Investors say agroforestry is climate friendly and also profitable • Hacker News Board

Re: Investors say agroforestry is climate friendly and also profitable

#101

Post by hosh » Fri, Jul 10, 2020, 10:27 PM UTC

mikeg8 wrote: post #24

freeqaz wrote: post #16

I think that "mixed" farming like this article describes has a huge potential for automation by the software field. Monocrops[0] (homogeneous fields of crops like corn or soybeans) are easy to build automated robots for. We've been doing that for generations now, starting with combine harvesters[1]. But there are many problems with growing monocrops[2]. Pests are a problem -- they breed and spread disease. And on the…

I do not believe the solution is to increase robotics to support this field, I think the solution is much more about a paradigm shift from over-optimization aka mono-cultures to a more holistic approach that increases the human-nature connection. We have to heal ourselves to heal the planet and while technology can help, software engineers will not be the heroes on this front, it will be more traditional stewards of…

I am a software engineer.

I agree with you.

There is something deeply broken about our human experience and that comes from becoming abstracted away from the ecology. It isn't just that we have to heal the plant; we also have to heal ourselves. (And frankly, if human civilization self-destructs and humans get wiped... the planet will recover just fine, eventually. Outside of maybe nukes going off everywhere).

We have come to think of ourselves as apart from the ecology rather than a part of the ecology. We think that the ecology is a factor in our economy, rather than our economy being a part of the over-all ecology. Software engineers in particular, have this weird aversion to getting their hands dirty with hardware, and so we abstract ourselves away from the hard, dirty bits. It blinds us to simpler, more practical solutions.

I think there is a place for technology, but only in terms of how it supports the direct human experience with the land, rather than getting in between. For example, I think the free and open web is highly vital to helping people share ideas and methods. Every single locale is different, but there are design patterns that may work. Seeing all the forums, subreddits, podcasts and blogs on this subject ... we already have the technology we need to pull all of this off.

And none of this involves VCs, Big Tech, or aggregators (from Stretechery, Aggregation Theory). It will be the land stewards. Those aggregation of wealth are fundamentally based upon the extraction of resources (be they from the earth or the people), and then controlling access to them. It's to the point where we have to depend upon buying into the civilization in order to live and survive, but it is breaking down and now the best we can come up with is the universal basic income. (When right there, in your backyard, you can be a part of something that nourishes you directly!)

The irony is that, the same skill and mindset software engineers use to design an appropriate architecture from a myriad of design patterns is the same kind of mental process one can analyze a site and design resilient, regenerative, and decentralized food systems.

Re: Investors say agroforestry is climate friendly and also profitable

#102

Post by maire » Fri, Jul 10, 2020, 10:30 PM UTC

konschubert wrote: post #62

freeqaz wrote: post #16

I think that "mixed" farming like this article describes has a huge potential for automation by the software field. Monocrops[0] (homogeneous fields of crops like corn or soybeans) are easy to build automated robots for. We've been doing that for generations now, starting with combine harvesters[1]. But there are many problems with growing monocrops[2]. Pests are a problem -- they breed and spread disease. And on the…

Wouldn’t it be easier to just plant something else every other year? I thought this was solved literally 1000 years ago: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Three-field_system

Monoculture is bad for bees even if you rotate every other year.

Re: Investors say agroforestry is climate friendly and also profitable

#103

Post by hosh » Fri, Jul 10, 2020, 10:36 PM UTC

_2d30 wrote: post #27

airstrike wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The parent is precisely arguing against mono-cultures. I don't see how your reply is really discussing any of the various relevant points he raised. Right now, all that I understand from your opinion is that you think robots are bad because of mono-cultures, but the parent would argue equating those two things is incorrect.

If you read closely their response is basically a Luddite, anti-tech response. Their problem with the parent was that it suggested using technology.

I know what you mean by "Luddite", but historically, they were not anti-tech either. They broke machines to gain leverage and put pressure over employers to give better working conditions, and not because they hated machines.

