Website Collecting Soil Wisdom for Future Genertions

[potatoHeads]

Soil Inheritance Movement

The Soil Inheritance Movement is a global movement to leave our children true wealth: fertile soil.

soil.im

This website collects farming data like soil ammendments and soil tests and their results and puts them in an AI chatbot so people can get experienced-based answers from actual farmers in the context of their questions and needs.

 

[e3120]

We don't really like data harvesters here.

 

[potatoHeads]

We don't really like data harvesters here.

My goal is to crowd-source farming wisdom and then make it available to farmers. I'm not selling the data or trying to trick anyone in anyway. It's a completely self-contained system.

 

[L P]

Can I suggest you research all the issues farmers are facing first. TFF is a good place to find out. I've absolutely nothing against your ethos, I'm organic and do as much as I can for my soils to keep them fertile in an ecological way.... however, this year I have finally exceeded historic conventional yield on the farm, it was on 10 acres out of 500 and relies on 18 months of clover break in a three year period. It is not sustainable farming practice to feed the world population. To achieve your aims and have right to your allegation of Justus von Liebig being a soil villain there is a far more pressing issue than adjusting farming practice. We are overpopulated, not just that, the population in evolved countries put little to no value on food. Honestly, we are a million miles off adjusting the way people value what they eat, despite their ideology of dogging farmers to do better. We would all love to farm true free range stock and ditch agrochemical companies for grain production whilst keeping farming profitable... society, however, is not ready, nor willing to triple its monthly food bill and shrink by 1/3 for agriculture to be truly sustainable in an ever growing world population.

 

[potatoHeads]

First of all, thank you so much for trying to help me. I'm completely focused on helping farmers like myself improve their soils because it is the most profitable and sustainable way to "feed the world." If we keep going the way we're going, Interstellar won't be science fiction; we will make the Earth infertile.

Secondly, the "feed the world" myth has been debunked by many sources. Best estimates are that we could feed 10.4 billion people each year with the food we generate just in that year. That doesn't include long-term storable foods like canned goods. The problem isn't the quanity of food, it's access to food. But the real problem is malnutrition from lack of nutrients in the food.

Some estimates suggest declines of up to 40% for key nutrients such as calcium, magnesium, and vitamins A and C. This is greatly contributing to almost 1/4 people in the UK being malnourished. So, we all need to be learning a better way to farm from experienced farmers like you.

As far as food costs go, supply and demand will take care of that. If there's a greater supply of nutrient-dense food, the demand may dip temporarily but that should cause the price to come down and people will likely choose the healthier option (at least the people who live longer lives). As the price drops, demand should meet and surpass the current average food prices. And if farmers are investing in soil development, their operational costs should come down as well.

Thanks again for engaging in this conversation with me.

 

[L P]

Some estimates suggest declines of up to 40% for key nutrients such as calcium, magnesium, and vitamins A and C. This is greatly contributing to almost 1/4 people in the UK being malnourished. So, we all need to be learning a better way to farm from experienced farmers like you.

I had this conversation with an old school friend who turned vegan and started preaching about lack of nutrients in today's chicken compared to the 70's. Index link a chicken from then to now and you would pay £19 for an average roasting chicken. Farmers could supply a chicken just as good as one from the 70s for £10 a bird but wouldn't sell many to the cartel. I quite agree soils need looking after, I dont agree with the holier than thou approach in condemning forward thinking, progressive and productive conventional farmers. Feed 10 billion people in the debunked myth? Maybe with zero food wastage and only extensive grazed stock, that comes at a far higher cost though and would, even if possible, leave a far greater divide in nutritional foods between the rich and the poor. It is not possible to improve nutrition back to the old days standards at world scale without cost. I'll say it again, the farmer isn't the one that needs educating, we are already stretched to breaking point by society demands where a new iPhone is far more important than food quality.