Skeptics Stack Exchange
Skeptics Stack Exchange

Questions tagged [agriculture]

The science and/or practice of soil cultivation and farming

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Do beef farmed pastures net remove carbon emissions?

This viral image claims that an example beef farm with 130 cattle removes many tons of Carbon from the atmosphere every year. However it does not provide any sources. This image has been shared many times - e.g. [1], [2], [3], [4] - some of these…
Tom Bowen
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Do male chicks get ground up on most farms in the industralized world?

This was spurred from a recent related question. I started looking into whether male chicks are ground up. It makes sense that they are, but I'm having a hard time finding conclusive evidence. Many egg farming operations macerate the male chicks.…
adamaero
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Are 99% of US beef cattle given steroids to promote faster growth?

Top google result The Meat You Eat: Steroid Use in Livestock claims Each year, U.S. farmers raise some 36 million beef cattle. 99% of all beef cattle entering feedlots in the United States are given steroidal hormone implants to promote faster…
theonlygusti
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Do scarecrows scare crows?

I often see the scarecrows in private fields and gardens, with crows sitting on them. Are they just a tribute to tradition or they really work in some way?
Quassnoi
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Is 86% of the food fed to livestock unfit for human consumption, and is most of it byproducts of crops grown for human consumption?

Most sources I found imply that animal agriculture uses much more land and resources per unit of nutrition compared to plant agriculture for human consumption. A quick Google search shows that this is the most commonly held view in scientific…
Fiksdal
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Does planting during different lunar phases affect growth?

I have recently had some potatoes that were said to benefit from being planted at an advantageous time because of the lunar cycle. I had never heard of such a thing, but apparently "it is quite common on the continent"(European mainland). My…
Jeremy French
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Does it take 16 kg of CO2 equivalent to make two hamburgers?

Does it take 16 kg of CO2e to make two hamburgers? It seems an exaggeration It’s also worth putting the amount of carbon involved in having a Christmas tree in context. The Carbon Trust estimates that a 2m-tall (6.6ft) Christmas tree burnt after…
Sergey Zolotarev
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Can we grow enough crops to feed all people on Earth?

Vegetarianism is heavily promoted. But let's say all people on Earth stop eating animal products. Can we grow enough crops so all people on the Earth are provided with enough healthy, nutritious food? The question is of course very theoretical, but…
Egle
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Does the United States throw wheat in the ocean to keep the prices high?

In Iran, there is a wide-spread belief that the USA throws extra wheat it produces into the ocean to keep the prices high. The official website for the Iranian presidential office [Persian] quotes Mohammad Reza Rahimi, former First Vice President,…
Saman
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Would humans starve if spiders disappeared?

In this Washington Post article, Norman Platnick of the American Museum of Natural History is quoted as saying the following: If spiders disappeared, we would face famine. Spiders are primary controllers of insects. Without spiders, all of our…
pacoverflow
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Are crop circles man-made?

Every summer in England crop circles make the news for a few days. But journalists never really attempt to "solve" the question of who is responsible. source Are crop circles man-made? How?
Richard Stelling
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Have farmers been sued because Monsanto seeds are blowing into their fields?

This article argues that small farmers are being hurt because Monsanto are allowed to sue farmers whose fields are found to contain crops grown from Monsanto seeds when royalties were not paid. Many farmers claim these seeds had blown into their…
Mark Rusciano
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Are people dying of starvation because we cannot produce enough food?

I have been watching a BBC documentary Botany: A Blooming History - Episode 3 Hidden World In it, (at ~51m35s) Timothy Walker, the presenter, says: ...Certainly there may be risks attached to genetically modified plants. But, it is a known risk…
JW.
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Are there more mushrooms during full moon?

A couple of autumns back, I frequently went wild mushroom forraging, initially with my Basque father-in-law, who I think had been mushrooming pretty much all his life. He explained and showed how mushrooms would appear with the full moon. They…
Chris
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Is animal agriculture responsible for more greenhouse gas emissions than transportation?

Animal agriculture is responsible for 18 percent of greenhouse gas emissions, more than all transportation combined. By http://www.cowspiracy.com/facts/ from Fao.org. Spotlight: Livestock impacts on the environment.
David Mulder
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