on the literature and science process 12 ng/kg was the wrong number.
2. This change won't matter. The amount of chemical required per use leads to concentrations that are 10-100 times the new limit.
SEPA rules require a prediction showing that the average concentration within the predicted deposition area is less then the limit. Regardless of the increased limit it will not be possible.
At either limit, the levels added to the environment from a single treatment of a farm will cause deposition higher than the limits. I have linked the SEPA regulations for aquaculture and a report for the modelling program (NewDEPOmod) used. On page 32 on the second link there are plots showing the observed and modelled concentrations, both of which are above the allowed limits.
https://www.sepa.org.uk/regulations/water/aquaculture/
https://www.sams.ac.uk/t4-media/sams/pdf/publications/REFINI...
The question is whether thats a good enough reason to take whatever risks are being taken here.
the problem is allocation and distribution of that.
eating industrial salmon is not a necessity for anyone.
Efficiency like John Deer using the copyright law to stop Farmers from repairing their tractors?
https://capturedeconomy.com/how-copyright-enabled-john-deere...
Is it China, since they are the ones that seem to flout patents all the time?
Why is it that the 'Capitalists' on here want to take all the credit, but when there is a problem it's got nothing to do with them?
Is capitalism for or against government intervention?
For example is it capitalist or socialist to have a national bank and currency? Should each private bank print their own currency?
When government provides employees protections against unfair dismissal we call that government intervention.
But we regularly prosecute and imprison employees for 'stealing intellectual property' at the taxpayer's expense, or enforse non-competes using the power of the state, and thats never called government intervention.
The way I see it, people who use term 'government intervention' are trying to have their cake and eat it.
If government should not intervene when Amazon pays no taxes and abuses its monopoly position, then it should also not expend taxpayer money to protect them from shoplifting.
If you and your employer agree to have a contract enforced by the government then enforcement of the contract is not government intervention (and you should be forced to pay for the cost of that contract, not the taxpayer). There is also no such thing as stealing intellectual property.
Shoplifting violates the 'force is only justified in response to force' principle, which arguably the government's only purpose is to prevent. Not paying income taxes or being a monopoly does not. Not wanting to give you something is not the same as taking something away from you, as much as you wish it was.
I am not clear what you are saying.
Are you currently forced to use the US Dollar, and by extension national bank (the Fed) in the United States? Would you prefer to see every private bank create it's own currency?
Given that: "Under 18 U.S. § 486, it's a criminal offense to make or pass any metal coins "intended for use as current money, whether in the resemblance of coins of the United States or of foreign countries, or of original design."
> There is also no such thing as stealing intellectual property.
According to the FBI official website: "Preventing intellectual property theft is a priority of the FBI’s criminal investigative program. It specifically focuses on the theft of trade secrets and infringements on products that can impact consumers’ health and safety, such as counterfeit aircraft, car, and electronic parts."
I don’t see the relevance of “it’s illegal” to anything in this conversation.
If I “take” something from you and you still have it, nothing has been stolen.
So, basically getting more profits by introducing more issues for "someone else to solve".
Farmed salmon is a luxury good and we shouldn't be harming the environment for that.
are they farmable on industrial scale to feed humanity?
For every 1 kg of salmon waten by a person 5-10 KG of anchovy or other fish is eaten by salmon.
I am not expert, I am just speculating that if you dig into details, picture can be very different.
I regularly go to the fish market, small seafood like anchovi and shrimp can be bought 4 times cheaper than salmon.
Unfortunately a lot of industrialized farming does not seem to be about feeding the planet efficiently.
Industrialization is rife with short-term thinking.
The idea that this will help humans long term has not been proven.
The only people who are SURE not to be negatively affected by this kind of thing are the super rich, who are not getting their salmon from the same places as you and I do.
If that was actually the goal, we would be investing into bioengineering salt-water tolerant crops, like China is doing. Or into permaculture, like many environmentalists are advocating. Or at least we would legally mandate interoperability and repairability of farm hardware, like right to repair advocates.
