• protist@mander.xyzEnglish
    22·
    17 days ago

    Is this showing changes in arable land or changes in land dedicated to agriculture? Those are different things

  • chonglibloodsport@lemmy.worldEnglish
    6·
    16 days ago

    Same story in Canada. A big decline in total farmland (decline of 13.1 million acres or 7.9%) but an increase of 3.6 million acres in crop land. This represents an increase in intensity and density of farmland and a decrease in farmland used for non productive applications.

    One of the big differences recorded in this report is a 62% decrease in the number of people living on farms from 1971-2021. A decrease in the amount of farmland used for living spaces (farmhouse, garden, garage) may be a big factor in the above crop:farmland ratio changes, as would a consolidation of farms (total number of farms decreased from 246K to 189K from 2001-2021).

    What this all says to me is that economies of scale play a huge role in North American farming, and that our subsidy structures do not favour small farms.

  • FireRetardant@lemmy.worldEnglish
    6·
    17 days ago

    Yet here in Canada, we pave over our farmland to build McMansions and strip malls. Sure we can feed our own country and then some still, but is this really the best use of such high quality arable land?

    • ikidd@lemmy.worldEnglish
      2·
      16 days ago

      That’s always been the way of it. Cities start where people settle, and people settle on the best land they can find. Then the city expands into the farmland surrounding it. This happened in Europe and Asia, and then NA. This isn’t a Canada Bad thing.

      • FireRetardant@lemmy.worldEnglish
        1·
        16 days ago

        Can you really call a sea of single family homes and overgrown backyards a city? I get that cities get bigger, but if we are going to pave over farmland lets fit more than 5-10 people per acre.

      • Viking_Hippie@lemmy.worldEnglish
        3·
        17 days ago

        Because “traditional” Danish cooking is mostly from before we had that many foreign food influences and there’s only so many things that grow naturally this far north 🤷

        Nowadays only 80+ year old racists subsist only or even primarily on traditional Danish cooking, though. The rest of us tend to love foreign stuff too, especially Italian, Greek, American, and various Asian cuisines lol

        Edit: also, we have ridiculous amounts of dairy cattle and pigs, because apparently that’s just what our farmers are good at 🤷