EKIP– Expert Club for Economics and Politics A Different Opinion
Author: Ivan Kalchev
SOIL AS AN ECONOMY
If we open a classic textbook on soil science, on the first page we will read that "soil is the surface layer of the earth's crust, in which plants grow and which has the property of fertility". In an equally boring textbook we can read about economics (in the sense of "economy", not the science of economics) that it is "the field of production, distribution and trade, as well as the consumption of goods and services by various intermediaries". And some economist, or businessman, or libertarian will say that this is a living, dynamic system in which a variety of economic entities interact, constantly seeking new and better ways to use limited resources, maneuvering between regulations and prohibitions, extracting raw materials, raising capital, building factories, attracting scientists, specialists and workers, constantly fighting with each other, communicating, absorbing smaller ones or being absorbed, working around the clock to provide us with an unimaginable variety of goods and services...
And if we ask an ecologist, or an organic farmer, or a green activist about soil, he will paint us a completely different picture than the textbook definition. He will say that soil is not just a mechanical mixture of sand, clay, and minerals, but a living, dynamic, and energetic ecosystem in which plants, fungi, animals, and microorganisms live together, convert energy, extract and store elements from the environment, transform them, and exchange substances and signals, eat and be eaten, form communities and food chains, enter into symbiosis, competition, or parasitism, and each element of this system has its place and role, and together they form an ECOsystem that works without a central planning committee, but regulates itself through countless feedback loops...
Any wild, untouched by man ecosystem, be it forest, prairie or marine, we can compare with the economy in a libertarian utopia without any taxes - in it everything works as it sees fit, substances circulate and some things accumulate; the equilibrium, of course, is dynamic - one year more rabbits are born, more food for the foxes - they give birth to more foxes, they eat the rabbits, then they decrease, etc. An ecosystem from which a person extracts something, say - fields, we can compare to an economy with state intervention and taxes; it is one thing that someone appears who says "you will grow, and you - will not", "you will live, and the others - we will shoot", and in the end he collects most of what is produced. From this, of course, the ecosystem weakens, begins to use up its reserves, diversity decreases, productivity drops. The state intervenes - we will give aid to the weak, subsidies, we will make a management plan, a planning committee, we will fight the external enemy and the saboteurs, down to the last survivor! Naturally, the economy suffers even more, capital reserves completely disappear, entire sectors go bankrupt, accordingly there is a shortage of everything along the supply chain, nothing works as it should, the budget is systematically in deficit, the external debt is growing, in the end Videnov resigns, we conclude an agreement with the IMF and go to early elections... I think I got tangled up in the analogies, let's get back to the basics.
In economics, if we trace the chain of production of any commodity back to the very beginning, we invariably end up with minerals and energy. In ecology, it's exactly the same - if we go back along a food or biochemical chain, we end up with sunlight, water, CO2 and mineral elements. A quantum of light falls on a leaf, the photon knocks out an electron in chlorophyll, the energy is used to make glucose from CO2 and H2O. The plant can use the glucose directly to build cellulose or something more complex, or it can send it to its roots. And there it can give it to fungal mycelium...
MYCELLES - THE GROUNDED INTERNET
Plants are producers - they produce, fungi are reducers - they decompose. But much more. When we study biology to the last relationship, it will turn out that in natural conditions plants always exist as symbiotic complexes with fungi, this is called "mycorrhiza". Simply put - there is ectomycorrhiza and endomycorrhiza. In ectomycorrhiza, the roots of plants enter into symbiosis with the fungal mycelium in the soil, they exchange fluids, the plants give the fungi energy, and the fungi give the plants minerals. Endomycorrhiza is much more intimate, the hyphae of the fungal mycelium live inside the cells of the plants and there they interact with each other, together they make substances that they could not individually.
The largest organism on the planet is not the blue whale. It's not the giant sequoia. In Oregon, there's a mushroom mycelium of Armillaria ostoyae that stretches across 9 square kilometers and is at least 2,400 years old. This is a fungus that textbooks say is parasitic on trees. In this particular case, the mushroom mycelium has grown generations of forest, periodically killing individual trees, then letting the forest grow back to eat the next generation. Like in The Matrix, but without the bugs. The result - 2m of soil.