But really the goal is to allow the established industrial players to continue their existing business practices, even thought they are harmful and thoughtless.
Industrialization is nearly always the practice of punting long term issues to another part of the world or to another generation.
I would assert that most industrialists are looking to maximize profit through economies of scale with little to no concern for sustainability. That’s how it started and I think that’s how it ends.
So, I guess maybe being myopic at scale is evil.
We should note to start that this seems exclusive for UK.
The targeted animals are blood sucker crustaceans that multiply exponentially in cages and also affect wild fishes, therefore even if we don't like to eat animals, we should want to do something about it.
Is a well known old problem, causes huge economic loses in the sector (436 million dollars lost only in a year) and is not fully solved still. There is a promising way to attack it with zero chemicals, but is not easy.
Corruption: >Corruption is a form of dishonesty or a criminal offense which is undertaken by a person or an organization which is entrusted in a position of authority, in order to acquire illicit benefits or abuse power for one's personal gain.
There's nothing intrinsically wrong with companies trying to influence government policies. It's only a problem when government officials abuse their office for personal gain (eg. taking bribes). In this case it's not really obvious that such improper behavior has occurred, other than a vague kneejerk reaction of "pesticides bad, therefore the only possible reason why the regulators approved it was that they were corrupt".
Government officials are trading increased cancer rates for higher profit margins.
How that can ever be acceptable is beyond me.
Heck it compares with processed foods!
I went to "www.webstaurantstore.com" (?) and compared salmon to a cheap mass produced ham (that is both are animal protein).
$10/lb for salmon vs $8/lb for the ham. Hardly a huge difference, but one is very processed with lots of salt and nitrates.
you can find $2/lb ham, but you can't find salmon for that price.
lb/$10 will be transformed into something like 300g after cooking process, and for person with minimum wage, it means he needs to work for 1h after taxes to get 300g of product, this is like pre-industrial level of productivity and income.. And there are people outside US with even lower wages.
- 300 grams is not a bad serving.
- for the folks on minimum wage, its only 12% of their income which Im not sure if its a bad ratio historically.
- "man does not live on bread alone" ie, you can't eat cheap ham everyday, nor should salmon be a daily staple. But variety of food is a necesity, not a luxury.
- ham at $2/lb sounds disgusting and probably causes more health problems (nitrates) than just eliminating animal protein.
- My wife used to live on minimum wage with no external help padding her income. She still ate a serving of fresh salmon every week.
Im sorry, but if farmed salmon is a luxury, as a society our standards of living have collapsed.
yes, in the last two decades wealth gap became larger, and poor became poorer.
Humans thinking, they own Earth and can do whatever they want even if it kills everything else can never be regarded as good.
And it's not surprising that most people pay more attention to whatever they perceive to be better value for their time.
So it's not really those with less money getting 'end of a baton' but those with less convincing speech. It's unfortunate that the least convincing and credible are at best treated as outcasts, and at worst as criminals.
But how could a democratic society be structured differently? People can't be forced to treat every single individual the same.
35000 people per representative. That would mean we would need a larger capitol building - but at least it would be harder to gerrymander and to bribe/lobby all of these people.
In this day of technology we could manage a large congress quite well.
We can't eat fish more than once a week because fish are so poisoned. I have a close friend who had to go through chelation therapy because her blood had so many heavy metals from eating sushi 2-3 a week for a year.
Industries that create pollution need MORE regulation, not less and things like this is depressing, where industry is able to corruptly change laws to benefit themselves and poison the people around them.
No, it's "the shareholders". Large corporations don't care about farming, only making money. They just happen to also farm.
Guess who is behind “the children?” Yes, the shareholders as well.
We could get serious about that if we decide to get serious about agri land use, deforestation, soil depletion, etc.
The issue is that animals raised on pasture need more land and more time, which equals more money. It's cheaper to raise animals on what amounts to junk food (soy, corn, legumes).
