51–60 of 321 posts
Vertical farming is as important as solar is to the future sustainability of the human race.
A really great non-profit focused on more sustainable agriculture is The Land Institute. Generally people also don’t also understand that some advancements in agriculture take decades or even centuries. One example of an advancement from The Land Institute is their focus on domesticating a perennial cousin of Modern wheat. This is no small task given humans have been domesticating modern wheat for thousands or years.…
The other big benefit is carbon sequestration. Perennials typically root far deeper into the soil, giving prairies enormous amounts of (carbon sequestering) root mass. This also has benefits in terms of erosion control — soil loss is one of the biggest, not talked about threats to society.
Finally, perennials can help — again through extensive root systems — improve water capture, recharging aquifers.
Around 6 years ago I quit my job as a developer to dive into agriculture. I learned about syntropic agriculture systems and felt in love with it because: - You are able to work with space and time in a way to maximize yield (not 1 crop yield, but but multi crop) - It focus on being biodiverse - It builds forests So in this systems you will see rows of trees intercalated with rows of beans, corn, soy anything "weedy"…
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Also, indoor and especially vertical farming can save precious land. Maybe the US has enough land for farming, other countries certainly do not. Rain forests burned to make space for soy or palm oil are proof of that.
What is the calory output of vertical farming? The only things I ever see grown in those vertical farms are low calory, short-shelf-life leafy greens, and the occasional bland tomato. Greens are nice and all, but calories are what keep us alive. Until they can produce calories, I will continue seeing them as a pointless distraction.
Of course they don't understand it, their field is technology. Agriculture requires years of specialisation and most people here if they do have a degree are computer scientists, doctors, biologists, etc. But it's rare to find someone who has genuine passion and knowledge of agriculture. It is far removed from the city lifestyle and it is incredibly hard to break into, both for land reasons and because it's a hard jo…
Agreed. I grew up in rural Australia, when I moved to the city it was funny to see people talk about farmers in a willy nilly fashion. Farms are extremely hard to build, and the knowledge to run them has to be built into tradition. I'd wager if a governments policies bankrupted a large amount of them, you could almost starve the nation with no remedy. It would take lifetimes before anyone learnt how to till the land…
Systems like this are more complex than the foolish give them credit for being!
Think about it. The biggest legacy of the hippies is that their critique of food and agriculture evolved into the mainstream's. (Well, that and same process with nuclear engergy.) The problem is it's incoherent mix, then and now. We have jumbled together: - Nostalgia. First this was yeoman farmer nostalgia. Now there is also pre-agricultural nostalgia. Primitivism is coherent, but only once you embrace what it really…
Hutterites have major capital expenses (unlike Amish), and yet they are farmers. Income-portion subscription model maybe doesn't so crazy if you consider employees can live off the surplus food on one hand, and so the subscription can largely go into capital and operational expenditures.
It sounds dual to "lifetime cut of earnings to pay for college", since education is considered the ultimate personal capex, and food the ultimate personal opex. But considering the rat-race nature of bullshit jobs, and the basic income studies, a lifetime free from fear starvation could well kick one up the hierarchy of needs enough to learn far more efficiently. So food indefinitely is actually pretty good personal capex from that perspective.
How does vertical farming compete with traditional row crops? I have never seen a proposal to grow wheat in a skyscraper. It has always been higher value fresh foods like lettuce and spinach.
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It's the logistics chain from the farm to your plate that's the disaster. That's not for lack of trying. But having exposure to farming growing up, there's no good way to get a ripe berry from Washington State to Florida before it spoils without freezing it, genetically engineering it (which is fine, I'm pro GMO, it's just costly) or treating it. Even if you do, handling it will see large losses. So the trick is, how…
Well, you can get it there, but berries aren't worth enough to make that journey by air. That is generally reserved for seafood and there is an equally amazing logistics system to do that. Calling one of the most amazing processes on the planet "disastrous logistics chain" is just disingenuous.
I'm not sure how to describe that other than a disaster.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Also, indoor and especially vertical farming can save precious land. Maybe the US has enough land for farming, other countries certainly do not. Rain forests burned to make space for soy or palm oil are proof of that.
What is the calory output of vertical farming? The only things I ever see grown in those vertical farms are low calory, short-shelf-life leafy greens, and the occasional bland tomato. Greens are nice and all, but calories are what keep us alive. Until they can produce calories, I will continue seeing them as a pointless distraction.