It's refreshing that dust storms are less frequent than they were in the 1930s…but we're still losing topsoil in a way that never happened before we first broke the land to the plow (destroying the root systems of the perennial grasses which had kept the Panhandle looking so fertile).  And it's still amusing that we're paying them to grow crops with one hand, and paying them not to grow crops with the other (the CRP).

Back to the subject: all the things you mentioned most certainly contribute to the problem — but the fundamental issue remains, which is that agriculture is not sustainable.  At its best (e.g. Mexican peasants owning their own small plot, growing the Three Sisters, and returning their own poop to the land) it's zero-sum…but in every other case, it's fundamentally extractive.  There's little incentive to look 10-50 years ahead and every incentive to extract more productivity right now…

…especially when the land isn't feeding you or your family.  In the case of commodity agriculture, land is simply a profit center for the farmer — who usually doesn't own the land he's farming.  As such, they treat farmland much more like a gold mine: get what you can out of it, move on, and leave the mess to someone else.

JS

The destruction of the soil in the Fertile Crescent is more likely to be caused by one of three causes: (1)ignorance of non-destructive agriculture techniques (2) the tragedy of the commons (which goes on today; look at the Ogallala Aquifier), or (3) authoritarian regimes making stupid decisions, such as described at news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2001/05/0518_crescent.html.

I think the following story more accurately describes what happens when farmers are given control over their own land: (link)

That allexperts.com "analysis" (i.e. one guy saying "I know of no studies...") can be debunked by the following scientific reference:

Nutrition and Health, 2007, Vol. 19, pp. 21–55
THE MINERAL DEPLETION OF FOODS AVAILABLE TO US AS A NATION (1940–2002) – A Review of the 6th Edition of McCance and Widdowson*
David Thomas

"As for the 'topsoil disappearing at 1% per year' allegation, I don't understand why the owners or shareholders of a farm corporation would destroy an asset."

Most people can't seem to think ahead by more than one paycheck, let alone multiple decades.  Especially when, as noted, farmers are guaranteed a base price for their corn, soy, wheat, or cotton, no matter how much of it they grow.  The seemingly inevitable destruction of land by agriculturalists goes all the way back to the first farmers in the Fertile Crescent -- now a desert.

I'm glad you enjoyed Against the Grain.  It's a thought-provoking book.  I forget if Manning quotes Dwayne Andreas in it, but if not, I'll put it here:

"There isn't one grain of anything in the world that is sold in a free market. Not one! The only place you see a free market is in the speeches of politicians. People who are not in the Midwest do not understand that this is a socialist country."  -Dwayne Andreas, ex-CEO of Archer Daniels Midland

CF:

The Dust Bowl is a whole another story, due in large part to government-subsidized homesteading (i.e. stealing of Indian land) on agriculture-sized plots of land that were, in reality, only suitable for grazing (at much lower population densities).  It turns out rain doesn't follow the plow.

That's an interesting speculation about corn overproduction leading to destabilization of Tsarist Russia...I don't know enough about that era of history to make a useful comment.

The problems of fraudulent misrepresentation of food are legion, as you indicate, and they're a whole another subject entirely.  I think the reason we don't see fake corn is that it's so cheap to grow the real thing in a world where the costs of petroleum/pesticide/GMO farming are so heavily externalized.  If corn were $300/bushel we'd see all sorts of things passed off as "corn".

JS

In fact, the corn market may have caused more human suffering than we know! Historians allege that the 'opening of the West' in the post-bellum era led to such an increase in corn production that corn prices in the 1st breadbasket of the world--the Ukraine--collapsed in 1872, leading to a worldwide market panic and deflationary crunch. The misery and starvation caused by the panic contributed to civil unrest... which may have motivated the Russian government to pen the fraudulent "Protocols of the Elders of Zion", which attempted to affix blame for the peasants' suffering not on the greedy nobility and ineffectual government, but (by some conspiracy theory involving bankers) on their Jewish neighbors. The vicious progroms, mass forced migrations, and ultimate genocide across Eastern and Central Europe at the hands of the Nazis are all well-known.

As for fungibility, I believe that corn quality in the marketplace is actually fine for my needs. It's the eggs and milk and poultry that seem to suffer the most with lax USDA standards. The big guys have colonized the USDA, hence the attempted ban on even labeling milk rBGH free! (I always buy rBGH free b/c it supports small dairies--only the big boys use that stuff, and they use it to grind the little guys out of business.)

Beyond fungibility, there is fraud. Looked into "Italian EVOO" lately? How about honey? How would you feel if you knew that imported olive oil was actually deodorized soybean oil from Brazil and that some national brands were caught selling honey that was banned for human consumption in India and smuggled into the US to be repackaged? CBoT, which regulates trade of pork bellies, coffee beans, OJ, and corn, is not going to be cheated, but CONSUMERS frequently are!