We raise and sell pork, chicken, eggs, and dairy products that never eat anything that our own land doesn't produce (grass/nuts/native fruit). But my hogs grow over a year not six months, my chickens don't lay in the winter, and my cows don't produce 10+ gallons per day. My business is only sustainable because of people who care for quality of cheaper quantity.
My point was merely, there is a middle way, that makes better products, cheaply, and more ethically.
80% of all agricultural land for 18% of calories. It's an area the size of both Americas.
https://ourworldindata.org/uploads/2013/10/World-Map-by-Land...
If the world adopted a plant-based diet we would reduce global agricultural land use from 4 to 1 billion hectares
https://ourworldindata.org/land-use-diets
Given that we're in the sixth mass extinction, and animal species have seen 70% decline in last 50 years, we have to reverse the trend.
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2022/oct/13/almost-7...
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Holocene_extinction
That "marginal land" should be reforested instead and nature restored.
https://www.nature.com/articles/s41893-020-00603-4
The carbon opportunity cost of animal-sourced food production on land
https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-019-01448-4
Humans are driving one million species to extinction - with agriculture
https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/26231772/
Biodiversity conservation: The key is reducing meat consumption
> My business is only sustainable because of people who care for quality of cheaper quantity
Your business might be. Animal agriculture isn't.
https://www.eurekalert.org/news-releases/917471
Feeding 10 billion people by 2050 within planetary limits may be achievable
A global shift towards healthy and more plant-based diets, halving food loss and waste, and improving farming practices and technologies are required to feed 10 billion people sustainably by 2050, a new study finds.
Sure, if you're ok with ignoring everything else.
> have a wealth of nutrients
But nothing that we couldn't get from plants.
> and they can improve the ground they are on at the same time
They can. But forest would do it too, and better. Climate-wise it's not a win.
https://www.oxfordmartin.ox.ac.uk/publications/grazed-and-co...
Grass-fed beef isn't necessarily better for the environment than beef from CAFOs. While grass-fed systems offer benefits like soil health, they often require more land, potentially leading to deforestation. They can also be less efficient in terms of resource use and have variable effects on carbon sequestration. A comprehensive assessment considering land use efficiency, resource consumption, and greenhouse gas emissions is essential to fully understand the environmental impact of different beef production methods.
https://www.ox.ac.uk/news/2017-10-03-grass-fed-beef-good-or-...
"This report concludes that grass-fed livestock are not a climate solution. Grazing livestock are net contributors to the climate problem, as are all livestock. Rising animal production and consumption, whatever the farming system and animal type, is causing damaging greenhouse gas release and contributing to changes in land use.
'Ultimately, if high consuming individuals and countries want to do something positive for the climate, maintaining their current consumption levels but simply switching to grass-fed beef is not a solution. Eating less meat, of all types, is.’"
> https://ourworldindata.org/uploads/2013/10/World-Map-by-Land...
how did you get 80% and 18% numbers from that link?..
also, calories is not the only metric of nutrition load..
https://ourworldindata.org/uploads/2020/01/Global-land-use-g...
from
https://ourworldindata.org/land-use
> also, calories is not the only metric of nutrition load
True. Nutrition is more than just calories. Plant-based diets offer diverse nutrients, antioxidants, and fiber that promote better health.
Ok, but still that pic lacks sources
Actual UN FAO says it is 33% of croplands used for crops production for animals, and other land is not necessary can be used for other type of aggrecalture: https://www.fao.org/3/ar591e/ar591e.pdf
UC Davis estimates that cattle farming consumes only 40% of arable land: https://clear.ucdavis.edu/explainers/cattle-and-land-use-dif...
> Nutrition is more than just calories. Plant-based diets offer diverse nutrients, antioxidants, and fiber that promote better health.
I am more wondering about protein intake
Why does the land have to be used at all?
> I am more wondering about protein intake
Seitan, tofu, TVP are the obvious high-protein plant foods. People without a taste for those things or uninterested in leaving their comfort zone can seek mock meats.
