Agricultural Biodiversity Weblog
Crops, animals, wild relatives …
You may remember that I pointed to Freakonomics Blog a few days ago because they had a nice little feature where people could ask an illustrious agricultural economist pointed questions. Well the answers are now up. Here’s my favourite one:
Q: Are there any good arguments that support farm subsidies?
A: No.
Actually that’s a bit unfair, there is more to the answer than that. Check it out. And let us know if you want something similar here on agrobiodiversity.
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Ford reminds us that, if you’re going to feed the world, there’s more to animals than meat and milk:
There are some other potential benefits to using animals, despite their intrinsic inefficiency. They can buffer food supply: build up herds in good years, eat them (and any grain they would have eaten) when crops fail. See “Future Harvest: pesticide-free farming” (or similar title) for other benefits: growing more soil-conserving forages becomes more economic, graze weedy fields rather than building up weed seed bank, etc.
That title? Future Harvest: Pesticide-free Farming (Our Sustainable Future).
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Yes, please!