The second allegation can be countered by the following analysis: en.allexperts.com/q/Agriculture-2377/Soil-Depletion-Myth-Fact.htm . I am not fully convinced on either side of this argument; I think I have too little information and not enough interest to pursue the issue any further.

As for the 'topsoil disappearing at 1% per year' allegation, I don't understand why the owners or shareholders of a farm corporation would destroy an asset. Land cannot be depreciated. Furthermore, the following analysis indicates that the allegation is based more upon models than on observed data: http://www.wou.edu/las/physci/taylor/g473/refs/trimble_crosson_2000.pdf .

The 'Against the Grain' book was an interesting read in places. Thanks for the recommendation.

How confident are you that humanity has reached that precise moment in history when the price of commodities will perpetually climb from their current high value? I suggest looking at the historical value of metals as documented by the U.S. Geological Survey. For any particular metal, compare the yearly changes in the column which expresses the value in terms of 1998 dollars [Unit value (98$/t)]. Data found at minerals.usgs.gov/ds/2005/140/ .

And the rare earth shortage due to the current China monopoly . . . is it your position that zero government initiatives will be launched to encourage exploration and mining for rare earth elements in other countries? That mining companies will not search for and develop alternate sites? That consumers of rare earths will choose not to search for substitutes?

I like the way Wikipedia puts it: 'There is a spectrum of commodification, rather than a binary distinction of "commodity versus differentiable product". Few products have complete undifferentiability and hence fungibility; even electricity can be differentiated in the market based on its method of generation (e.g., fossil fuel, wind, solar). Many products' degree of commodification depends on the buyer's mentality and means. For example, milk, eggs, and notebook paper are considered by many customers as completely undifferentiable and fungible; lowest price is the only deciding factor in the purchasing choice. Other customers take into consideration other factors besides price, such as environmental sustainability and animal welfare. '

This is why I part ways with your reply to Sean, where you said, 'By definition, it is impossible to compete in a commoditized market on quality — because the definition of a commodity is “a good supplied without qualitative differentiation across a market.” ' I disagree with that definition. I know, I know, you pulled at definition from Wikipedia. And I pulled the 'spectrum' definition from Wikipedia. Which definition is correct? From a buyer's perspective at the Chicago Mercantile Exchange, does the buyer want to receive any grade of corn, or does the buyer want specific grades of yellow corn? From a buyer's perspective, is it any old pesticide-dunked-root-crop, or is it organic potatoes?

I think it's a spectrum. I don't care if the organic potatoes I buy at my local grocery stores are grown locally or grown hundreds of miles away. I don't care if a particular bag of potatoes comes from one farm or multiple farms. What do I care about? I want potatoes, not turnips. I want organic potatoes, not pesticide. Organic potatoes are a commodity, and they're fungible, and they're real food.

I'm glad to hear that from someone directly affected.  Thank you.

Armchair economists don't realize that these subsidies are even worse for the farmer than they are for the consumer.  They're designed to generate profit for middlemen at both our expense.

JS

The Simon-Ehrlich wager ended in 1990.  Please refer to current events.  As Jeremy Grantham correctly noted:

"If the bet were from 1980 to 2011, Ehrlich would have won:
Simon would have lost posthumously, and by a lot! (Even of the original
five, he is only one for five, having won the least significant of the
five: tin.) So, please “Cornucopians,” let’s not hear any more of the
Ehrlich-Simon bet, which proves, in fact, both that man is mortal and
must make short-term bets, and, more importantly, that Ehrlich’s
argument was right (so far)."

Here are some common commodity indices, and their performance over the last 30 years:

CPI: +360%

http://www.indexmundi.com/commodities/?commodity=commodity-price-index&months=360

Petroleum: +195%...and that includes the tail end of the OPEC shock.

http://www.indexmundi.com/commodities/?commodity=petroleum-price-index&months=360

Metals index: +310%

http://www.indexmundi.com/commodities/?commodity=metals-price-index&months=360

Industrial inputs index: +240%

http://www.indexmundi.com/commodities/?commodity=industrial-inputs-price-index&months=360

Commodity non-fuel index: +215%

http://www.indexmundi.com/commodities/?commodity=non-fuel-price-index&months=360

Agricultural raw materials index: +150%

http://www.indexmundi.com/commodities/?commodity=agricultural-raw-materials-price-index&months=360

I think this qualifies as a robust trend -- one which is far
more than "commodity prices go up, commodity prices go down".  Our
population is steadily increasing, and we are coming closer and closer
to the limits of a finite set of resources.  Look up our current supply
of rare earths sometime, and realize that 99% of them are in one hole in
China...