Either way, it's trivial to hit protein goals.
and why not be used?
> protein
yes, but the topic of discussion what is the share of those nutrition in consumption for plant vs animal today and not hypothetical case when everyone switch to plant based diet.
Also, it is not clear if whole chain of seitan production is much better than animal protein in term of efficiency.
Seitan is just wheat gluten. You can take wheat flour off your shelf right now and wash out the starch so just the spongy gluten is left which is pure protein. And that's just one protein-concentrated food.
I think you need to look these numbers up for yourself because it doesn't seem like you have a grip on how inefficient meat is, and I think you need to see the numbers for yourself to believe it.
yeah, I looked, internet search says that seitan costs $15/lb in walmart, which is way more expensive than some chicken tighs, and I use this comparison as benchmark for efficiency and economical viability.
Your hand-wavings and personal attacks are ignored.
Why would you look at that and not just at the cost of wheat flour? Wheat gluten is dirt cheap to extract from wheat. Once again, you can make it in your home at the cost of wheat flour.
Another example is soy beans where the majority of soy is fed to animals instead of consumed directly as products like tofu, TVP, and soy chunks.
As for "hand waving", I suppose I can google meat inefficiencies for you. First google result: https://www.wri.org/insights/sustainable-diets-what-you-need... -- You'll notice that wheat is the most efficient source of protein especially when considering GHG emissions.
wheat flour has much smaller protein content than proper cuts of meat, so you just shift all this processing from industrial complex to your body with side effect of calories over consumption, blood sugar spikes etc.
> soy beans
uncooked soy beans also costs like 3-4$/lb in walmart, while having lower quality protein than meat.
> majority of soy is fed to animals
you can think that animal are doing your industrial processing: extracting proteins from raw soy/grains and converting it to well preservable and digestible form.
Remember, it takes 25 calories of cow food (like wheat or soy) to grow one calorie of meat.
You can eat those calories (wheat or soy) directly at 25x more efficiency, and that's just calorie efficiency without looking at water or land use efficiency.
Finally, price doesn't tell you how much it costs to make something nor the financial viability at scale. Just like the price of beef doesn't show you subsidies, the price impact of basic demand, nor externalities.
In a hypothetical world where we switch 100% beef consumption to wheat gluten and tofu, why would it be more costly when we aren't losing 24 calories for every 25 calories we feed to cows anymore?
Even when you wash the starch from wheat flour to isolate wheat gluten, the starch is used as inputs into other foods. When we talk about the energy lost through tropic levels, it's lost as unrecoverable metabolic energy.
which has cost which we discussed already.
Also gluten protein is far less digestible than animal protein, Table 1 in this publication says it is less digestible by factor 4: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6723444/#:~:tex....
> even beef
beef is by no mean the best way to grow animal protein. Turkeys and chicken will be much more cost efficient.
> Remember, it takes 25 calories of cow food (like wheat or soy) to grow one calorie of meat.
I answered you already that calories intake is by no mean the important metric of nutrition value, and not interested to jump into this discussion again.
This seems like this could have the sources (cannot open it right now).
https://github.com/owid/notebooks/tree/main/HannahRitchie/da...
https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&sor...
https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=false&so...
Things may seem that way since those areas have been cultivated since prehistory, but this is not correct in general. Also, commercial fields (aka green concrete) and naturally grazed steppe/savannah are very different.
My cattle (Jerseys, I do not raise commercial beef cattle) prefer my savannah land. I have approx. 100 acres of oak savannah which I have worked hard to restore to its former glory. My savannah (I don't call it pasture, it's not) is far more productive and biodiverse. I do have to remove my herds from it because trees cannot handle the constraint weight and trampling of large animals, and so I do also have a small 20 acre pasture that I keep for the off-time. I also have a 5 acre lot I keep for the winter months (Jan-April) so my cattle don't destroy dormant plants and so the grasses have time to mature in the spring.
