Food is going up. WAY up.

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Capt Caveman

Lifer
Jan 30, 2005
34,543
651
126
Trillions? LOL? Not very smart to do it your way. Build a pipeline to the nearest ocean. Build a desalinization plant. Done.

Total cost, less than 20 billion.

A lot of money? Sure it is, but it's still less than TRIPLE THE PRICE OF EVERYTHING ZOMG WORLD ENDS!!!11

The big dig in Boston cost $15 billion and it was only a mile or two in length.

You know that these desailination plants wouldn't be able to generate enough fresh water to irrigate all of the farmland in the US and then you'd need to pipe it thousands of miles. And the cost of desalination...

Yes trillions. Stop trolling.
 

dmcowen674

No Lifer
Oct 13, 1999
54,889
47
91
www.alienbabeltech.com
If you can't answer the question you can just admit you don't know. Telling me to take a class is just a lame attempt to save face when you know you are wrong.

Jesus, you must be like 12 and have no clue.

You've also apparently never been to the midwest to see a real farm field.

Some fields out here are bigger than Rhode Island, Delaware, Maryland and Connecticut.

Try and water that.

You have a lot of learning to do ahead of you.
 

Chiropteran

Diamond Member
Nov 14, 2003
9,811
110
106
Some fields out here are bigger than Rhode Island, Delaware, Maryland and Connecticut.

How do you pick all the corn in the farm is so big? If you can't walk across and water the whole farm you probably also can't harvest it, or even plant it in the first place. It sounds like we need mandatory farm size limits, these big farms are just too much trouble.
 

Capt Caveman

Lifer
Jan 30, 2005
34,543
651
126
How do you pick all the corn in the farm is so big? If you can't walk across and water the whole farm you probably also can't harvest it, or even plant it in the first place. It sounds like we need mandatory farm size limits, these big farms are just too much trouble.

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CurseTheSky

Diamond Member
Oct 21, 2006
5,401
2
0
How do you pick all the corn in the farm is so big? If you can't walk across and water the whole farm you probably also can't harvest it, or even plant it in the first place. It sounds like we need mandatory farm size limits, these big farms are just too much trouble.

Right, because less food going around is a GREAT idea!

Look up commercial farming. No one is walking around picking or watering plants. It's all done by machine. It allows a relatively small number of people to produce enough crops to satisfy thousands.
 

Rakewell

Platinum Member
Feb 2, 2005
2,418
1
76
How do you pick all the corn in the farm is so big? If you can't walk across and water the whole farm you probably also can't harvest it, or even plant it in the first place. It sounds like we need mandatory farm size limits, these big farms are just too much trouble.


MKAY.

He's clearly trolling here, guys. Stop feeding him.
 

Svnla

Lifer
Nov 10, 2003
17,986
1,388
126
Trillions? LOL? Not very smart to do it your way. Build a pipeline to the nearest ocean. Build a desalinization plant. Done.

Total cost, less than 20 billion.

A lot of money? Sure it is, but it's still less than TRIPLE THE PRICE OF EVERYTHING ZOMG WORLD ENDS!!!11

Just build a desalinization plant? Not so fast.

Problems with desalination plant(s) = http://www.care2.com/greenliving/seawater-desalination-solution-or-problem.html

Not only it is very costly and energy demanding, where do you think the salt would go? Can't dump them back in the ocean.
 

lxskllr

No Lifer
Nov 30, 2004
60,156
10,616
126
Not only it is very costly and energy demanding, where do you think the salt would go? Can't dump them back in the ocean.

It goes on the corn chips you made from the irrigated corn :^D
 

Chiropteran

Diamond Member
Nov 14, 2003
9,811
110
106
Right, because less food going around is a GREAT idea!

Look up commercial farming. No one is walking around picking or watering plants. It's all done by machine. It allows a relatively small number of people to produce enough crops to satisfy thousands.

Your inability to understand logic astounds me. If you can use a machine to plant and harvest, you can use one to irrigate. Therefore the farm being too big to water is a false idea.



Sent from my Galaxy Nexus using Tapatalk 2
 

OverVolt

Lifer
Aug 31, 2002
14,278
89
91
They ended the corn subsidy too. The world is fairly dumb.

I know that as part of Spains entry to the EU, they set a limit to the amount of orange crop exports, to the extent that they got rid of about half their orange trees. They also set a limit on their fishing industry, to the extent that they dismantled half their fishing fleet.

That really just leaves the USA and the ogallala aquifer exporting food to the world, and boom drought. So Its our own fault. We put corn into our cars here anyway, we are just as dumb.

Pissed away the bounty, and unprepared for the drought. You'd think in these times we would be smart and have at least a months worth of food in inventory, but that is considered expensive.

Instead with 'Just-in-time' deliveries, there is only like a day or two's worth of food in inventory. It leaves us vulnerable to price spikes, surprise! It's not really a surprise if you know how things work these days.
 

OverVolt

Lifer
Aug 31, 2002
14,278
89
91
We are sucking the ogallala aquifer dry of course but no mention of that in the news. GMO corn typically has smaller roots and is more prone to drought. We did it to ourselves.
 

xalos

Senior member
May 31, 2002
292
0
76
There is a lot of speculation in this thread and I'll clear a few things up about corn.

40% of the corn produced in the United States is used to make ethanol. So, you'll see prices jump across the board because fuel prices will go up.

It would technically be feasible to irrigate the areas that produce the most bushels of corn. There is a map of the corn belt here: http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/d/db/Corn_belt.svg

But, the water would have to come from the Great Lakes because even if you desalinated the ocean water, you would have to pipe it through mountains no matter which ocean you picked to draw water from. The Great Lakes people are a little testy when you want to siphon their water due to current uses.

Plus, during a drought the Great Lakes water level would drop quite a bit too.
 

techs

Lifer
Sep 26, 2000
28,559
4
0
I am absolutely against GMO food.
The only exception woudl be if they could make a bacon tree.
 

OverVolt

Lifer
Aug 31, 2002
14,278
89
91
Your inability to understand logic astounds me. If you can use a machine to plant and harvest, you can use one to irrigate. Therefore the farm being too big to water is a false idea.



Sent from my Galaxy Nexus using Tapatalk 2

Its kind of moot since if you have no water to feed the irrigation machines you are at the mercy of the skies :p

Humidity plays a large role too, having a hard time pumping ground water and lots of water loss due to low humidity = crop damage.

Its been unusually humid here in the east so I guess that translates into unusually dry out in the midwest but correct me if I'm wrong.
 

dmcowen674

No Lifer
Oct 13, 1999
54,889
47
91
www.alienbabeltech.com
There is a lot of speculation in this thread and I'll clear a few things up about corn.

40% of the corn produced in the United States is used to make ethanol.

So, you'll see prices jump across the board because fuel prices will go up.

Based on posts in ATOT this is way over the head of most of the posters.
 

waggy

No Lifer
Dec 14, 2000
68,143
10
81
There is a lot of speculation in this thread and I'll clear a few things up about corn.

40% of the corn produced in the United States is used to make ethanol. So, you'll see prices jump across the board because fuel prices will go up.

It would technically be feasible to irrigate the areas that produce the most bushels of corn. There is a map of the corn belt here: http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/d/db/Corn_belt.svg

But, the water would have to come from the Great Lakes because even if you desalinated the ocean water, you would have to pipe it through mountains no matter which ocean you picked to draw water from. The Great Lakes people are a little testy when you want to siphon their water due to current uses.

Plus, during a drought the Great Lakes water level would drop quite a bit too.

And that's just the corn belt. there is more farming in the us then that.

also yeah Canada would get a little pissy about us draining the Great lakes.