Ask HN: Agriculture startups doing interesting work? • Hacker News Board

Re: Ask HN: Agriculture startups doing interesting work?

#161

Post by jsilence » Wed, Oct 23, 2019, 5:23 AM UTC

mrpopo wrote: post #137

davidhunter wrote: post #20

I am the founder of Optimal: http://optimal.ag . We are a team of engineers and scientists from DeepMind, Palantir, Oxford and MIT. Our mission is to grow safer, healthier food by deploying fully autonomous greenhouses outside every city on earth. We are backed by leading deep technology funds, including Founders Fund. We believe that high-tech greenhouses will be an important part of our agricultural future, for imp…

How would deploying greenhouses be helping to fight climate change? Many greenhouses now use energy for heating. Or maybe are you talking about passive greenhouses only?

While true, climatization during the summer months is the bigger challenge and probably even more expensive when trying to achieve a closed system to keep out the pests.

A greenhouse in temperate climate (eg. Sweden) captures approx. 2.9 fold the energy amount that is required for heating in the winter. But this excess heat of course is captured in summer, wehen you need to get rid of it. Seasonal heat storage is not easy.

Passive solar greenhouses are promising with that regard.

Re: Ask HN: Agriculture startups doing interesting work?

#162

Post by mikorym » Wed, Oct 23, 2019, 5:34 AM UTC

tomhoward wrote: post #122

I've been working on a hardware data logger device and web software platform that monitors soil moisture and other environmental metrics that produce-growers care about – soil temperature and conductivity (which indicates salinity or fertiliser penetration), air/canopy temperature, rainfall, irrigation, humidity, solar radiation, etc. We've been working on the product for about 4-5 years (as a side project while work…

> I'm still not sure why this tech isn't more commonplace

It's the same story with DFM probes (artificial root that measures water content). I think the (one) reason is that it's quicker to get in your bakkie (pick-up) or quad bike and go to the block yourself than trying to figure out on your computer why the probe says you had applied water throughout the whole night (i.e., 15 times too much). Turns out someone walked passed, opened the valve and just walked away (for shits and giggles?).

Re: Ask HN: Agriculture startups doing interesting work?

#163

Post by mikorym » Wed, Oct 23, 2019, 5:36 AM UTC

hbrundage wrote: post #70

davidhunter wrote: post #20

I am the founder of Optimal: http://optimal.ag . We are a team of engineers and scientists from DeepMind, Palantir, Oxford and MIT. Our mission is to grow safer, healthier food by deploying fully autonomous greenhouses outside every city on earth. We are backed by leading deep technology funds, including Founders Fund. We believe that high-tech greenhouses will be an important part of our agricultural future, for imp…

I spent a bunch of time modelling out the unit economics for autonomous greenhouses and struggled to find any combination of technologies that could even come close to competing with the current costs of field agriculture, including labor. Do you folks need something key to change in the competitive landscape (like climate change or very different immigration laws in the US) to become profitable? See https://www.eate…

You are right. The only scenario where is makes sense is in the Netherlands and even they are struggling to stay in business, meaning they will have to specialise or rethink their business plan. Data analysis in the open field is just as interesting to do and in fact has a much more transferable (eventual) tech stack.

Re: Ask HN: Agriculture startups doing interesting work?

#164

Post by mikorym » Wed, Oct 23, 2019, 5:38 AM UTC

abledon wrote: post #152

mikorym wrote: post #19

This is exactly what I am working on. Using climate data for more efficient farming, in a nutshell. Established players are like sledge hammers. They are successful if they are hard working and have some competitive edge (could be labour cost, could be local knowledge, could be profit reinvestment, could be rights to varieties). Farmers are the most efficient managers you'll ever find. They don't need management, so…

Chicken coops that are picked up at night by 6 heavy duty drones and flown to a new part of the field —- sign me up

Is this then called 3D free range chicken?

Re: Ask HN: Agriculture startups doing interesting work?

#165

Post by estsauver » Wed, Oct 23, 2019, 5:47 AM UTC

I think we're doing interesting work at Apollo Agriculture (https://apolloagriculture.com)!

