Organic and regenerative agriculture are revitalizing rural Montana economies • Hacker News Board

Re: Organic and regenerative agriculture are revitalizing rural Montana economies

#181

Post by worik » Mon, Jul 12, 2021, 8:27 PM UTC

orasis wrote: post #179

kickout wrote: post #101

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sweet, there is only approximately 300 million acres of cropland in the United States alone. Sun == free, rain == free How does indoor ag plan on scaling up for anything other than super high margin vegetables and spices when their competitor (outdoor ag) has no cost associated with sun or rain? Not even to mention soil. edit: I like indoor/vertical ag a lot (when applied correctly) When people try to propose produci…

If you've ever tried hydroponic, you quickly realize that soil is amazing technology. Indoor ag is yet another utopian fantasy.

Plenty of people are proving that wrong, with certain crops.

I visited with some friends a couple of years ago who had leased a paddock to a pair of humans who used it to build a hydroponic green house.

They produced leafy greens for the local restaurant market and in the first part year had more cash flow than the whole farm around them.

They were working very hard but were poised to make a lot of money.

They were using the sun for energy input - I fail to see how indoor agriculture under lights can be profitable except for the most valuable of crops

Re: Organic and regenerative agriculture are revitalizing rural Montana economies

#182

Post by worik » Mon, Jul 12, 2021, 8:28 PM UTC

"In 2018 they went cold turkey on both pesticide and fertilizer, reducing their operational costs by $200,000 from the previous year, "

I think that is going to be the property of this sort of agriculture that makes it really popular.

Pity they cannot get carbon credits for the increase in top soil. Or can they?

Re: Organic and regenerative agriculture are revitalizing rural Montana economies

#183

Post by TaylorAlexander » Mon, Jul 12, 2021, 8:39 PM UTC

reedjosh wrote: post #151

danans wrote: post #120

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Lentils (Lens culinaris Medik.) are produced on over 1.5 million acres throughout the world. They are primarily used for domestic consumption in casseroles, salads, soups and stews. Lentils provide an excellent source of protein (20 to 35 percent), but are limited in the sulphur-containing amino acids methionine and cystine. However, consumption of lentils with cereals provides a balanced diet high in fiber, protei…

From the article. > They also lease land to neighboring ranchers, whose grazing cattle aerate the soil with their hooves and add organic matter and nutrients via manure. Meat can and should be a part of regenerative ag. I recently visited a family friend's place/farm. A year ago, the soil was the typical cracked dry light tan clay ground that I have in my yard. It's quite typical in Oregon. This time, the soil was a…

I do work at a farm and around farms that use regenerative grazing. It works great.

However as a vegan my hope is that we eventually let animals graze and simply do not kill and consume them. One could argue “the meat is there” but that meat is beings with a heart and a mind. When I see the grazing animals with their babies in toe, I think about how they will be separated and the pain the mothers will go through.

We can take great care of our soil with regenerative grazing but that is quite apart from whether or not we need to treat those animals as mere property and eat them.

Re: Organic and regenerative agriculture are revitalizing rural Montana economies

#184

Post by matmatmatmat » Mon, Jul 12, 2021, 8:44 PM UTC

TaylorAlexander wrote: post #183

reedjosh wrote: post #151

Earlier quoted context omitted.

From the article. > They also lease land to neighboring ranchers, whose grazing cattle aerate the soil with their hooves and add organic matter and nutrients via manure. Meat can and should be a part of regenerative ag. I recently visited a family friend's place/farm. A year ago, the soil was the typical cracked dry light tan clay ground that I have in my yard. It's quite typical in Oregon. This time, the soil was a…

I do work at a farm and around farms that use regenerative grazing. It works great. However as a vegan my hope is that we eventually let animals graze and simply do not kill and consume them. One could argue “the meat is there” but that meat is beings with a heart and a mind. When I see the grazing animals with their babies in toe, I think about how they will be separated and the pain the mothers will go through. We…

I'm a meat-eater (have been my whole life), but I've always been partial to this argument. This is why I'm looking forward to lab-grown meat and would pay a bit of a premium for it.

Re: Organic and regenerative agriculture are revitalizing rural Montana economies

#185

Post by groby_b » Mon, Jul 12, 2021, 8:51 PM UTC

kickout wrote: post #170

vicarrion wrote: post #163

At Indigo we're working on incentivizing farmers to adopt regenerative practices and get paid for sequestering carbon. There's a number of open positions, most with the option to be remote! https://www.indigoag.com/carbon https://www.indigoag.com/join-us

Indigo and every other ag player. Space saturated quickly. Now people need to find ways to fund the 10-40 per acre benefits long-term...

Would you mind elaborating what you meant with that comment? What are the "10-40 per acre benefits"?

