301–310 of 321 posts
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I would like to transition to this in the next 5-10 years. Starting off with a garden on a plot of land I just purchased. That syntropic agriculture video was powerful. Any way to contact you to understand how you've made the transition?
For sure, will be a pleasure, you can find me at alissonpatricio at gmail
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Can you expand on this? I get that to store a calorie in a potato I need to supply a calorie of energy from somewhere else. But why is fusion power required instead of better UV lamps in my vertical farm? (Assuming I had enough electricity to run them)
>But why is fusion power required instead of better UV lamps in my vertical farm? Because of the second law of thermodynamics. Your UV lamp is not going to produce light that contains more energy than the electricity you used as input. That energy needs to be produced via solar panels if you want maximum efficiency. If we ignore nuclear or fusion all energy on earth is derived from sunlight.
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How did you support yourself economically when setting this up and ongoing? Was it economically viable and sustainable?
I had a small reserve, and I cut my living costs a lot. I wasn't trying to make money from agriculture in the beginning, was all about learning, I volunteered a lot and did a few courses later. This year we started actually selling produces and I get lots of calls to pruning jobs which I do decline because 2 years down this line I started working with development again because I got out of money. We would be able to…
I’m not “silicon valley,” but only a single programmer who has an interest in agriculture. The author is talking about large scale farms. What about small scale farmers? In my experience with those farmers, they don’t typically have the access or money to afford tech. Do you not think there’s an opportunity to create cheap tech tools—automation and robotics—for small scale farmers?
There is. But its hard to recoup any profit for the same reason you don't hear about iPhone's/premium tech in poor countries/region. Money just isn't there. Also, as pointed out, most farms are larger and getting larger. Small farms and small farmers will (in general) be aggregated (according to history at least).
Edit: I realize that a small scale farm doesn't "scale" like VC business wants so it's not even in the conversation about venture capital. But small business will always (hopefully) be a viable endeavor for somebody.
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>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…
So with indoor farming let's say you'd only need 5-10% of that, right? That suddenly makes it basically the same magnitude.
That might be possible, I don't know enough about it to say for sure. I could see us needing somewhat less just due to evaporation differences, but I'd think plants need basically the same amount of water to do what they do regardless. How do we get down to 5-10%?
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Outside of North Korea, humanity in 2020 has no shortage of calories.
I believe that in 2020, we may have a shortage of calories if we were growing all of them in a sustainable manner. I will also note that in 2020, we have no shortage of leafy greens.
If you count using fossil fuels to make fertilizer as unsustainable, you're probably right. But that is very debatable.
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Can you expand on this? I get that to store a calorie in a potato I need to supply a calorie of energy from somewhere else. But why is fusion power required instead of better UV lamps in my vertical farm? (Assuming I had enough electricity to run them)
What powers the UV lamps? Sun + water is cheap and plentiful. Small scale farms can sell potatoes at $0.50/lb or less. Amish farms with oxen can go a little less. Capital and operational costs for vertical farms don’t seem to make sense, unless there’s some disaster in the Colorado watershed or a trade war that makes hothouse winter produce a viable business again.
[1] Don't get me wrong, it's a spectrum and some socialism is a very good thing. But not like in Cuba or the old USSR.
I've been thinking about this in the context of applied ecology (Permaculture, et. al.) It's undeniable that modern mechanized mass agriculture is incredibly efficient and already highly automated. It's kind of fantastic. (And very challenging to compete against.) The two main downsides (IMO) are related: fragility and ecological ignorance. The article touches on this: "soil is a natural resource that will become end…
Fallow fields are essential to maintaining soil health, a successful practice going back 10k years. Additionally, some of the "barren" fields are actually being used to alternate crop - it is a technique to grow crops with limited natural water. Modern best-practices avoid a lot of erosion by using no-till or low-till systems.
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If you are wanting to do it as a commercial venture, then livestock (particularly beef if you are in the US) is about the only way to go unless you can purchase vast tracts of land and the equipment to run it. If you are considering vegetable farming commercially, don't unless it is an extremely boutique product like truffles or exotic mushrooms, the economies of scales are crushing. The other option that is still vi…
Aren't there stories where 30 years ago lots of people had the same idea and planted similar species, resulting in a price crash when the trees matured? I'm not a tree expert so don't know the species, but I feel like I heard something like that happening in the southeast. How did you decide on your species and how do you know other people don't have the same thing in the ground right now?
Some of the limitations on everyone planting is that most of these species are protected, so you have to be able to plant them in a similar environment where they are not native or you run the risk of having to pay impacts for every tree harvested. Others are land availability and the other is many people don't want to encumber their land for a return they personally will never see. Most of the stuff you hear about from 30 years ago where faster growing trees in the pine and oak families which you could see harvestable maturity in 10 (pine) to 20 (oak) years and while it did cause a price crash, those people did make money. Just not FU money.
Contrast this with any African blackwood and you are looking at 50 years minimum till maturity and possible as long as 100 year. I don't need the money (not that I am rolling in it) but it is generational insurance for my children and their grandchildren. For a little back story I own a house that sits on 7 acres on the ocean, I plan to will the house to my descendants and keep it in the family as a place to come back to and congregate, for all generations to use. The trees are the hedge that their will be money to support that vision, as well as provide for the family if need be.
That being said the whole thing could flop, but at least I planted some trees that are in serious danger of going extinct in their native habitat and my descendants will be in possession of some really resilient hardwood.
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If you are wanting to do it as a commercial venture, then livestock (particularly beef if you are in the US) is about the only way to go unless you can purchase vast tracts of land and the equipment to run it. If you are considering vegetable farming commercially, don't unless it is an extremely boutique product like truffles or exotic mushrooms, the economies of scales are crushing. The other option that is still vi…
What changed after NAFTA, if you don't mind my asking?
Most of the politicians on both sides of the isle where and are complicit in it because they view food pricing as a national security issue. The government has a vested interest in keeping the price of food and necessities low as people tend to become pretty violent when they are starving. That being said, it was a huge transfer of middle class wealth to large conglomerations.