"Emerging technologies in agriculture also hold promise to reduce agriculture usage of petroleum."

And how do we plan to replace the minerals and nutrients necessary
for human life?  As stated, topsoil is disappearing at roughly 1% per
year, and food is more depleted of trace minerals each year...which is
because we're growing our crops, transporting them to cities and
feedlots, eating them, and flushing the manure into the nearest body of
water instead of returning it to the soil, causing huge fish kills and
dead zones the size of Eastern states.  I've covered all of this
already, with links, in the passage quoted above: feel free to read them
at your leisure.

Please note that when I speak of commoditization, I'm speaking of the process that creates a fungible product
traded on major exchanges.  Your supermarket offers you a choice of
produce, and you can select from different varieties and vendors. 
That's not fungibility.  Read my reply to Sean, above, in which I
discuss this at length.

And I believe we fundamentally agree that the driver of inappropriate
commoditization is governmental interference.  As I said in my
Conclusion, "The problems of industrial agriculture are primarily caused
by a
combination of commoditization and the broken farm policy that
subsidizes it."

Contemplationist:

"Commodity grains have saved millions of people from starvation – yeah they are poor food but food nonetheless."

I disagree.  Commodity grains -- in fact, agriculture in general -- create famines by their very nature.

For example, the introduction of the potato to Ireland produced a population boom -- and a subsequent population bust.  The Potato Famine left Ireland's population roughly the same in 1911 as it had been in 1780, before the potato.

From 2500 to 1500 years ago, the Roman Empire recorded at least 35 major famines.  Between A.D. 500 and 1500, there were 95 major famines in England and 75 in France.  Eastern Europe recorded 150 famines between 1500 and 1700.  Russia recorded roughly 100 famines between 971 and 1974.  And China has recorded roughly ninety famines per century -- almost one per year, somewhere in the country -- for the last two thousand years.

It's easy to see why: agriculture directs the entire productivity of the land into human mouths, leaving no margin for drought, soil exhaustion or erosion, or simple human error.

"improving productivity is the FUNDAMENTAL MECHANISM OF ECONOMIC GROWTH.
We want productivity to increase – in every single endeavor."

How do we expect that to go on forever on a finite surface with finite resources?  Plants are made of dirt, water, and energy from the sun.  When we harvest them and take them elsewhere, we're literally trucking away the soil.  Increasing the productivity of strip-mining just means we run out of resources faster.

"I have a severe beef with the government-subsidized, corporatized and regulated agricultural system we have today."

So do I!  I thought my conclusion was clear in this regard: "The problems of industrial agriculture are primarily caused by a combination of commoditization and the broken farm policy that
subsidizes it." 

Paul:

Absolutely.  When a system is so far in overshoot, casualties are guaranteed.  And no, the definitions of "libertarian" and "anarchist" are the same over here...it's just that we have a lot of libertarians and few anarchists.

I'm glad you're past the delusion of being able to save everyone.  People don't need or want saving: they need the opportunity to save themselves.  "Saving the world" is how well-meaning people create dietary guidelines that push grain-based vegetarianism and tax saturated fat.

JS

Of course, if you're one of "them" now ... jump ship ... become one of "us" now and enjoy the future.

We're very adept at striking up deals with real farmers ... real farmers who raise real cattle, not commodity farmers who kill other farmers' cattle. We're very good at making deals with real smallholders who grow real vegetables, not supermarkets who buy other peoples' vegetables. We're very good at growing our own and are getting better at rearing our own.

A future where people who are empowered to live their own lives, live on their own production, co-operative production with like-minded neighbours and communities, grow, protect and share our own produce ... that's a future I strive for; that's a future I live in many respects already and one which I dearly hope I can continue to grow into ... while I do whatevere it is I do for a "job".

There will be casualties.

Breaking elitist selfishness now is largely a perogative of those who can. Once we do that, those who cannot yet afford to do that might well have a chance ... if they decide to come along with us and show their metal, show their worth in a world where every man is as good as what he can offer.

I gather the folks States-side call this Libertarianism - we've been calling it Anarchism for many years this side of the pond. We're of the same mind, whatever the label.

I have a severe beef with the government-subsidized, corporatized and regulated agricultural system we have today. That's what should be attacked - subisidies, regulations against consumer self-production, zoning laws against gardening, sanctions against raw dairy, the massive, corrupt food "safety" inspection scheme to name a few. Instead, you end up attacking things like productivity and financial products which are fundamental hallmarks of a market-based society. They will STILL exist when u end Big-Ag.