Open-sourced food production – the future of urban diets? • Hacker News Board

Re: Open-sourced food production – the future of urban diets?

#11

Post by saiya-jin » Thu, Nov 12, 2015, 3:47 PM UTC

bryanlarsen wrote: post #10

barney54 wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It sounds especially inefficient when you consider the bad example brought up in the article--apples. There is a reason apples are mass-produced--lots of land and the right climate conditions. You can't grow too many apples in urban areas. I love real apples, but I grew up in an exurban area across the street from an apple orchard. You won't taste apples that good through mass production, but you will be able to get…

Apples are great in an urban environment -- they're a nice looking tree that gives a spectacular flower show in the spring. But I don't know what relation apples have to the OP, though. A controlled growing environment is generally associated with small vulnerable vegetable crops like lettuce, not huge hardy apple trees.

considering how polluted urban areas are, and how good are apples in retaining pollution in them (no sources at hand now, sorry), I would not touch those unless situation got serious.

Re: Open-sourced food production – the future of urban diets?

#12

Post by logfromblammo » Thu, Nov 12, 2015, 3:56 PM UTC

I feel as though the article is using "open-sourced" more as a buzzword than as a phrase to convey actual meaning.

The only concern most gardeners have related to patents or copyrights is in their seed acquisition. Those who care at all use heirloom seeds and save portions from their previous crop, whereas those who don't just buy seed packets.

Now, if we're talking minimal-effort gardening robots, with open hardware and freely modifiable firmware, that's a different story, but the fine article didn't mention anything more in that vein than a vague reference to optimized tomato boxes.

What would be a more truthful headline? Summary of a Conference Talk on the Future of Gardening by Caleb Harper of MIT.

Re: Open-sourced food production – the future of urban diets?

#13

Post by stumac » Thu, Nov 12, 2015, 4:00 PM UTC

gambiting wrote: post #9

spacecowboy_lon wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Which use large amounts of pesticide and waste if the crops don't look pretty they are scraped. And in the UK allotments are a growing trend and of course popular with Guardian readers. In the Uk there a duty for local government to provide land for alotments

Well yes, of course, but my point is that on mega farms you can use gigantic tractors which process a lot more crops than your tiny tractor or even what you can collect by hand. Just like transporting 50 people is a lot more efficient by bus, instead of having 50 cars. And mega farms don't have to use so much pesticide, and mega farms don't have to throw away ugly crops - this happens due to a stupid system around ho…

Unfortunately mega farms have issues with getting rid of pesticides and fertilizers. To ensure the soil has enough nutrients for a desired crop, other crops often have to be planted as well, no? Mega farms really only do monocultures well right now AFAIK, and that's a problem.

Re: Open-sourced food production – the future of urban diets?

#14

Post by lisivka » Thu, Nov 12, 2015, 4:15 PM UTC

saiya-jin wrote: post #11

bryanlarsen wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Apples are great in an urban environment -- they're a nice looking tree that gives a spectacular flower show in the spring. But I don't know what relation apples have to the OP, though. A controlled growing environment is generally associated with small vulnerable vegetable crops like lettuce, not huge hardy apple trees.

considering how polluted urban areas are, and how good are apples in retaining pollution in them (no sources at hand now, sorry), I would not touch those unless situation got serious.

BTW, you are smoking the exactly same air as tree.

Re: Open-sourced food production – the future of urban diets?

#15

Post by ucaetano » Thu, Nov 12, 2015, 4:30 PM UTC

stumac wrote: post #13

gambiting wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well yes, of course, but my point is that on mega farms you can use gigantic tractors which process a lot more crops than your tiny tractor or even what you can collect by hand. Just like transporting 50 people is a lot more efficient by bus, instead of having 50 cars. And mega farms don't have to use so much pesticide, and mega farms don't have to throw away ugly crops - this happens due to a stupid system around ho…

Unfortunately mega farms have issues with getting rid of pesticides and fertilizers. To ensure the soil has enough nutrients for a desired crop, other crops often have to be planted as well, no? Mega farms really only do monocultures well right now AFAIK, and that's a problem.

The fertilizers are actually the solution to (most of) the monoculture problem. Other problems remains, such as erosion, biodiversity, etc. but not efficiency.

Re: Open-sourced food production – the future of urban diets?

#16

Post by stumac » Thu, Nov 12, 2015, 4:50 PM UTC

ucaetano wrote: post #15

stumac wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Unfortunately mega farms have issues with getting rid of pesticides and fertilizers. To ensure the soil has enough nutrients for a desired crop, other crops often have to be planted as well, no? Mega farms really only do monocultures well right now AFAIK, and that's a problem.

The fertilizers are actually the solution to (most of) the monoculture problem. Other problems remains, such as erosion, biodiversity, etc. but not efficiency.

The increased use of fertilizer tends to lead to the forced increase of pesticide use IIRC (Source is in my library at home atm, sorry). It also leads to a decrease in nutrient value from the food as well due to the increased pesticide use.

From a pure efficiency note, pesticide and fertilizer use is the best solution in the short term. But I'm curious what the long term repercussions will be for both human and environmental health.

Re: Open-sourced food production – the future of urban diets?

#17

Post by ucaetano » Thu, Nov 12, 2015, 5:37 PM UTC

stumac wrote: post #16

ucaetano wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The fertilizers are actually the solution to (most of) the monoculture problem. Other problems remains, such as erosion, biodiversity, etc. but not efficiency.

The increased use of fertilizer tends to lead to the forced increase of pesticide use IIRC (Source is in my library at home atm, sorry). It also leads to a decrease in nutrient value from the food as well due to the increased pesticide use. From a pure efficiency note, pesticide and fertilizer use is the best solution in the short term. But I'm curious what the long term repercussions will be for both human and envir…

In the long term, we're all dead :)

But I agree with your point. Sadly, long term is too long to have enough information to make decisions ex ante.

And on your pesticide and nutrient value claims, I'd love to see data on that, sounds pretty dubious to be honest.

Re: Open-sourced food production – the future of urban diets?

#18

Post by saalweachter » Fri, Nov 13, 2015, 12:05 AM UTC

gambiting wrote: post #4

I am conflicted on this. On one hand, there's a large push for locally produced food, to save on distribution and transport. But on the other hand....surely it's better for the environment if we produce most of our food on huge mega farms which are highly efficient?

Yeah, different values lead to different conclusions.

If married to proper waste management, a chicken factory -- with chickens packed into tiny little boxes, egg production per calorie maximized, chickens discarded the moment their egg production drops, bred to mature as rapidly as possible -- is probably to most environmentally friendly way to produce eggs. You minimize land and energy use and human labor as well (humans have environmental costs, after all).

On the other hand, if you care about animals more than the environment, it's probably the worst possible way to raise chickens for egg production. Instead you want to maximize chicken happiness, you probably want small flocks free-ranging in a safe pasture-land, with chickens allowed to live out their dotage after the egg production has waned. This, of course, will require far more land and other inputs. You'll even have higher transportation costs, since you'll need to accumulate eggs over a larger area.

So would you rather have a chicken factory, a hundred acres of corn, and a thousand acres of wilderness, or 1100 acres of happy chicken pastures?