What vertical farming and ag startups don't understand about agriculture • Hacker News Board

Re: What vertical farming and ag startups don't understand about agriculture

#71

Post by chrisco255 » Wed, Jun 24, 2020, 6:11 PM UTC

Ericson2314 wrote: post #31

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…

We simply have food stamps if you find yourself too poor to afford food. That's a fine system, in my opinion. I, of course, already pay for my lifetime supply of food with a portion of my earnings, which I hand over to the grocery store.

Re: What vertical farming and ag startups don't understand about agriculture

#72

Post by xxpor » Wed, Jun 24, 2020, 6:11 PM UTC

credit_guy wrote: post #46

xxpor wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>Indoor farming would not have to worry about things like drought. As a water feeding system can be led all the way to the ocean and the salt removed using pure sunlight as power. Are you aware of how much water it takes to produce the output of the Midwest or Central Valley? We'd be talking about the largest desalination project in human history by orders of magnitude. As of 2013, Israel had a desalination capacity…

> As of 2015, the US used ~450 billion cubic meters PER DAY for irrigation I think you mean to say 450 billion liters, which would be 450 million cubic meters. Your source says this: "For 2015, total irrigation withdrawals were 118,000 Mgal/d" So roughly speaking Israel desalinates in a year how much the US uses for irrigation in one day. That doesn't sound so outrageous. Israel is a small country.

Ah you're right, I read the wrong line in the wolfram alpha output. That does make it seem less crazy. It would still be a crazy project but not "entire GDP of the US" crazy.

Re: What vertical farming and ag startups don't understand about agriculture

#73

Post by oddsockmachine » Wed, Jun 24, 2020, 6:11 PM UTC

chrisco255 wrote: post #61

alisson wrote: post #42

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"…

I can see that being critical in Brazil, near the rainforests, but does this strategy work in the great plains?

Might not count as the great plains, but Mark Sheppard's New Forest Farm in Wisconsin is a good demonstration of a similar approach in a different context.

https://newforestfarm.us/about/

Re: What vertical farming and ag startups don't understand about agriculture

#74

Post by protomyth » Wed, Jun 24, 2020, 6:12 PM UTC

AndrewKemendo wrote: post #58

protomyth wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

30% of all food produced - approx 1 Trillion dollars worth - is lost in the supply chain, and contributes the equivalent of the third largest CO2 producer if it were a country. I'm not sure how to describe that other than a disaster. http://www.fao.org/3/a-bt300e.pdf

I call it an unavoidable cost of making sure people have food on the table. There is no way on this planet that you can design a supply chain that you produce the same amount of food that is consumed. This isn't parts that get put in some widget, people have different tastes at different times. I'm honestly surprised its only 30% given the fickle taste of people.

The CO2 production will reduce as we steadily change from diesel to electric. Ocean going vessels are just environmental problems that treaties seem to ignore.

Re: What vertical farming and ag startups don't understand about agriculture

#75

Post by Kye » Wed, Jun 24, 2020, 6:12 PM UTC

gdubs wrote: post #60

What I want: an autonomous, EV brush mower to take care of the scarily steep slopes of our native upland prairie restoration project.

Are there any plants you can replace the brush with that do well in the environment, fit what you want better, and stop at an acceptable height?

Re: What vertical farming and ag startups don't understand about agriculture

#76

Post by masona » Wed, Jun 24, 2020, 6:17 PM UTC

The biggest opportunity for disruption is the checkoffs.

>These types of programs represent an already existing framework of farmers ‘paying’ for this type of knowledge. This model has proven scalable, even more so with the internet and social media making information readily available. Note this doesn’t prevent bad information from being shared, but since savvy farmers will try and eventually ignore unprofitable methods, one can assume this is an efficient system.

No. It is one of the most wasteful systems I've ever seen. Take one look at the reports they put out to justify their existence and you'll see that it is filled with ridiculous math, where ROI is based on outputs instead of outcomes. The data being collected is junk, all the vendors are super-insidery and collaboration is a political minefield at best. There's so much room for improvement you could throw a dart at any of the checkoff 5-year ROI reports and blindly hit an area to innovate on.

Re: What vertical farming and ag startups don't understand about agriculture

#77

Post by mahaganapati » Wed, Jun 24, 2020, 6:19 PM UTC

alisson wrote: post #42

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"…

Wow, that's so cool. I have long been interested in permaculture, which this seems quite similar to — how would you describe the difference? Answering my own question I'd say that immediately the focus on automated harvest of non-monocrop is very important, ad the main arguments against permaculture that I've come across (here and on e.g. Reddit) are that it's not scalable with automation. Thanks so much for sharing

Re: What vertical farming and ag startups don't understand about agriculture

#78

Post by jedberg » Wed, Jun 24, 2020, 6:20 PM UTC

xxpor wrote: post #37

Justsignedup wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I would like to build on top of your point: - Indoor farming would not have to worry about things like drought. As a water feeding system can be led all the way to the ocean and the salt removed using pure sunlight as power. - Indoor farming has shown to yield crops with 96% less water in many cases, again solving the problem mentioned previously. - Many areas don't have ready access to tons of water so these water c…

>Indoor farming would not have to worry about things like drought. As a water feeding system can be led all the way to the ocean and the salt removed using pure sunlight as power. Are you aware of how much water it takes to produce the output of the Midwest or Central Valley? We'd be talking about the largest desalination project in human history by orders of magnitude. As of 2013, Israel had a desalination capacity…

Israel coastline: 171 miles

US coastline (not including Alaska): 5,800 miles

So the US has 33 times the coastline. It sounds like we're only one order of magnitude off to meet those desal needs.

ps. If we include Alaska, which is another 6,600 miles of coastline, we could again halve that need.

Re: What vertical farming and ag startups don't understand about agriculture

#79

Post by austincheney » Wed, Jun 24, 2020, 6:21 PM UTC

What numerous Netflix documentaries and now Covid has revealed is that ag industry is perhaps too efficient from a people perspective. Those people closest to production carry a disproportionate risk of the supply chain with very little compensation. This is problematic in that it creates funnels too close to the raw materials that can break without adequate redundancy.

Where ag industry is less efficient is in material usage like fertilizer, water, and waste products. For example it takes about 18 gallons of water to produce one avocado fruit and there are concerns about a future shortage of phosphorus. Then there are also the environmental footprints as well.

For what it’s worth the loss of resource efficiency inversely drives land use efficiency. When resource inputs/outputs are a concern land use is compressed to consolidate management concerns while land use concerns relax when resources are more abundant.

One segment that really seems to nail resource efficiency, at least in North America, is commercial lumber but then they operate on long time horizon unlike edibles.

Re: What vertical farming and ag startups don't understand about agriculture

#80

Post by mmargerum » Wed, Jun 24, 2020, 6:21 PM UTC

Robotics on traditional farms is where it's at. Weed/Pest killing, fertilizing/watering, and tilling robots will cut down on fertilizer/water usage and will alleviate the need for GMO and pesticides.

I hope to run a droid farm in 10 years like uncle Owen Lars. I just don't want to be charred at the end :D