People keep asking me why I'm so strongly opposed to GMO in food, outside of stuff like Golden Rice. The reason is that we can't trust Big Ag to not do the wrong thing: for one, there are serious questions on monopolies and dependence of farmers, even entire nations in the end upon suppliers, and it's almost exclusively about introducing resistence against pesticides, with the aforementioned effects on biodiversity.
Have you ever kept a garden? Did you do it on natural soil, with no pesticides? The food problem is hard, especially because food isn't very fungible. (Consider crickets if you think otherwise)
GMO's should be regulated so that pesticide restiance is mitigated. Personally I think GMOs should have multiple pesticide restistances for each class of pest so that resistant pest mutations can be treated with a seperate pesticide.
> The food problem is hard, especially because food isn't very fungible.
Indeed it is, and modern agriculture has drastically improved human life from the situation of just a century ago.
The thing is, we've gone too far - in our quest for more and more and more food production, we have endangered nature itself. Soils are degrading because the crops use too much nutrients and because the wildlife - particularly small burrowing animals - get killed off by pesticides directly or because their food got killed off by pesticides. On top of that, heavy farm machines compress the soil... and so it can't soak up water any more, leading to flood and drought issues (it can't retain water because the soil is too compacted for the water to seep through, so no buffer for drought times, and when rain falls it just washes the topsoil with it and is gone). And that doesn't even mention insects and their role in food chains.
> GMO's should be regulated so that pesticide restiance is mitigated. Personally I think GMOs should have multiple pesticide restistances for each class of pest so that resistant pest mutations can be treated with a seperate pesticide.
You didn't get my point: pesticides kill everything but the GMO plants that are designed to be resistant, thus impacting the food chain of nature as an ecosystem. We've engineered places that are literally inhospitable to wildlife, with serious and far-reaching consequences. We barely understand food chains and anchor species as a concept, we only discovered just how huge a role wolves and beavers play in nature a few decades ago [1]. And yet, despite the warning signs (such as insect free car windshields despite driving through the countryside for hours), we keep on and on doing what we know is likely harmful!
[1] https://www.yellowstonepark.com/things-to-do/wildlife/wolf-r...
Around here I'm pretty sure it's about the deer.
2. The point that they are making is that there are ways to create biodiversity within modern ag that are actually required by law. You are not supposed to plant gmo or spray your whole field to keep a remnant of the original population, riparian buffers, cover crops (voluntary), and other voluntary buffer zones (pollinator fields etc). These can all preserve biodiversity and prevent resistance while still outputting the food needed at the price we all want to pay.
I am getting the impressing that you are not familiar with corrupt practices of Big Ag, most which have nothing to do with producing more food, and have everything to do with padding their profit margins and abusing their power.
For example, farmers hire agronomists, but actually agronomists make more money from kickbacks from producers of pesticides / agrochemicals than they do from farmers. Many of them are actually undercover pesticide pushers, rather than trusted professionals.
We have metric tons of research that shows that pesticides are overused, and poorly targeted. Not unlike the opioid crisis in US
You could just make a law that farms will be ranked by some biodiversity metric - for example, how many unique species of plant and animal were found by an inspector on an annual inspection. Any farm in the bottom 50% of rankings would need to pay perhaps 1% of revenue as an extra fee/fine for being insufficiently wildlife friendly.
Clearly people will game this metric, but most ways to fake having hundreds of species of animal on your farm are good for wild animals too.
https://www.reuters.com/graphics/GLOBAL-ENVIRONMENT/INSECT-A...
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2023/jun/07/insect-d...
We can't have animal agriculture and feed 10 billion people.
https://www.eurekalert.org/news-releases/917471
We would need more than 5 Earths to feed everyone a version of the American diet.
https://css.umich.edu/publications/factsheets/sustainability...
We don't have those extra Earths.
For many businesses, 1% can be the difference between profit and loss, and if slight adjustments to farming practice can get them some biodiversity and save them a 1% fee, they will.
