wolfyvegan

New Grain Alliance? Sounds like a cartel out of a dystopian nightmare if ever there was one.

In all seriousness, what's very concerning is that people seem to think that making minor reforms to a grass-based food system will somehow solve any of the problems. The planting of grass has been destroying forests for thousands of years, concentrating wealth in the hands of landowners for thousands of years, enabling slavery and serfdom for thousands of years, depleting the topsoil and drying the climate for thousands of years... and switching to locally-grown or hand-harvested or heirloom versions of those annual grasses isn't going to fix the fundamental problems with grass-based agriculture.

Even if the population could be fed by old-fashioned cereal farms without big machines and diesel fuel, grass seeds lack vitamin C, have a horrible calcium-phosphorus ratio, and even lead to arthritis and intestinal issues in some people, not to mention the opioids that make them addictive and probably alter brain chemistry in ways that we don't even understand. Cereal crops are not suitable as a staple food for a healthy population, let alone sustainable at the scale that Europe would need.

In order to solve the problems in the modern industrial food system, people need to be willing to let go of their grass fetish and begin reforesting and eating what the forest produces. Every ecosystem given suitable conditions eventually matures to forest; humans have the ability to shape that forest into one that's highly productive and meets their material needs. Unlike industrial-scale grass-based agriculture, a tree-based agriculture doesn't lend itself well to centralisation; no big ploughing or harvesting machines, no synthetic fertilisers, and economical at just about any scale. Diverse food forest systems can be planted anywhere trees will grow, from city parks to remote villages. Incorporating native vegetation ensures ecological resilience and separates the cooperative forest model from the colonising orchard model. Food security? Climate action? Wildlife habitat? Water conservation? It's all there.

(Legumes are cool and all, but peas and lentils do not make a forest.)

Leather is a co-product, and it directly supports the beef industry. So yes, if leather sales decrease, the beef industry becomes less financially viable without a corresponding increase in government subsidies.

...candidates for use with libreCMC. :)

This reforestation project in particular could help to protect and restore the habitat of avian beings threatened by the cattle industry. I don't know of any similar projects as far north as Caquetá, but of course such projects are needed everywhere.

The Amazon's susceptibility to fire will only increase over time as deforestation and climate change disrupt the forest's ability to transport moisture inland.

In early June, President Lula announced 825.7 million reais ($150 million) from the Amazon Fund to boost enforcement. It’s the largest-ever financial aid through the fund, a conservation initiative established in 2008 with donations from countries such as Norway, Germany and the U.S.

The solution is not to give more money to the government; they would just waste it. Even if we disregard the inefficiencies of central government bureaucracy, there are far too many conflicting political and economic interests that will inevitably lead to policies destructive to the forest. If even the UN's Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change is not immune to this, we have no reason to think that this particular administration in Brazil or any future administration will be able or willing to resist the influence of the cattle industry.

Saving the forest requires that people 1) stop funding animal agriculture and smaller-scale regional drivers of forest destruction, and 2) take action to reclaim the land and actually plant new trees and protect the regenerating secondary forests which just so happen to be crucial to mitigating climate change.

If anyone wants to spend money to save the Amazon rainforest, the best use of that money would be to acquire (by any means) some land to protect or to donate to someone else so that they can do so. Without people living there to protect the forest, it will most likely be converted to grass for profit. (And if that profit can be taxed, then you can bet that such practices will be defended to the last by the same government that pledges to end deforestation by 2030.)

Sabotaging centralised points of failure such as slaughterhouses, meat-packing facilities, Cargill's soy terminal in Santarém... would also be helpful, but without addressing the primary production and consumer demand sides, it would never be sufficient.

Not to mention that being on the east side of a very tall mountain range makes a lot of sense as climate change accelerates. Though none of the fruits that you listed tend to do well in the Amazon... Mango (Mangifera indica) requires a distinct dry season in order to bear fruit unless you plant the Jim West Miracle Mango which is exactly the opposite in that the more rain it gets, the more it fruits, even twice in one year if there is no dry season at all. Papaya in rainforest clay would require all of the vegetation cleared from around it and preferably replaced by gravel or asphalt in order to avoid root-rot that kills >90% of plants before they bear fruit. Chirimoya (Annona cherimola) requires 50-100 hours below 13°C in order to reliably set fruit, so the nice folks in Limón might get it to work, but anyone at a lower elevation would be better off planting the native Rollinia mucosa instead.

I resemble that remark, and I can assure you that not all ~~superqueer~~ hardcore fruit-munchers are spiritual hippie woo-woo crystal worshippers. Most seem to be opposed to vaccines and to the medical industry in general, though the reasons are diverse. Unfortunately, most of the people I've met who speak against vaccines are not even vegan. And the raw foodists who aren't vegan... 🤮

...

...This comment is far too real. This should be some dystopian horror story, not what's actually happening all around me. I don't know if anyone reading this has ever been curled up in bed at night listening to the chainsaws destroying the forest on all sides, or awoken to the smell of smoke and wondered if today would be the end, or watched a faerie die and not been able to do anything, but it SUCKS. If people don't change their ways and put a stop to deforestation very soon, there may not be any enchanted forests left. And a world without faeries would not be a pleasant place.

Great to see someone else interested in this! !plantswap@mander.xyz already exists, but there's room for a seeds-only community too. :)

If only there were a way to mitigate climate change and produce food at the same time...

Industrial agriculture has gotten pretty efficient at deforestation, but for food production, growing your own makes much more sense.

They say so much, but they don't tell you if the fruit is any good...

"The fruit is 10 - 15mm long"