There are many design patterns in regenerative agriculture that works, but are low-tech or no-tech. It isn't that you need to be anti-tech; it is that we don't need high tech to solve these problems. They are low-tech because you are allowing natural processes to do things on its own, for the most part. Nature, not technology, is the "automation".

Re: Investors say agroforestry is climate friendly and also profitable

#104

Post by carapace » Fri, Jul 10, 2020, 10:45 PM UTC

Better late than never.

The guy who invented/coined "Syntropic" agriculture grows the world's best cocoa beans at 3x the yield of similar-quality conventional farms with no inputs. He also gets a lot of other crops from the same land.

Life is four-billion-year-old nanotech and it works really well. Get with it money dudes.

(Conventional agriculture is, in retrospect, almost the dumbest thing you can do with land.)

Re: Investors say agroforestry is climate friendly and also profitable

#105

Post by einpoklum » Fri, Jul 10, 2020, 10:49 PM UTC

reillyse wrote: post #100

einpoklum wrote: post #93

This is a weird piece in that it seems to completely ignore the massive subsidies [1] the agriculture sector of most (?) industrialized economies relies on. Then when you read: > [Someone] estimates that agroforestry systems can create eight times more profit than conventional agriculture. you have to ask yourself: "Profit after subsidies? But who said you'll get the same subsidies? If you can actually turn a profit,…

I like the European farm subsidies, I think they are a great example of how to share wealth among a lot of citizens and maintain high quality food. Btw, 59 Billion seems like a large number but compared to the actual GDP of the EU thats a very very small number. Also in the US for example farm subsidies are pretty high and generally funnel to rich people, there is both farm related subsidies that go direct to farmers…

I actually didn't say I oppose them. However, note that better-off Europeans and US citizens are subsidized, then their products flood the markets elsewhere and farmers all over the world - who also don't have access to appropriate technology - can't compete against it. So the farmers in poorer countries get screwed. Not such a great example of wealth sharing...

Re: Investors say agroforestry is climate friendly and also profitable

#106

Post by carapace » Fri, Jul 10, 2020, 10:49 PM UTC

jeffbee wrote: post #66

ngold wrote: post #58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The nut industry around Sacramento is a true tragedy of the commons. Billions of wallstreet speculative dollars to pump water out of the ground as fast as possible. No one wins, but a percentage gain on a balance sheet.

Interesting perspective. I always viewed the Sacramento Valley rice and nut crops to be some of the less objectionable activities, seeing as how that valley is knee-deep in water much of the year, and the depth to ground water in many places is less than a meter. But I'm sure every form of industrialized agriculture falls apart under enough scrutiny.

FWIW, there's an infamous photo showing how the Central Valley has literally sunk over the years from over-use of the aquifer.

https://ca.water.usgs.gov/projects/central-valley/images/sub...

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Central_Valley_land_subsidence

Re: Investors say agroforestry is climate friendly and also profitable

#107

Post by hosh » Fri, Jul 10, 2020, 10:53 PM UTC

JoeAltmaier wrote: post #95

hosh wrote: post #94

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah. And not only that, the "regenerative agriculture" mentioned in the article isn't just about sustainable practices, where we put back into the soilwhat we take out. Regenerative practices includes practices where soil fertility is built up year after year as a result of the agricultural practices. In other words, you can take a depleted land and bring it back up into productive land, and potentially, become more…

Much of big Ag is an effort to shortcut all this. Use a chisel plow to break up compacted soil. Add ammonia. Use earth movers to create more flat land with useful soils. Etc. The advantages are clear: you can decide when to do these things, and do them on a short schedule. Its hard to argue waiting 5 years for some remediation project to maybe work, when I have a chisel plow right over there in the shed.

Yeah. Big Ag is not incentivized to be sustainable, let alone be regenerative. Big Ag is certainly not resilient. Its very reward system (like modern commerce in general) is based on the extraction of resources (whether that be in the earth, or people resources), and then controlling access to them. Overharvesting always happen, because we're culturally conditioned to define wealth and status in terms of how much one has hoarded more than other people.

