Is Vertical Farming Really the Future of Agriculture? • Hacker News Board

Re: Is Vertical Farming Really the Future of Agriculture?

#141

Post by elcritch » Fri, Jul 06, 2018, 8:45 AM UTC

rmason wrote: post #106

nostromo wrote: post #28

There's a lot of misunderstanding of agriculture in this thread. 1) No, land is not expensive. In agricultural areas, land is quite cheap. Organizing shelves of crops vertically solves for a problem that isn't actually a problem. 2) The sun is free and electricity isn't cheap. Putting plants indoors and then buying electricity to create light is going to be expensive compared to using the free sun. (The absurdity of…

In a word no. I spent twenty years as a fertilizer agronomist and I'm very familiar with the costs of producing a crop. The numbers simply do not work. Even when they tried in Detroit and got buildings for five cents on the dollar they couldn't make it work. The investors funding these enterprises do not understand agricultural economics. I keep investigating these stories looking for some kind of 'breakthrough tech'…

Costs of producing which crops? Trying to match low quality, low taste produce won’t work. The costs for largely tasteless greens and vegetables are pretty optimized. However the numbers change quite a bit with “organics” or “Whole Foods” quality of produce. Local fresh veggies and greens add a lot of flavor. Vertical farms also open the possibility of growing “lost” varieties which don’t freeze or ship well.

Even with all of that the economics have been right on the edge of easy profitability for the last few years. The biggest advancement hasn’t been a revolutionary technology, but a combination of exponentially decreasing cost of LED’s, the efficiency of LED’s, and investment in the racking and tower equipment. All of these have been decreasing, and steadily moving the line up for profitability. Combine that with continued development of robotic planting and harvesting which is a much larger cost for vertical farms since the equipment hasn’t all been developed yet.

Re: Is Vertical Farming Really the Future of Agriculture?

#142

Post by skbohra123 » Fri, Jul 06, 2018, 8:48 AM UTC

No.

Re: Is Vertical Farming Really the Future of Agriculture?

#143

Post by XalvinX » Fri, Jul 06, 2018, 8:50 AM UTC

sinnet11 wrote: post #60

A biggest problem with farming these days is labor. Period. Growers (farmers) cannot manage 6000 acres of land. They rely on their crop consultants to tell them where to spray and what they need to spray. Once you start automate these tasks, e.g. crop scouting, then the grower and the consultant can use data to spray less and produce a higher quality crop.

If Trump gets his way, expect this 'problem' to reach critical levels, since the vast majority of it is done by undocumented people from Mexico, Central and South America.

If every illegal immigrant was thrown out tomorrow, the price of lettuce would go to $15 a head, and nearly every other type of produce not automated would also skyrocket.

Most fruit and many vegetables require a lot manual labor to grow, harvest and pack... And, Mr. Trump, white people won't do this work willingly, not at $3 an hour and not with having to live in pesticide-drenched shanty towns and having to shit in buckets or ditches and so forth..

What supports that $1.29 head of lettuce is, basically, human suffering that is only endured because things suck even worse in El Salvadore and similar places.

Earlier presidents knew this and intelligently left the borders very, very porous. And it isn't just agriculture, but many other industries too.

Re: Is Vertical Farming Really the Future of Agriculture?

#144

Post by rorykoehler » Fri, Jul 06, 2018, 8:52 AM UTC

mikro2nd wrote: post #125

rorykoehler wrote: post #73

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There is a pretty good case to wean us off cereals. They aren’t the best diet health wise. We only consume so much because they are calorie dense and easy to grow.

You would also have to wean us off meat, including poultry. Not all meat, sure, but the bulk is cereal-fed in CAFO factory operations. Similarly you'd have to wean us off most of the dairy produce and dairy-derived food we like, because grass-fed is not going to produce the quantities we've grown accustomed to. Then you'd have to wean us off bread and beer, and a whole host of extracted starches and sugars that are u…

Most meat will be lab grown within a decade. Livestock meat will become a luxury

Re: Is Vertical Farming Really the Future of Agriculture?

#145

Post by tremon » Fri, Jul 06, 2018, 8:57 AM UTC

nostromo wrote: post #28

There's a lot of misunderstanding of agriculture in this thread. 1) No, land is not expensive. In agricultural areas, land is quite cheap. Organizing shelves of crops vertically solves for a problem that isn't actually a problem. 2) The sun is free and electricity isn't cheap. Putting plants indoors and then buying electricity to create light is going to be expensive compared to using the free sun. (The absurdity of…

I disagree with your point 3): the reason shipping is considered cheap, has to do with low fuel expenses and people ignoring other costs like pollution. Since cargo ships travel over 90% of their time in international waters, they are not bound by any pollution laws and can get away with burning the dirtiest (and thus cheapest) fuel they can find. For example, international shipping accounts for 8% of the global SO2 emissions.

Luckily, there is some movement to move to cleaner fuels instead [1], but that is slow progress.

[1] https://www.theicct.org/blogs/staff/end-era-heavy-fuel-oil-m...

Re: Is Vertical Farming Really the Future of Agriculture?

