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Startup Puts Everything You Need for a Two-Acre Farm in a Shipping Container

smithsonianmag.com

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Re: Startup Puts Everything You Need for a Two-Acre Farm in a Shipping Container

#171

Post by samirillian »

rdudek wrote: post #149
elcritch wrote: post #112

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Wyoming?! That's our backyard. Drop by our office sometime! [1] Our CEO ran a CSA for a few years here in Wyoming. Places like Wyoming have cheap land, but there are some tricks to doing farming up here. 1: https://brightagrotech.com/

I'm in Colorado and the soil here is terrible trying to start a small garden behind my house. Even with purchased good quality dirt and fertilizer, it's still very very hard solid.

Have you considered double-digging? Works pretty well here in New Mexico.

Re: Startup Puts Everything You Need for a Two-Acre Farm in a Shipping Container

#173

Post by HeyLaughingBoy »

agentgt wrote: post #13

I think I like the farmbot.io idea a little bit better as it seems far more practical. After all I'm not looking to grow all my food but mainly the dirty dozen vegetables/fruits (as well as seasonal ones I like). One of the main reasons I want to grow food though is some vegetables are not carried by my local grocery stores (I have to go to a farmer market or expensive grocery store). For example many grocery stores…

You should be able to grow all those indoors. I had a friend who grew bananas and lemons in containers in a Minnesota climate; he moved the plants indoors when it got too cold.

Re: Startup Puts Everything You Need for a Two-Acre Farm in a Shipping Container

#175

Post by peteforde »

narrator wrote: post #150
mi100hael wrote: post #8

> All of those things affect the ultimate price of the box, and that’s why we have a range from about $50,000 to $60,000. If you were to a la carte all the different components that we put into this kit, it would end up costing you more than what we’re charging. I seriously doubt that. $50k for what appears to basically be 2 acres of irrigation equipment and a solar-powered raspberry pi is absurd. It also looks like…

In my experience, Raspberry Pis are nice hobbyist toys but tend to corrupt data on their SD cards at random and generally are unreliable. For 50k you could at least send them a somewhat rugged fanless PC with a SSD raid for added reliability.

Off-topic, but I've become something of an unintentional expert on making Pis reliable.

First, consider using f2fs instead of ext4 with a nice big card (and get a good one).

Next, attempt to disable all of the unnecessary logging and writes to the SD. Either send them to a server, write them to a ramdisk or even consider mounting the partition in read-only mode. This will drastically increase your duty cycle.

Finally, follow proper system shutdown procedures.

Do all of that (bonus points for putting heatsinks on your chips) and the Pi becomes rock-solid or something like it. Hint: it's not the Pi that fails, it's the SD card.

Re: Startup Puts Everything You Need for a Two-Acre Farm in a Shipping Container

#176

Post by wott »

nylonstrung wrote: post #151
mi100hael wrote: post #8

> All of those things affect the ultimate price of the box, and that’s why we have a range from about $50,000 to $60,000. If you were to a la carte all the different components that we put into this kit, it would end up costing you more than what we’re charging. I seriously doubt that. $50k for what appears to basically be 2 acres of irrigation equipment and a solar-powered raspberry pi is absurd. It also looks like…

The 2 founders literally have no agricultural expertise. One's last job was at a no-name business school accelerator and another worked in an administrative role in the non-profit world. There is a conspicuous absence of any kind of agronomy experience here. As someone who has some perspective on the conditions of the purported customer for this they are so out of touch it is ridiculous and.

I don't know what is the thing with startups and containers :-)

There were the very same kind of guys proposing the aquaponic version of a farm container for 20k€. I made a 2-minute napkin calculation, keeping the ridiculously high advertised yield for the whole duration, assuming no other starting cost (which is not true), assuming not any running cost (which is of course far from true), assuming not incident at all, assuming no opportunity cost, assuming a relatively high equivalent price of the vegetables.

So with all those positive assumptions, it would take 13 years to just break even. If you factor in that not everything is going to be so perfect and that, perfect or not, there are needed running costs, you can easily push that date back to, I don't know, 20 or 30 years.

All this point, your original installation isn't worth a penny any more and you can re-new it.

You haven't saved a penny. And what you have been eating for 20 years: indoor off-ground vegetables that taste no better than the industrially produced vegetables.

But yeah, it was two 25-year old city-dweller ex-business-school-students who claim they know things coz granpda was a farmer and they once went to his farm when they were 12, and they have an uncle they visit a week a year who has a garden.

Re: Startup Puts Everything You Need for a Two-Acre Farm in a Shipping Container

#177

Post by pasbesoin »

Animats wrote: post #133

It comes with WiFi, but not a tractor. Or even some small powered push-type tiller. Do they assume the farmer has an ox or a pair of mules? For $50K, they should at least throw in a decent garden tractor with a 3-point hitch and some basic attachments. Priorities. For comparison, see this article in Modern Farmer.[1] This guy has revenue of about $100K per acre and has books and tools on how to replicate his farming…

He has been interviewed once or twice on Wisconsin Public Radio in their typical, excellent 45 minute or 1 hour format.

It was a fascinating interview -- very eloquent and practical. I hope to take a longer look, myself.

P.S. http://www.wpr.org/people/jean-martin-fortier

Re: Startup Puts Everything You Need for a Two-Acre Farm in a Shipping Container

#178

Post by wott »

peteforde wrote: post #175
narrator wrote: post #150

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In my experience, Raspberry Pis are nice hobbyist toys but tend to corrupt data on their SD cards at random and generally are unreliable. For 50k you could at least send them a somewhat rugged fanless PC with a SSD raid for added reliability.

Off-topic, but I've become something of an unintentional expert on making Pis reliable. First, consider using f2fs instead of ext4 with a nice big card (and get a good one). Next, attempt to disable all of the unnecessary logging and writes to the SD. Either send them to a server, write them to a ramdisk or even consider mounting the partition in read-only mode. This will drastically increase your duty cycle. Finally…

So, that's a Pi + a rugged fanless PC with a SSD raid :-)

Re: Startup Puts Everything You Need for a Two-Acre Farm in a Shipping Container

#179

Post by Johnny555 »

jdowner wrote: post #129
nnain wrote: post #102

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Also farms usually have a store room attached to keep the equipment. It's also cool in there cause it's made in a traditional way - thatched roof, wood, mud, thick walls etc. So it makes for a nice resting place when it's hot. Why would anyone want to lose a piece of their farm land to keep a container and also pay for it!

One reason why you may want a container is because it is a movable structure. That means that you do not need a building permit. Acquiring a building permit requires at least a class 5 road. This is the case for New Hampshire. I don't know how representative it is though. Also this not uncommon when for larger lots, but I'm not really sure if there are differences from lots as small as 2 acres.

If that were indeed a hard requirement, it seems like it would prevent a farmer building any structure within his property that's not adjoining a public (i.e. Class V) road.

And indeed the planning board can make an exception:

A private road, but as with Class VI roads, only if the governing body, after consulting with the planning board has adopted a policy allowing building on that particular private road, or portion thereof, and then only if the owner has recorded a notice in the registry of deeds acknowledging that the town is not liable for maintenance...

So I would think that a farmer that wants to build a storage shed on the far side of his field would be able to get a permit as long as it's accessible by some private road (even a class VI dirt road)

Re: Startup Puts Everything You Need for a Two-Acre Farm in a Shipping Container

#180

Post by [deleted] »

roel_v wrote: post #144
smoodles wrote: post #118

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is not a scam. This is the real deal, with years of research and testing behind it. Disclaimer: I know one of the principals directly.

You should ping them to get them to answer some questions on here.

[deleted]
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