I think the main path out of this is to have decentralized food systems, and this is where regenerative and resilient design patterns really shine. I think it starts with a shift in the mindset, where instead of seeing wealth as coming from extraction and hoarding, to seeing wealth in terms of being stewards of regenerative processes.

We have pseudo-regenerative processes in the financial sector with compounding interest, but you can't directly eat money. I can eat the stuff from my backyard.

The beautiful thing about participating in building a decentralized food system is that I don't have to convince you, or anyone else on HN to affect collective action. I can start doing these things in my home, and trade things with other like-minded people. I can offer up the excess abundance to my friends, family, and neighbors. Some of them may want to take up the practices themselves.

Just to be clear, I used shortcuts too. I am using raised beds and importing compost and manure (buying them from big box stores). But I'm also taking the time to plant edible perennials. I only found out later, there are many ways to get even quicker turn around time -- sprouts, fast growing annuals, succession planting. I'm learning. Next year's growing season will incorporate more.

Re: Investors say agroforestry is climate friendly and also profitable

#108

Post by danans » Fri, Jul 10, 2020, 10:57 PM UTC

jessaustin wrote: post #88

danans wrote: post #84

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The thing that bothers me is how they lease out public lands essentially for free to stockmen who proceed to destroy the landscape. They are all just giving the consumer what they want - low cost meat - which requires a ton of land both for grazing and for growing animal feed. Asking them to raise the price on the stockmen is also to ask them to raise prices on consumers. I don't necessarily disagree with that idea…

A vanishingly small percentage of beef comes from the lands under discussion. [0] The reason is simple: cattle were not evolved for the alpine desert. Consumers wouldn't even notice if cattle were outlawed completely on BLM land. Wildlife biologists certainly would notice! In reality, these policies are political shenanigans. No Republican wants to be the first to stop providing welfare to the Cliven Bundy types that…

> A vanishingly small percentage of beef comes from the lands under discussion.

I don't doubt at all the environmental destruction being wrought. However, the land's use is supporting some market for beef though, or else why would the question of $1 leases to stockmen exist?

Is it just that it's cheap and marginal (in both cost and quality) land that can be used for marginal production increases, or is it supporting some niche high cost beef sub-market based on its wilder place of production (high alpine beef)? It can't just all be a UBI scheme for alpine beef ranchers.

Re: Investors say agroforestry is climate friendly and also profitable

#109

Post by hosh » Fri, Jul 10, 2020, 10:58 PM UTC

mikepurvis wrote: post #71

mikeg8 wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm definitely not anti-technology as a whole, but I very much think many of the environmental problems we're facing in agriculture were caused by an over reliance on technology in the first place. We abstracted ourselves out of the process too much and it has had horrible consequences.

Biointensive gardening and earth-centric/organic/whatever methods definitely have their place, but it would be a huge shift to grow everything that way, and it's far from clear that it's even workable for the volumes needed for the big staple crops like corn, wheat, and soy. The idea of bringing companion planting, cover cropping, etc to conventional agriculture by way of increased automation is a fascinating one, in…

We don't necessarily have to scale this. I think a better approach is to build decentralized food systems using these practices. At the neighborhood or household level, these practices are very practical. It does not require rebooting the whole system. It does not require venture capital, because you're not trying to make a big return. It does not require waiting for conventional farmers to change their practice.

Re: Investors say agroforestry is climate friendly and also profitable

#110

Post by jeffbee » Fri, Jul 10, 2020, 11:05 PM UTC

carapace wrote: post #106

jeffbee wrote: post #66

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Interesting perspective. I always viewed the Sacramento Valley rice and nut crops to be some of the less objectionable activities, seeing as how that valley is knee-deep in water much of the year, and the depth to ground water in many places is less than a meter. But I'm sure every form of industrialized agriculture falls apart under enough scrutiny.

FWIW, there's an infamous photo showing how the Central Valley has literally sunk over the years from over-use of the aquifer. https://ca.water.usgs.gov/projects/central-valley/images/sub... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Central_Valley_land_subsidence

Just note, for those not familiar with the territory, that the San Joaquin valley and the Sacramento Valley, although often combined as "Central Valley", are two very different hydrological systems.