Is it possible for an econ professor to commit malpractice?

[Aeson]

And, by the way, I would love for some immigrants to come over here to help us with our agriculture.

You ignored it as a possibility to make your arguments about how much more efficient American workers are, and thus how bad it would be to have Americans working in farms. Now of course you want to pretend you've wanted immigrants to come here to work in higher value agricultural jobs all along. Even though when they immigrate here they become the Americans you say shouldn't be picking fruit. Perhaps though you were just confused as to how many people want to come to the US to pick fruit (or anythign else) and so didn't see it as the obvious solution to the 'problem'.

Also I'll note that you've dropped your absurd arguments about the potential for agricultural output per unit of area that you were using to try to pretend local production isn't possible (and thus deny those hard working immigrants their potential jobs). So it seems we're mostly in agreement.

Welcome aboard, finally

[Jon Miller]

Considering how much the agricultural sector is distorted by government subsidizes, I don't see how anyone can claim that what we do now is better from an economics perspective.


JM

[The Mad Monk]

History and Lore of the Jersey Tomato

[snoopy369]

I'm fairly confident few if any of us would argue the government subsidies given to farmers are a net benefit (although you'd have to take them away slowly to avoid destroying the banking sector and generally causing an economic catastrophe).

Also, why do all of Aeson's posts show up twice?

[Jon Miller]

They are just that important.

JM

[Wezil]

Also, why do all of Aeson's posts show up twice?

Emphasis.

[kentonio]

Because they are so short, he doesn't want us to accidentally miss them.

[Aeson]

I'm fairly confident few if any of us would argue the government subsidies given to farmers are a net benefit (although you'd have to take them away slowly to avoid destroying the banking sector and generally causing an economic catastrophe).

Also, why do all of Aeson's posts show up twice?

The internet loves my posts. Poly loves my posts. My posts are sexy and thus have many opportunities to make little baby posts (which sadly grow up to be big ones way too fast ... how time flies ... )

(I think it's a network issue with dropped packets. I get insanely high packet loss much of the time here.)

[Jaguar]

You ignored it as a possibility to make your arguments about how much more efficient American workers are, and thus how bad it would be to have Americans working in farms.

I'm sorry, I didn't realize that immigration liberalization was part of the space of what we're discussing. You didn't mention it either. If I had known that you wanted to bring more immigrants over here, then more labor-intensive agriculture makes more sense - but still not in New Jersey.

You should be sorry for making up strawman positions.

Also I'll note that you've dropped your absurd arguments about the potential for agricultural output per unit of area that you were using to try to pretend local production isn't possible

You want to feed us on 50 meters per person. The space between the one yard line and the two yard line on a football field. If it sounds implausible, that's because it is. It's .012 acres, far less than anyone else claims to be able to do. This is largely because yields of 22 kg/sq meter don't really happen outside of greenhouses.

Even so, your future is a dystopian vision where people construct expensive greenhouses over vast swaths of land in order to have diets far more restrictive than vegans have. No thanks.

[Hauldren Collider]

Farming on fifty yards? Paging Dr. Ecofarm!

[Imran Siddiqui]

You are correct, they don't.

As an aside? New Jersey tomotoes are legendary.

Preach! NJ folk stand strong!!

[Aeson]

I'm sorry, I didn't realize that immigration liberalization was part of the space of what we're discussing. You didn't mention it either. If I had known that you wanted to bring more immigrants over here, then more labor-intensive agriculture makes more sense - but still not in New Jersey.

I was giving you the benefit of the doubt that you would have enough understanding of the situation to realize that it would have had to happen for the hypothetical to have a chance to actually exist. Already a large share of agricultural jobs are filled by migrant workers or recent immigrants. It stands to reason that creating a lot more agricultural jobs would require a lot more workforce.

You want to feed us on 50 meters per person. The space between the one yard line and the two yard line on a football field. If it sounds implausible, that's because it is. It's .012 acres, far less than anyone else claims to be able to do.

The theoretical minimum (as everyone should know from the ecofarm era) is around 1/5th that. I was being generous in allowing Americans to continue to consume a ton of food every year just to illustrate how completely and utterly wrong you were.

This is largely because yields of 22 kg/sq meter don't really happen outside of greenhouses.

My personal best so far was 10kg/sq meter in just 40 days with radishes ... 5kg roots and 5kg edible tops. We used a slow growing variety. Some reach maturity as early as 22 days. We grew quite a lot of mushrooms in unintentionally inter-cropping with those radishes. I don't know if they were an edible variety. Could probably get another kg or two from intercropping like that.

I know varieties of squash can hit around 10-15kg/sq m in just 120 days, and if you're willing to leave it on the vine while the flesh gets progressively harder, you can do better. Peppers in a field (if you have year round growing season) could probably do close to 20 on a good year. 15 is more likely (5 in 120 days is average for many varieties.) I know onions and carrots can hit 9kg/sq m in. Carrots can do it in about 60 days, onions 120.

So while there are crop sthat wouldn't ever see 22kg/sq m, there are other crops that can surpass it quite a ways. We were dealing with the question of "possible" so I used a moderately optimistic number. I could have gone with a lot of other possibilities (with modern technology) that would let us hit truly absurd numbers, but it wasn't necessary to even include them and still give ourselves a big cushion.

Greenhouses certainly make it easier, increase the variety of foods and times of year you can grow in most climates, and increase the potential yield.