Plants give fungi energy - as carbohydrates. Fungi return mineral elements. Plant root hairs can penetrate the soil between sand or clay particles, but fungal hyphae are hundreds of times finer, and can enter the microcracks between the crystals of the bedrock below the soil, and there they secrete rhomboid crystals of oxalic acid, which cracks the stone and allows the fungal hyphae, one cell in diameter, to penetrate even further. Being a separate branch of the tree of life, fungi have completely different enzymes from plants, so some of them can extract elements from the bedrock, and others, living in plant cells - synthesize substances that plants cannot create themselves.
In the soil layer of every forest or meadow live fungal mycelium, which are the glue of the soil ecosystem, the internet of the forest or a payment and settlement system of the local economy. The hyphae of these mycelium are in contact with every grain of sand, with the roots of every plant, they receive and transmit chemical signals. The effective complexity is an order of magnitude higher than the human brain, not to mention the Internet. There is such an experiment - around a pine tree they built a scaffold and stretched an opaque cover so that there was no photosynthesis. In the trunk of the neighboring pine tree they injected glucose labeled with C14. They took a sample of the darkened pine - the fungal mycelium in the soil had transferred glucose from the healthy tree to the tree in need. When we drive a dirt road with deep ruts in the forest, it is as if we have cut the cables from the router. When we turn the soil with a plow, it is as if we have run a mixer through the brain. When we leave the plowed soil exposed, it is as if the surgeon forgot to stitch up the patient after surgery.
HUMUS AS A HEDGE FUND
And that's not all. In a natural ecosystem, above plants and fungi in the food chain, there are bacteria, nematodes, worms, arthropods and vertebrates. They are attacked by viruses and parasites, or they eat each other. In general, the system works without a central control body, regulates itself and accumulates HUMUS in the soil. This is not a sauce for doner kebabs, this is the organic matter in the soil that has been transformed into a stable form. Biochemically, it is obtained from the biopolymer lignin, which has undergone fungal and bacterial decay, through the intestines of worms, and from there - into a stable, permanent form in the soil. A characteristic of humus is that it is formed slowly (thousands of years), but decomposes quickly (years), and that it has the property of retaining the ions of elements that are nutritious for plants.
The essential part of humus is humic acids. They are the ideal chelator, that is, they form chemical complexes with the ions of the elements important for life, do not allow rain to wash them out of the soil, and act as a buffer for the ecosystem. If there is an excess of an element - they accept it, if there is a shortage - they release it, mitigating peaks in concentrations. At the same time, humic acids permanently bind toxic elements such as mercury or lead, naturally to some extent.
When the economy is left alone, it stores savings as capital, from which more economy grows. When the ecosystem is left alone, it stores carbon in the form of humus, which gives the soil its fertility. The more one tinkers with the economy, the worse it works, and so it is with the soil. But just as the economy can be maintained by command breathing under a planned economy, so can the fields produce with a constant infusion.
Turning the soil over with deep plowing is like putting the economy into wartime mode - everything is upside down, we take the most productive workers out of the labor market, we destroy the entire complex network of interconnections and we will only make one model of tanks. Deep plowing destroys the structure of the soil, in which there are otherwise living and dead rhizomes, a network of fungal hyphae that holds the smallest clay particles, wormholes through which air and water reach the depths. When we turn this living system with the insides out, and expose them to the sun and air, the fungal mycelium dies first, respectively, there is no mycorrhiza for the roots of plants, biochemical pathways for metabolism disappear, and water carries the clay particles into the rivers. In principle, in nature, fungi and bacteria are natural competitors and compete in evolution, let's think of penicillin. Without the fungi in the soil, bacteria take over and eat what they can - the organic matter in the humus, and the humic acids are also oxidized or washed away. All that is left of the living soil ecosystem is sand. The next time the tractor passes, this sand settles more and more, and when it is left unplowed, the rains wash it away. With each day that the soil is left open, life in it dies and the organic matter decreases.
