We are using way too much plastic in agriculture, lowkey someone needs to find a replacement and fast. 

Anyone has any pointers on startups for more innovative mulching materials? 

Nick I have one comment every three days (I have been a baaaad forum member) but I am here to answer your rebuttal honestly and truthfully.)

I come from a fairly rich background, in my country I would be in the top 0.5%, but I come from a developing country, that means that while I can afford pretty much everything, everyone around me is living on that edge between living and surviving, some are barely surviving as well.

My father was one of the first people to bring USAID donations to my country, specifically water treatment donations, and they built several water treatment plants that cleaned water to a drinkable level, our specification system is fairly outdated and I am unsure about the international ones. But like the whole course of water treatment. Those plants today are abandoned, there were not enough funds or the funds got mismanaged and those facilities are now rotting. My father moved in Western Europe in the early 2010s, because he was so depressed with the situation here, when he left, he had a company here that was running fairly well, we were doing great, he went to western Europe to cut grass and start all over again because he was done with how things were done here.

I am not as depressed as him, but in the past year I spent over 500 hours trying to deal with littering and improper waste disposal by local companies in my city. I invested my own money, time and health, because roaming dump sites is not the safest thing to do. In those 500 hours I have around 75 reports for various offences, out of those 75 reports the people in charge acted on 3 or 4.

For food safety, I have contacted my agency over 80 times, they have now blacklisted my number and don't return my mails because the chain I am reporting has every one of the inspectors in their pockets.

In university a grant was stolen from us (the students), albeit with my colleagues and it was not my idea originally, but I worked on writing that grant, I spent time and effort, only to have my faculty misappropriate the funds, submit a false report, and present a falsified research document that we did the research. We didn't even do any research, they probably manufactured the whole paper they presented.

Now tell me, why should I care about these people when they don't even give me the time of their day, I have spent countless of hours on civic engagement, trying to make this place a better place to live, only to get spit in my face by corrupt officials. Why not go to the west and be a plumber, at least I will get paid what I deserve and know that "hey I have some rights".

I am at a breaking point where I would rather be neck deep in shit in the west, than live leisurely here because it sucks. Also the job opportunities suck, being in agriculture, as an agronomist my salary would be near the minimum wage, while my software/engineering/any degree peers are way above that. It's not about the money it's about the recognition, although even if I decided to become a big time farmer, the main issues that I would face are pollution and corruption.

Sorry if this feels too raw and boring at times, I am a stream of consciousness on this platform and godspeed to you.

Anyone want to give back criticism as to why I am getting down-voted?

Global production of primary crop commodities reached 9.6 billion tonnes in 2022, increasing by 56 percent since 2000 and just 0.7 percent since 2021. (FAOSTAT)

We are growing more, and better, and now that we have CRISPR in plant selection, my guess is that we are going to start producing much more nutritious and tasty vegetables without sacrificing the yield rates.

I love how I come here, have a quick take about slave labor, something I have directly experienced, and something I fought hard against, and having neo-liberal westerners down-vote me because they think I am talking out of my ass. 

For the record, I know of worker rights violations, that were squashed because a judge got a hefty payment, never proven because the right people were greased. For hell's sake, I as an activist get threats on the daily, stop invalidating my experience when dealing with corruption.

I was confronted with the fact that EA is not as big as I think it is and that Agriculture as well as systemic changes are not directly possible by EA, with that I agree in some part. What is available to EA, at least in terms of underdeveloped rural agricultural economies.

Knowledge, we have knowledge, and I believe the transfer of knowledge is crucial when conversing with farmers, so how do we transfer this knowledge we have to the farmers?

Mini-courses? No, mini-courses would work for people who have internet connection, maybe we could conduct large scale mini-courses where a local could help us devise a classroom type of learning setting and where we could engage a large population of people, while keeping costs down. Yes.

On the topic of mini-courses, the most beneficial way to go is to divide them in two types of production, animal and plant production, because a lot of the people who I read about today were in either of the two. I believe with good practices we could address both poverty in the rural populations but also increase the comfort of the animals, proper feed, proper water and things alike that contribute to animal wellbeing.

I have a lot of things to write about, but I'll keep it short. I'll make a more defined outline on how we can do this, and maybe you (the community can help me guide my efforts).

Also I think EA should focus a bit more on agronomy as a whole because food production is a large and unaddressed topic.