Even so, your future is a dystopian vision where people construct expensive greenhouses over vast swaths of land in order to have diets far more restrictive than vegans have. No thanks.

As I said, it's not what we should do (I even said it shouldn't be "NJ for NJ" prior to the whole discussion with you). The level of how local, how efficient we chose would determine the level of productivity per unit of area we could achieve. I'm just showing the range of possibility to those who claim that the possible isn't. Just own up that you were wrong in your bleating on that point.

Greenhouses really don't have to be expensive. As I mentioned earlier, a state of the art greenhouse can pay for itself in 3 years, 5 gets you past where you could be without it (and with perfect weather). That's a pretty good ROI even before we add in increased demand (and thus higher prices) for such production in the hypothetical.

If we were willing to go full bore there are a lot of further productivity (per unit of area) things we could do. Intercropping instead of monoculture with some specific crops. (Increases labor inputs, but can decrease other inputs in some cases.) Growing in soil-less medium on raised tables would allow for low-light crops such as mushrooms underneath the main crop. UV lights powered by nuclear plants could allow us to go even more vertical. Fish farms in the irrigation water tanks could be beneficial not just to increased production per unit of area, but in adding readily absorbed nutrients to the water. (I'm not an expert in that field. I just know that you can use certain types of fish for certain crops to good effect.) Digestion of farm wastes could produce methane for powering some of the operations as well. (Many dairies produce more electricity than the directly use this way. Theoretically plant matter has more potential than animal wastes on a per-weight basis.)

[Aeson]

I'm sorry, I didn't realize that immigration liberalization was part of the space of what we're discussing. You didn't mention it either. If I had known that you wanted to bring more immigrants over here, then more labor-intensive agriculture makes more sense - but still not in New Jersey.

I was giving you the benefit of the doubt that you would have enough understanding of the situation to realize that it would have had to happen for the hypothetical to have a chance to actually exist. Already a large share of agricultural jobs are filled by migrant workers or recent immigrants. It stands to reason that creating a lot more agricultural jobs would require a lot more workforce.

You want to feed us on 50 meters per person. The space between the one yard line and the two yard line on a football field. If it sounds implausible, that's because it is. It's .012 acres, far less than anyone else claims to be able to do.

The theoretical minimum (as everyone should know from the ecofarm era) is around 1/5th that. I was being generous in allowing Americans to continue to consume a ton of food every year just to illustrate how completely and utterly wrong you were.

This is largely because yields of 22 kg/sq meter don't really happen outside of greenhouses.

My personal best so far was 10kg/sq meter in just 40 days with radishes ... 5kg roots and 5kg edible tops. We used a slow growing variety. Some reach maturity as early as 22 days. We grew quite a lot of mushrooms in unintentionally inter-cropping with those radishes. I don't know if they were an edible variety. Could probably get another kg or two from intercropping like that.

I know varieties of squash can hit around 10-15kg/sq m in just 120 days, and if you're willing to leave it on the vine while the flesh gets progressively harder, you can do better. Peppers in a field (if you have year round growing season) could probably do close to 20 on a good year. 15 is more likely (5 in 120 days is average for many varieties.) I know onions and carrots can hit 9kg/sq m in. Carrots can do it in about 60 days, onions 120.

So while there are crop sthat wouldn't ever see 22kg/sq m, there are other crops that can surpass it quite a ways. We were dealing with the question of "possible" so I used a moderately optimistic number. I could have gone with a lot of other possibilities (with modern technology) that would let us hit truly absurd numbers, but it wasn't necessary to even include them and still give ourselves a big cushion.

Greenhouses certainly make it easier, increase the variety of foods and times of year you can grow in most climates, and increase the potential yield.

Even so, your future is a dystopian vision where people construct expensive greenhouses over vast swaths of land in order to have diets far more restrictive than vegans have. No thanks.

As I said, it's not what we should do (I even said it shouldn't be "NJ for NJ" prior to the whole discussion with you). The level of how local, how efficient we chose would determine the level of productivity per unit of area we could achieve. I'm just showing the range of possibility to those who claim that the possible isn't. Just own up that you were wrong in your bleating on that point.

Greenhouses really don't have to be expensive. As I mentioned earlier, a state of the art greenhouse can pay for itself in 3 years, 5 gets you past where you could be without it (and with perfect weather). That's a pretty good ROI even before we add in increased demand (and thus higher prices) for such production in the hypothetical.

If we were willing to go full bore there are a lot of further productivity (per unit of area) things we could do. Intercropping instead of monoculture with some specific crops. (Increases labor inputs, but can decrease other inputs in some cases.) Growing in soil-less medium on raised tables would allow for low-light crops such as mushrooms underneath the main crop. UV lights powered by nuclear plants could allow us to go even more vertical. Fish farms in the irrigation water tanks could be beneficial not just to increased production per unit of area, but in adding readily absorbed nutrients to the water. (I'm not an expert in that field. I just know that you can use certain types of fish for certain crops to good effect.) Digestion of farm wastes could produce methane for powering some of the operations as well. (Many dairies produce more electricity than the directly use this way. Theoretically plant matter has more potential than animal wastes on a per-weight basis.)

[Dauphin]

I think foodies tend to place value on freshness for flavour (and possibly nutrition). That may be a good guide for tomatoes while not so much for TVs.

I understand the perishable argument (and commented the same). That's a no brainer. I'm referring to the environmental cost of transport argument.

[The Mad Monk]

Preach! NJ folk stand strong!!

Damn straight.