FERTILIZERS AS SOCIAL AID
Plants need to absorb a number of elements from the environment. Some are needed in larger quantities - nitrogen, phosphorus, potassium, calcium, magnesium and sulfur, and are therefore called macroelements, and there are microelements (boron, zinc, manganese, iron, copper, molybdenum, chlorine). Without human intervention, plants obtain nitrogen from nitrogen-fixing bacteria, which form absorbable compounds from nitrogen in the air. These bacteria are either free-living in the soil or are found in thickenings (nodules) on the roots of legumes, where they take energy from the plant and give absorbable nitrogen. Phosphorus is often the subject of apocalyptic scenarios, because its deposits for industrial extraction are in only a few countries (Arab countries) and it is an exhaustible resource. In the wild, there is rarely a shortage of phosphorus, because fungal mycelium manages to extract it from minerals in rocks and deliver it to plants. And potassium is the most mobile ion of all the elements and is therefore the most easily washed out of soils if there is nothing to hold it.
When we start to introduce artificial fertilizers into the fields, this most closely resembles state aid in the economy. Some entities lose their role in the network of interactions and disappear from the market, the equilibrium shifts, tolerance and dependence are built towards the aid. We introduce nitrogen fertilizers - nitrogen-fixing bacteria are no longer needed. We introduce phosphorus - the mycelium has no reason to extract it from the bedrock. With the disappearance of jobs, workers also disappear, if there is a need for them later - they must either be imported from somewhere, or wait for them to be trained.
If the population receives a BDD on the first of the month, then on the second all the workers will be hungover and no one will work. When we bring concentrated fertilizer to the fields (and we have already destroyed the humus that can buffer), suddenly the parameters change - the concentration of mineral salts is higher than necessary, respectively, more water is needed for the plant to accept them osmotically; the acidity changes, which changes the solubilities of all elements, and it may turn out that a given element becomes insoluble and inaccessible to the roots, although in quantity it is in excess. Accordingly, nothing in the biochemical chain works well.
With nothing to hold the minerals, the rain washes them away, and next time we need a higher dose of the major elements, but now we need to bring in the microelements as well. Your diagnosis is “substance addiction”, welcome to the methadone program. The more fertilization - the more addiction.
HYDROPONICS AS WAR COMMUNISM
Thus, we have exhausted our soils, from living ecosystems we have turned them into an inert material that holds nothing. So - we will build hydroponics! We will provide each root with water with dissolved mineral elements in precisely measured portions, we will monitor hundreds of parameters, we will use the most modern technologies for monitoring and control, we will subjugate nature and harness natural processes to work in our favor! We will plow deeper, with ever larger tractors, we will harvest around the clock, we will design new varieties, we will use robots, drones and satellites, and they will lead us to a bright future!
If we look at industrial agriculture as a black box, the model corresponds to the extraction of minerals - at the input we have heavy equipment and petroleum fuels, at the output - nutrients, while some resource, which is in principle renewable, is consumed, and over time we are forced to develop increasingly poorer deposits with ever greater energy consumption.
Hydroponics is the cultivation of plants in inert material - perlite, rock or polymer wool, even sand or gravel, and is generally of two types - open system ('run to waste') or closed loop. In each case, the plants are supplied with a fertilizer solution to each root, and in the first variant this solution passes through the inert medium and drains into the groundwater, while in a closed system it is recirculated several times until it is discarded again.
If the wild ecosystem is like wild capitalism, then the artificial hydroponic garden is most like war communism. It is a possible and achievable economic system, it can even produce more tanks in a given period - but only until foreign money runs out. As long as there is cheap energy and access to minerals, industrial agriculture is capable of delivering cheap, low-quality food. And then someone has to pay the bill.
WHY ARE TOMATOES PLASTIC AND BREAD FOAM?