#146

Post by rorykoehler » Fri, Jul 06, 2018, 8:58 AM UTC

throwaway2048 wrote: post #113

rorykoehler wrote: post #103

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The issue with this view is it is looking at the future potential using today's technology and efficiency. We're about to blow productivity per watt out of the water and this will change everything. If you want to know more watch jeremy rifkin's talk on YouTube https://youtu.be/QX3M8Ka9vUA

You are never going to beat the efficency of the sun shining down on plants for free, no matter what. I mean the entire idea is absurd, what are you going to have solar panels on the building that somehow collect light and re-emit it, and have that be more efficent than just the plants collecting the light directly? So you take more land area for solar, why wouldnt you just plant crops on that land area instead...

If you grow things indoors close to where they will be consumed you can control the environment reducing risk of drought, flooding, pest, pollution, wildfires, storm damage, blight etc etc. You also reduce the supply chain complexities around collection, transport and storage (inert gas storage etc). There are many other considerations apart from energy and when energy becomes cheap enough the game will turn in favour of growing in urban areas.

Re: Is Vertical Farming Really the Future of Agriculture?

#147

Post by rusk » Fri, Jul 06, 2018, 9:00 AM UTC

cjrp wrote: post #134

mikro2nd wrote: post #128

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The "breakthrough tech" I'm NOT seeing: There's all the excitement over electric cars and electrical trucks, and I, for one, can't wait to get an electrically powered car I don't have to drive. But the thing I'm not seeing is electrically powered farm machinery. I think people underestimate just how hard that problem is. These machines, when they're working at peak times of the year (planting time, harvest) are requi…

This may be a stupid idea, but is there any reason that this kind of heavy machinery needs a battery and couldn't just be connected to a power source via a (admittedly, very long) cable?

The very long cable sounds like a good enough reason to me ...

Agricultural land is typically in remote areas, and equipment needs to be driven for miles often to get to where it's being used.

Even if, lets say you do take the hit of the upfront costs introduce a heavy-duty power-grid to service all your land (thousands of hectares on many of the large-scale cases) - then you're still going to have to run the cable from some kind of power point, and without some aerial apparatus you're going to be running it across and through your crops.

Yeah I guess you could take the time to arrange the cable, and have somebody follow it around all day but that's a lot of extra work. Probably a lot more work than just the harvesting.

It's probably pretty dangerous too - trailing this multiphase high-power cable around where you've all this heavy equipment often doing chopping and grinding.

Re: Is Vertical Farming Really the Future of Agriculture?

#148

Post by brohee » Fri, Jul 06, 2018, 9:04 AM UTC

Arn_Thor wrote: post #138

nostromo wrote: post #28

There's a lot of misunderstanding of agriculture in this thread. 1) No, land is not expensive. In agricultural areas, land is quite cheap. Organizing shelves of crops vertically solves for a problem that isn't actually a problem. 2) The sun is free and electricity isn't cheap. Putting plants indoors and then buying electricity to create light is going to be expensive compared to using the free sun. (The absurdity of…

1) Depends where you live. In a lot of the world's biggest cities in terms of population you've got to travel really far to find land. Probably still cheaper to transport the goods into town than grow it locally, but that comes at the expense of freshness, time, and taxing a freight network that could be used to transport other things. Not to mention places like the Vatican, Singapore, Hong Kong, etc, which don't rea…

To address your point two : a crystalline Si PV panel has 25% efficiency, and the best white leds are about 45% efficiency.

So the sunlight->panel->led->light conversion does waste ~90% of the sunlight.

This is made less bad by not lighting plants with white light but purple light, but clearly solar panel on the roof, plants indoor don't make much sense.

Now, the reasoning is completely different if the electricity is produced elsewhere, transporting produce may not be that expensive, but transporting electricity is a lot cheaper.

The main benefit from urban farming is definitely reduced time from harvesting to the plate, and the ability to consume varieties that don't transport well...

Re: Is Vertical Farming Really the Future of Agriculture?

#149

Post by rusk » Fri, Jul 06, 2018, 9:04 AM UTC

TheSpiceIsLife wrote: post #118

rmason wrote: post #106

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In a word no. I spent twenty years as a fertilizer agronomist and I'm very familiar with the costs of producing a crop. The numbers simply do not work. Even when they tried in Detroit and got buildings for five cents on the dollar they couldn't make it work. The investors funding these enterprises do not understand agricultural economics. I keep investigating these stories looking for some kind of 'breakthrough tech'…

I think I read somewhere that most leafy greens are grown hydroponically. But there's only so many leafy greens you can grow before you saturate peoples already weak appetite.

> peoples already weak appetite.

This is the tragedy of modern commercial yield-driven market-gardening horticulture. That this is how people think salad tastes.

You can grow anything in your garden, or in a window box or whatever, and even if you've limited knowledge and don't do a pretty good job of it, it'll taste about (finger in the air) 4 to 5 times better than 85% of the stuff you buy in the shops.

Re: Is Vertical Farming Really the Future of Agriculture?

#150

Post by tremon » Fri, Jul 06, 2018, 9:07 AM UTC

cjrp wrote: post #134

mikro2nd wrote: post #128

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The "breakthrough tech" I'm NOT seeing: There's all the excitement over electric cars and electrical trucks, and I, for one, can't wait to get an electrically powered car I don't have to drive. But the thing I'm not seeing is electrically powered farm machinery. I think people underestimate just how hard that problem is. These machines, when they're working at peak times of the year (planting time, harvest) are requi…

This may be a stupid idea, but is there any reason that this kind of heavy machinery needs a battery and couldn't just be connected to a power source via a (admittedly, very long) cable?

Or a power rail. Fields are already very regular, I would think it possible to embed a power rail somewhere along or across it.