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

thinkingagriculture.io

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

#151

Post by entangledqubit »

neltnerb wrote: post #101
stelonix wrote: post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Hello, also a developer who's interested in agroecology. I actually also left development (as a job, not as something I do) in order to pursue a more human-centric approach to agriculture. With automation, it seems obvious we'll be seeing way more unemployment than what's happening right now, which is already alarming; small farms with synergistic crops & forestation seems like a no-brainer to achieve food sustainabi…

I am skeptical that "more farm workers" is a trend that anyone really wants. Maybe at small scale you can sell produce at vastly higher prices to make up for the higher costs, but I don't think that what you're suggesting would be good for agriculture if adopted broadly.

How much of this not "good for agriculture" is a result of a mispricing that doesn't factor in the unsustainability of the current mainstream approach? Like many areas this may involve more human workers before later transitioning to smarter machines in the long run.

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

#152

Post by [deleted] »

mathgladiator wrote: post #53
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"…

what advice would you offer to another developer that longs to get into agriculture?

[deleted]

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

#153

Post by dejj »

Justsignedup wrote: post #20
coderintherye wrote: post #3

The author here has a good premise, although glosses over many things. Yes, "vertical farming" is over-hyped. That said, the author didn't mention weather or pesticides/fertilizers at all. Statements such as "Current agriculture doesn’t need an artificial energy source" are plain wrong. Producing fertilizers takes quite a bit of artificial energy and the bulk of the corn and soybean farmers the author is pointing to…

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…

> water feeding system can be led all the way to the ocean

If you're thinking pipes, the water might become toxic after 500km or so.

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

#154

Post by gdubs »

adammunich wrote: post #131
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.

You mean... Goats?

Lol, that’s great. Would love to have grazing animals in the future but we’re not quite ready to take care of them yet. Also involves decisions on fencing etc. I have been warned a LOT about goats and their ability to destroy everything, and evade even the tallest fences.

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

#155

Post by d_burfoot »

As a consumer, I don't care a tiny bit about making my food less expensive (by making production more efficient). Food is already very cheap.

I care very very much about reducing the suffering of farm animals. I do not want to become vegan (for health reasons), but the guilt I feel because of my contribution to animal suffering is one of the worst parts of my life.

Please, please, smart young technologists out there: figure out some cool technology to make it possible to raise farm animals efficiently while also ensuring that they live comfortable, decent lives.

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

#156

Post by alisson »

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?

Yes, the method applies anywhere in the planet. But for that you need to deeply understand the plants available for you, I mean those that are able to grow there in the beginning, native or not, here we use lots of african grasses and eucalyptus to start. There are a few people replicating this all over the world in very different environments.

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

#158

Post by kumarski »

My father is an ag soil chemist of 50+ years.

I'm an industrial systems eng. w/ a specialty in polymer-textile-fiber engineering. (Mostly useless skillsets in the US now)

Gonna share a few lessons here about agriculture that I try to convey to EECS, econ, Neuroscience, and the web developer crowd.

- You can only grow non-calorically dense foods in vertical farms

- It takes 10-14 kwh/1000 gallons of water to desalinate. More if it gets periodically polluted at an increasing rate.

- Large majority Agrarian populations exist because the countries are stuck in a purgatory of - Sweet potatoes and sweet potatoes are some of the highest satiety lowest input to output ratio produce. High efficiency.

- In civilizations where you are at - Property, bankruptcy, and inheritance law have an immense influence on the farmer population of a country.

I remember telling some "ag tech" VCs my insights and offering to introduce my father who has an immense amount of insight on the topic from having grown things for as long as he has....My thoughts were tossed aside.

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

#159

Post by messe »

kumarski wrote: post #158

My father is an ag soil chemist of 50+ years. I'm an industrial systems eng. w/ a specialty in polymer-textile-fiber engineering. (Mostly useless skillsets in the US now) Gonna share a few lessons here about agriculture that I try to convey to EECS, econ, Neuroscience, and the web developer crowd. - You can only grow non-calorically dense foods in vertical farms - It takes 10-14 kwh/1000 gallons of water to desalinat…

> Sweet potatoes and sweet potatoes

Is this a typo? Did you mean to write a second vegetable?

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

#160

Post by s1artibartfast »

bricej13 wrote: post #91
degraafc wrote: post #13

I spent a few months at a consulting company working with a precision agriculture startup, and my mind was totally blown when I first learned how much technology goes into agriculture these days. I feel like a lot of tech people have a mental image of outdoor farming still being somewhat primitive (I certainly did!) which could cause the misconceptions mentioned in the article.

For a small peek watch this simple farmer dig a hole, put a seed in, and put dirt on top: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PqK5667B5As

Or think that every pistachio that goes to market has been visually inspected and individuals sorted, and has been for the last 25 years.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PqK5667B5As

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