Of all agricultural crops, there is one in which the added value is incomparably higher. Naturally, this is hemp with a high content of cannabinoids. So much of the scientific knowledge about growing plants in an isolated environment, in hydroponic installations and under artificial lighting has been accumulated not in connection with projects for the settlement of Mars, but because of the cultivation of cannabis. And any more advanced grower will tell you that plants receive not only macro- and microelements from the fertilizer solution. We can add mycorrhizal strains - we will get better absorption of minerals. Enzyme concentrates - to break down old roots. Humic and fulvic acids - for buffering and facilitating the absorption of microelements. Symbiotic bacteria - for protection from pathogenic fungi. A cocktail of amino acids - to improve yield and taste. Vitamins - to grow roots. Phytohormones - for more flowering. In general - to create an imitation of all those substances and organisms from the living wild ecosystem, just as Soviet planners read American statistical reference books and price catalogs to determine how much steel to produce and how much a television set should cost.
Accordingly, on the cannabis fertilizer market we can see the greatest variety of innovative products, with the most purified and soluble mineral salts and all kinds of additives, imitating and building on the natural environment. On the wheat field, however, the situation is different - there the combination of depleted soils, area subsidies and cheaper fertilizers (containing only the basic elements) leads to a harvest of grain with low protein content and unsatisfactory taste, suitable for feed, but not for bread. Even in feed, from grain with less protein we will raise a pig for bacon, not with tasty meat; milk with fat, but tasteless.
There is another factor with tomatoes - the distribution system and large chains favor varieties that are picked green, ripen in trucks and predominantly have a good commercial appearance for the longest time; from a biochemical point of view, this means more cellulose, less proteins and sugars. If we eliminate this factor and plant a really tasty variety in hydroponics, then there is no technological obstacle to adding more and more additives to the fertilizer solution. And then if we compete for the highest yield or the tastiest tomato, hydroponics will undoubtedly beat soil. The question is the price. If for hydroponics we need substrates, a water purification system, sterilizers, tanks, pipes, expensive fertilizers, additives, pumps, measuring instruments, electronics, skilled labor, maintenance, then even taking into account the economy of scale, in the end we get a fragile system and an unclear price of side effects, plus recycling and purification costs. Whereas where we rely on natural self-regulation from feedback loops in a complex ecosystem - we get lower yields, but anti-fragility.
WE WILL FIGHT FOR PEACE UNTIL THE LAST SURVIVOR
In the natural ecosystem, all species of plants, animals, fungi, bacteria and viruses are in countless competitive relationships and dynamically control each other. When we eliminate members of the ecosystem and feedback loops, other members gain an advantage, and the more - the more. The species that feed on our food, we label as pests, and against them we use chemical weapons - pesticides.
But all these simple organisms - insects, worms, bacteria and fungi - on the one hand, evolve rapidly, literally by the time we leave the sprayer in the shed, at the other end of the field a midge resistant to the particular preparation has already hatched; and on the other - they are food for other species. So we have to either increase the concentrations, or change the preparations with newer ones, but in any case, there are still unkilled specimens. Predatory species, which otherwise control the populations, accordingly receive a concentrated dose of pesticides in their food, and along the food pyramid the concentrations increase, so instead of killing the aphids, the ladybugs die, or from ten slightly poisoned mice we get a dead hawk.
The war on insects is a lost cause, like the war on drugs. Since we've been fighting it, we've not managed to eradicate a single pest species, but rather, we've driven many species out of their natural habitats, transforming them from insignificant bugs into global threats. On the other hand, through the accumulation of pesticides along the food chain, we've crippled agricultural ecosystems by the beneficial species that control pests.
Just as it is difficult to return from communism to a market economy, once you destroy an ecosystem, restoration is much more complicated. But there are biological agents that are an alternative to chemical pesticides - Bacillus subtilis protects against mold, Bacillus thuringiensis is toxic to biting insects and nothing else, Beauveria bassiana is a fungus that parasitizes only certain insects. For other pests, there are corresponding predatory species - ladybugs, wasps. As with the transition from communism to a free market, reform is difficult and expensive.
BIO, ECO, ORGANIC OR PERMA?
Companies (or, less often, farms) that have embraced the green wave use various labels for green-washing. Since whether a crop is "organic" or "eco" depends not on measurable indicators but on the policies of the certifiers, it is not clear whether this really means better quality or a better protected environment during cultivation. Opinions can be heard from various sources that there is no problem in getting certified as "organic" and using any chemicals you want, as long as you don't leave the packaging in front of the inspectors; but they still call before a visit, after all, you pay to have a certificate, not not to not have one.