In agriculture, it means reducing animal agriculture, expanding forests, and adopting plant-based diets. Nut orchards replacing dairy farms. Regenerative practices like syntropic agriculture, natural farming, and permaculture to nurture soil. No pesticides or herbicides, limited fertilizers, compost over manure, smaller diverse fields, hedgerows, companion and nitrogen fixing plants.
Think vast untouched forests, biodiverse corridors, and thriving meadows.
It's not merely a 1% revenue concern; it's about safeguarding the Earth and prioritizing biodiversity. Such a profound shift requires prioritizing the well-being of our planet over short-term financial implications.
Is that not correct? I feel like the post above is completely misunderstanding the issue
I can't remember the exact cycle, but essentially fish kibble in farms is made of small fish with heavy metals and farm fish that are fatty retain those metals in their fats to a much higher rate then other fishes.
And it also ends up in dog food? It gets a little wild when your food chain is contaminated.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bioaccumulation
https://www.poisoningchildren.com/blog/2014/02/05/bioaccumul...
"... because of the toxins dolphins accumulate in the oceans we have polluted, their uterine environment and breast milk are so toxic that it kills their first-borns. Later-born offspring have a better chance ..."
"Children who breastfed were much more likely to get leukemia before the age of two when their mothers had been exposed to pesticides. And in turn, breastfeeding is one of the few measures that may provide women protection from breast cancer, possibly because the toxicants pass out of the breast fat with the milk"
Much (an estimated 40%) of the mercury that eventually finds its way into fish originates with coal-burning power plants and chlorine production plants.
While algae may not have the same taste-profile or texture as fish, at least we would be able to make a difference (particularly with climate change and better preserving our environment from toxins as described by the article) by making socially-normal algae-based options for people who currently choose to eat fish on a more regular basis for nutritional reasons.
And nintendo should make only boring and educative games in ascii that nobody wants like Donkey Kant or Super Marx kart.
I suspect that a sector that has been running before Christ dumped his pacifier, had thoroughly explored yet the idea of breeding strictly vegetarian fishes (get-rich-simpler-faster)... and discarded it. Some decades ago.
There is a problem with vegetarian fishes. They taste awful. Algae dislike being eaten and love to design new chemical deterrents. Salmon on the other hand is delicious.
Marine farms are simply giving people more of the product what they want to buy at a premium price. Strict market logic.
The sad truth is that most of the absolute solutions that are preached in this thread are either untested, unproved or proven as non-viable in the real life since 90's. Those are "cargo-cult solutions" that people still keep parroting again and again; replacing critical thinking with faith. Fueled by a lack of real knowledge on the area.
That’s what we’ve been saying for almost half a century.
Guess what, we can do both.
Was this because of a blood test showing levels indicating chelation therapy or was this for some other reason? What heavy metals? What is the evidence that it came from sushi? What kind of fish?
Mercury in fish is partially, but not fully, humanity’s fault, and the evidence that it’s problematic (at least if you’re not eating whales) is mixed.
For a surprising and fascinating rabbit hole, there are papers like this:
https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s11356-021-12361-7
As far as I can tell, the jury is very much out as to the significance of dietary mercury.
Some fish contain enough selenium that it will combine with a part or even with all mercury, making that part of the mercury non-dangerous, so reducing the effective content of mercury.
A few fish may contain so much selenium that it may make the mercury non-dangerous, but the selenium will be toxic itself, making the fish unfit for consumption.
The main problem with polluted food like fish is that normal people cannot afford to have a chemical analysis laboratory, to check whether the food they want to eat is healthy or harmful.
So they can only hope that there are adequate laws about the content of pollutants in food and that they are really enforced. Enforcing such regulations for fish is particularly difficult due to the great differences in effective mercury content that may happen between individuals of the same kind of fish, so even when a few fish from a vendor are sampled for chemical analysis, that does not reduce much the risk of eating fish with too much mercury. The same happens with seeds and nuts that may contain too much lead and cadmium, and so on.