Re: Organic and regenerative agriculture are revitalizing rural Montana economies

#186

Post by i_am_proteus » Mon, Jul 12, 2021, 8:57 PM UTC

worik wrote: post #181

orasis wrote: post #179

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you've ever tried hydroponic, you quickly realize that soil is amazing technology. Indoor ag is yet another utopian fantasy.

Plenty of people are proving that wrong, with certain crops. I visited with some friends a couple of years ago who had leased a paddock to a pair of humans who used it to build a hydroponic green house. They produced leafy greens for the local restaurant market and in the first part year had more cash flow than the whole farm around them. They were working very hard but were poised to make a lot of money. They were u…

It seems like vertical and hydroponics are great for leafy green cash crops and spices, but don't work well to produce cereals, soy, or pulses, which are materially where all of the calories come from.

Re: Organic and regenerative agriculture are revitalizing rural Montana economies

#187

Post by benboughton1 » Mon, Jul 12, 2021, 9:05 PM UTC

debacle wrote: post #166

jdavis703 wrote: post #78

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So then is it reasonable to conclude government subsidies for regenerative agriculture could increase adoption?

One of the problems with no till is that the equipment, or at least some of it, hasn't been invented yet and could be considered 'cutting edge' in that manner.

No till farming is widespread especially in Australia for decades. Nearly all dryland farms take this approach. It just means controlling fallow weeds without tillage, usually with herbicide. Then plant straight through the previous crop residue. This preserves moisture in the soil and the soil structure. Planters mostly do this fine. I'm not sure what has not yet been invented elsewhere.

Re: Organic and regenerative agriculture are revitalizing rural Montana economies

#188

Post by samstave » Mon, Jul 12, 2021, 9:06 PM UTC

zachware wrote: post #80

Organic and regenerative ag are built on the assumption that crops must be grown in open air soil. The reality is that crops can be grown in open air soil and, if they are, regenerative ag in particular is significantly better for soil longevity. That said it is not necessarily better to produce all crops in low density, high volatility, season dependent environments. Some material % of crops can move to more intelli…

>>*What I hope will continue is crops that are capable of producing profitable and predictable yields in indoor environments will move more and more in that direction. a*

WTF - I hope ZERO of this happens... Don't attempt to think that youre smarter than ~5BILLION years of earths bio/eco balance until we were weaponized by fungi...

We dont need "higher yields" -- we need more efficient consumption and distribution...

Re: Organic and regenerative agriculture are revitalizing rural Montana economies

#189

Post by kickout » Mon, Jul 12, 2021, 9:06 PM UTC

groby_b wrote: post #185

kickout wrote: post #170

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Indigo and every other ag player. Space saturated quickly. Now people need to find ways to fund the 10-40 per acre benefits long-term...

Would you mind elaborating what you meant with that comment? What are the "10-40 per acre benefits"?

Whoops. Meant to be 10-40 $$, USD per acre. That range seems to be the most common direct payment for farmers to adapt regenerative or sustainable practices on their farm. It depends where in the country and what method is used to determine payment (usually). It’s a very, very new method but it basically means paying farmers—- that money has to come from somewhere as usually farmers pay companies

Re: Organic and regenerative agriculture are revitalizing rural Montana economies

#190

Post by samstave » Mon, Jul 12, 2021, 9:13 PM UTC

kickout wrote: post #101

zachware wrote: post #80

Organic and regenerative ag are built on the assumption that crops must be grown in open air soil. The reality is that crops can be grown in open air soil and, if they are, regenerative ag in particular is significantly better for soil longevity. That said it is not necessarily better to produce all crops in low density, high volatility, season dependent environments. Some material % of crops can move to more intelli…

Sweet, there is only approximately 300 million acres of cropland in the United States alone. Sun == free, rain == free How does indoor ag plan on scaling up for anything other than super high margin vegetables and spices when their competitor (outdoor ag) has no cost associated with sun or rain? Not even to mention soil. edit: I like indoor/vertical ag a lot (when applied correctly) When people try to propose produci…

Vertical is the future.

Imagine all the kick in the mid 2000s for "vertical living walls" as all the rage in large scale office complexes.

Imagine that if instead they put vertical gardens in every high-rise and the farming of the veggies was a part of the HOA and the veggies were just included in the cost of the living in the home - and you could opt-out and give the veggies to the homeless/shelters/churches/etc...

Now imagine if the US was like Singapore, where the setbacks in dense urban environs is massive enough to manage handling a ton of eatable growth between all buildings.

There are three things that should be required for every single building going up (aside from structural sound-ness)

1. Parking underground for 3 levels

2. Vertical EATABLE gardens

3. A network of 'non=potable' water supplies (water you can get from a grey-water system run through the entire building to feed the plants in the vertical gardens.)

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