Another such term is "permaculture." Deep down, it's an abstract method for designing any sustainable systems, but it's more often used for designing farms and ranches, where the emphasis is not on limiting the use of chemicals, but on understanding relationships, long-term planning, and antifragility. I don't know of any "permaculturists" who are familiar with the concept of antifragility, and Taleb probably doesn't know about permaculture either, but I think they'd like it if they did.
WHAT TO DO (WHAT IS THE RIGHT THING, ACCORDING TO LENIN)?
The first conquistadors, sailing up the Amazon, wrote about thousands of Indian cities along the coast, with fields and gardens for tens of kilometers. A few decades later, when expeditions set out, they did not confirm anything of what was written - the plague had wiped out the entire local population, and the jungle had taken over the cities. From this Amazonian culture, we have only one archaeological find left - terra preta de índio, the Amazonian artificial black soil.
In the equatorial forest, the soils are not like in the temperate zone. There, in reality, the soil has no retaining properties, all substances are in the biosphere. If a tree falls, it rots so quickly that it does not have time to form humus, and the minerals are absorbed into its living brethren before the heavy rains have washed them away. If you cut down the forest to make fields, you will not see a harvest - the rains will wash everything from the soil and the soil itself before there is anything ripe. And the Amazonian Indians found a solution - synthetic soil made of charcoal, baked clay and ash, in layers up to 2m deep. Nothing from their everyday life has survived, not a single archaeological find, but the charcoal in the soils is there, and will be there for hundreds to thousands of years.
In agriculture, there are already hundreds of thousands of acres in our country that are cultivated without deep plowing ('no till'), provided that the farmers who cultivate them are driven more by purely economic than by environmental motives - such as saving water, fertilizers and fuel, respectively increased yields. In animal husbandry, it is clear from both price signals and ecological experience that extensive pasture farming not only produces better quality meat, milk and eggs, but also actually stops erosion and increases the humus content in the soil.
The soils of the planet, despite a hundred years of tractor plowing and the erosion we have caused, still contain many times more carbon (~1500 Gt C) than in the atmosphere (~500 Gt C) or in living organisms (~500 Gt C). On a macro level, if we have a scientific consensus that CO2 in the atmosphere is bad, then there is no need to look for high-tech solutions for carbon storage, since pre-Columbian Indians had a working formula.
You will ask - well, can't we restore depleted soils? Of course we can. We can bring in charcoal for terra preta, it costs roughly 1000 BGN/t. We can compost everything organic and return it to the soil. Municipal compost from the Sofia installation in Gorni Bogrov is sold at 8 BGN/t, but this is subsidized by a garbage tax. One cubic meter of material, spread over an area of one decare, will give a layer of 1mm. We can also extract humic acids - they are made from lignite coal and potassium base; wholesale they go for an average of about $500/t from a supplier in China. If we annually throw a ton of compost / charcoal / humic acids per decare, this will certainly neutralize the effect of deep plowing and we will not lose fertility; all that remains is to reintroduce the extinct fungi, bacteria, worms.
And we can change policies - instead of subsidies for deforestation, heating empty warehouses with pellets or converting gas-fired power plants to "biomass" - and actually WOOD, there should be one-off subsidies for switching from deep tillage to no-till methods, and if you start plowing again - you get the money back. A more sensible global policy would link carbon trading to soil conservation measures, agricultural subsidies and even the creation of terra preta, in the most ecologically vulnerable areas of the planet, where (not coincidentally) the poorest societies are; as well as with reforestation programs.
At the intersection of ecology and economics, we can seek in monetary terms the full capital value of soil ecosystems, pastures, biodiversity, respectively industrial agriculture, pesticide spraying, deep plowing, the health effects of food that contains only calories. Is it possible that supposedly cheap bread, sugar and oil have actually cost us more; or that if we take into account quality and environmental impact, pasture-raised beef is cheaper than farm-raised beef; or that the income from cell-raised animals is not enough for a wastewater treatment plant? Will it not ultimately turn out that industrial agriculture was like communism - able to exist only at the expense of spending ecological capital...
Wow, great article.