So even when you are aware of the dangers of eating toxic food, it is difficult to make choices that would significantly reduce the risks, because any choice that decreases some risks increases others.
> poison the people around them
Honest question. It is really poisoning people or are we just assuming it? Just because some stuff can kill a shrimp does not mean that is also able to harm human metabolism.
not to mention the fact that there are safety intervals on industry, because this is aquaculture, not fishing. Treating a cage on spring does not mean than you will be able to buy that fish before Christmas.
I am all for it (even though it needs to be watched and not used for any sort of chemical increase only decrease) why not?
Genetic engineering has enabled us to grow potatoes, corn, and cotton that contain some DNA from bacteria that encodes (I.e contains the recipe for) a protein, referred to as Bt Crystal Toxin, that disrupts the metabolism of some major pests. They are regarded as safe for humans because it requires both a higher pH (alkaline) and specific receptors that humans lack in order to do damage to an organism.
Though the technology isn't harmless either. Let's assume sufficient care is and perpetually will be taken to avoid major disasters. What remains is amoral for-profit companies that now have far more ability to engineer food for market fit. Why is this bad? Because carrots and apples will slowly turn into the equivalents of Snickers and Cheetos - those are the products we get when not constrained by nature.
https://www.imdb.com/title/tt8969332/
Maybe biodiversity is the solution.
Additionally, avoiding monoculture orchards and incorporating diverse trees, such as oak, known for enhancing biodiversity, could be beneficial.
https://www.gardeningknowhow.com/edible/fruits/apples/apple-...
Half the food that is produced ends up wasted, and a serious amount of crops isn't even counted in that total figure because it's destined from the start for fucking biofuel.
Get rid of that waste, get rid of fossil fuels, and you can feed the world comfortably without having to turn farms into chemical weapon dispensers against all kinds of wildlife.
You can't eliminate food waste - but many well off Americans have no clue about how to properly feed themselves while minimizing waste.
If you need it spelled out what you need to do: limit portion sizes in restaurants (where a lot of the food waste happens, also contributing to the insane rat infestation issues [3]) by law since Americans seem to love extensive portions, educate people how to cook and how to plan cooking, ban ultra large food packaging that no reasonable family can use before the product goes bad, and introduce actual public transit on all levels from local over regional to interstate to reduce your dependency on fossil fuels.
As for food waste in developing countries, it would be a good starter idea to invest into electrical grids and microgrids, it's hard to keep food from perishing when you don't have a stable grid to run a fridge. But that's a monumental task that needs international cooperation.
[1] https://www.rts.com/resources/guides/food-waste-america/
[2] https://zerowasteeurope.eu/our-work/eu-policy/waste-manageme...
[3] https://www.npr.org/sections/thesalt/2012/11/27/165907972/fo...
My personal experience matches. Our apple and cherry and peach harvests are hit or miss. Our pawpaw, hickory, and passion fruit harvests ae always exceptional.
The problem with monocultures is you have no breaks where competition from other bug species, birds, animals, etc, keeps an ecosystem in balance. So you end up creating this environment where a pest can take off without any resistance.
This is usually not done out of a desire to maximize yields. Farmers don't want to take up space with trees that are 'not producing'. But the other way to look at it is that those other plants and trees are producing a ton of value, they're just not producing a crop per se. That said, many companion plants can also be valuable crops in their own right.
The reason why most people don't do that is because it's expensive. So, the reason that spraying is more conventionally popular is not because it's the only way, but because it's cheaper. And the reason it's cheaper is because – as I've mentioned elsewhere – the negative externalities are not paid by the producer, but are rather covered by society.
That is to say, if food producers aren't having to pay the cost on society's health, or on the ecosystem's health, then it's the road most farms are going to take. The solution would be for society to cover the equivalent cost in not doing those practices. I.e., dramatically increasing funding for farms that take sustainable approaches.
https://hakaimagazine.com/news/parasite-eating-lumpfish-are-...