We work with smallholder farmers in subsaharan africa (currently Kenya) to help them transition to commercial farming. Basically, we sell them a package of the seed, fertilizer, advice, insurance, and training that they need to substantially improve their yield and profits. We're moving towards helping farmers shift to a diversified blend of crops and providing market access.

(In most of the developed world, these are all provided by different players, but the challenges of a developing market push us to offer them all together.)

If you're interested in chatting, either drop a comment here or shoot me an email at (earl at apolloagriculture dot com).

Re: Ask HN: Agriculture startups doing interesting work?

#166

Post by abledon » Wed, Oct 23, 2019, 5:54 AM UTC

mikorym wrote: post #164

abledon wrote: post #152

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Chicken coops that are picked up at night by 6 heavy duty drones and flown to a new part of the field —- sign me up

Is this then called 3D free range chicken?

free++, since their 'range' of freedom is constantly being changed to a new location in the field, plus before, they still had 3 dimensions of range, hopping up into coop at night (+z) and hopping down during day (-z). I'm talking about organic farm chickens here, not factory farm.

Re: Ask HN: Agriculture startups doing interesting work?

#167

Post by vinicius_ng » Wed, Oct 23, 2019, 5:59 AM UTC

benj1502 wrote: post #160

Check https://www.tend.com/ out, this startup has gone public since 2016, I'm one of their beta users. Its a suite that help you make growing plan, keeping track of almost everything needed during your farming processes, your plants, your tasks, when to harvest, your soil test records,... They've been developing some other tools that will eventually help you sell your farm produces. Here's what they say "We’re a smal…

Hey benj1502 -

I've heard about Tend from my friend farmers but haven't try it out. The features from the website [1] looks like what I need.

[1] https://www.tend.com/page/how-it-works.html

Edit: wow the blogs are really nice https://www.tend.com/blog.html

Re: Ask HN: Agriculture startups doing interesting work?

#168

Post by jsilence » Wed, Oct 23, 2019, 6:00 AM UTC

elasticventures wrote: post #125

peteradio wrote: post #105

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> before climate change really kicks into full gear and destroys outdoor gardens Not sure what the case will be that you can sustain yourself on your apartment tomato while outdoors is Armageddon. Nice! Good luck with your marketing strategy!

marketing strategy is key. The tech & science behind the yield optimization -- up to 6x 'overclocked photosynthesis' using aeroponics (not soil), optimized for photonic efficiency -- humans can accelerate the growth of plants substantially effectively "overlocking" nature. it's based on the Minskey/MIT media lab designs and some pieces I found in China -- a training gym for growing plants, but with a non-laboratory '…

> humans can accelerate the growth of plants substantially effectively "overlocking" nature.

For the production of biomass you need photosynthesis. The coupling between the amount of photons you supply and the produced biomass is strong and uncicumventable. So even when you implement all the nice optimizations to accelerate plant growth, you still need to supply a proportional amount of light. If this light is artificial, which you need to achieve the claimed space efficiency, then this implies a lot of energy and monetary cost.

When growing indoors, shutting out the sun light that is supplied for free, you even worsen the situation.

I think it is nice for people to grow some of their food themselves, but this method is nowhere near solving any of the problems agriculture and horticulture are going to face in the near future.

Re: Ask HN: Agriculture startups doing interesting work?

#169

Post by jsilence » Wed, Oct 23, 2019, 6:04 AM UTC

ironfootnz wrote: post #142

I've seen the focus on the thread, fascinating. The major focus is: To produce more. I haven't seen one to Waste less. Inverse the balance sheet.

I wholeheartedly agree with your sentiment.

I guess as long as there is no real cost attached to the waste disposal this is not going to change. We need appropriate policies to nudge the development into this direction.

Re: Ask HN: Agriculture startups doing interesting work?

#170

Post by uuilly » Wed, Oct 23, 2019, 6:13 AM UTC

http://www.bluerivertechnology.com/

Now owned by John Deere. Goal is 10x reduction in chemicals while doubling yields. We’re deep in ml & robotics and our creations scale across the deere fleet touching most of the arable land in the world.