Upward Farms throws in towel ten years after founding vertical-farming business • Hacker News Board

Re: Upward Farms throws in towel ten years after founding vertical-farming business

#211

Post by jollofricepeas » Fri, Apr 28, 2023, 9:51 PM UTC

barney54 wrote: post #142

jollofricepeas wrote: post #111

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Is elaboration necessary? Fascism has a simple definition that can be found in dictionaries. “Fascism is a mass political movement that emphasizes extreme nationalism, militarism, and the supremacy of both the nation and the single, powerful leader over the individual citizen.” SOURCES: - https://world101.cfr.org/historical-context/world-war/what-f... - https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fascism

Elaboration is necessary because those things aren’t happening in rural America. It happens in people’s fever dreams, but not in the real world.

I don’t understand.

Are you saying that rural America does NOT vote for far right candidates that are overwhelmingly…

- anti-immigrant - pro-nationalistic - militaristic

If so, please provide any reading or data you might have on the subject. I’d love to read up more on rural America.

Re: Upward Farms throws in towel ten years after founding vertical-farming business

#212

Post by kube-system » Fri, Apr 28, 2023, 9:59 PM UTC

Timon3 wrote: post #206

kube-system wrote: post #202

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Ah that's the disconnect. The comment you replied to above [0] was asking for clarification about what the parent commenter intended with the use of the word. We're aware that the word has established academic meanings, and that the person above was (almost certainly) not using it that way, but in a politically charged hyperbolic sense. [0]: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=35742855

> The comment you replied to above [0] was asking for clarification about what the parent commenter intended with the use of the word. Yes, and I was explicitly explaining my interpretation of what he meant. I didn't think I'd have to analyze this, but sure, here we go. The parent of the comment you linked wrote: > At the rate the politics in rural America are being strangled by fascism, cities may have an imperative…

I see what you mean now, thanks.

Re: Upward Farms throws in towel ten years after founding vertical-farming business

#213

Post by antisthenes » Fri, Apr 28, 2023, 10:01 PM UTC

xyzzyz wrote: post #185

monetus wrote: post #177

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It takes new machines and they generally damage something, yes. Despites op's emphasis on low-tech, the people I know who do permaculture seemed like they were excited for robot arms and computer vision to be better and cheaper.

> I know who do permaculture seemed like they were excited for robot arms and computer vision to be better and cheaper. If you need robot arms and computer vision, it sounds then like permaculture is impractical at scale necessary for replacing standard agricultural practices.

Permaculture is incredibly labor intensive. It's why usually young or retired people tend to be interested in - 2 groups with a lot of time on their hands.

People who are middle aged and raising children don't have the time necessary (or the good physical shape) to participate in permaculture on any meaningful scale beyond maybe growing some veggies for personal consumption.

Re: Upward Farms throws in towel ten years after founding vertical-farming business

#214

Post by dennis_jeeves1 » Fri, Apr 28, 2023, 10:01 PM UTC

hosh wrote: post #131

When I first heard of the concept of things like vertical farming, or shipping container farming, or even farm bots. I thought those were a great ideas. That tech like this will solve for food problems, such as urban blight. Back then, I was still optimistic about the role of tech, and that more tech will solve things like this. It was also before I really deep dived into permaculture design, and many of the related…

>plants compete for light, and not root space

Isn't this common knowledge?

On a related subject, my prediction: artificially grown meat will most likely go down as a failure, because of an oversight of understanding of some basic concepts. Either that, or the quality of the meat would be extremely poor.

Re: Upward Farms throws in towel ten years after founding vertical-farming business

#215

Post by yongjik » Fri, Apr 28, 2023, 10:04 PM UTC

hosh wrote: post #143

steve_adams_86 wrote: post #135

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The key thing people don’t realize or understand is that hardly any agriculture is sustainable, and even less is restorative. Permaculture is extremely interesting because of that. The challenge is finding ways to harvest food reliably and at any meaningful scale.

I think nothing will work without some kind of change to the way of life. Urban living has taken people away from the land, so there is this illusion that we don’t have to participate in the ecology. Like water infrastructure, people growing up in cities expect food-on-demand … if you have the money for it. The idea that if you want to eat an apple means going into the back yard and picking one off the tree is an ali…

It feels like the argument is upside down. Civilization scaled because increased agricultural productivity allowed a smaller number of farmers to feed the rest, freeing them up to do other things. These people also naturally congregated to cities because that enabled fast exchange of goods and ideas, i.e., it was more "scalable" than having everyone scattered throughout the country.

In the modern world, it also means that cities have lower ecological footprint. Moving people around is much more energy intensive than moving food. Makes more sense to do farming across the country and concentrate the produce onto a small place packed with people.

Not necessarily saying this is a great tradeoff for individuals (who wouldn't want a backyard with an apple tree?) but in a sense, the fact that we're picturing a backyard with an apple tree instead of backbreaking work in the rice paddies throughout summer is a testament to how brutally efficient the modern agriculture is.

Re: Upward Farms throws in towel ten years after founding vertical-farming business

#216

Post by forgetfreeman » Fri, Apr 28, 2023, 10:10 PM UTC

hosh wrote: post #131

When I first heard of the concept of things like vertical farming, or shipping container farming, or even farm bots. I thought those were a great ideas. That tech like this will solve for food problems, such as urban blight. Back then, I was still optimistic about the role of tech, and that more tech will solve things like this. It was also before I really deep dived into permaculture design, and many of the related…

Uh, no. Permaculture produces a fraction of the calories per acre of traditional monoculture agriculture. It is nothing more than an amusement for dilettantes, as is any other system that claims to significantly improve upon the ~12,000 of human experience with field-based agriculture. I'm in the process of converting a 20 acre tract of woods into a "productive" farm via a combination of aquapontics and permaculture, I just don't have any illusions that I'm doing anything other than fucking around for my own amusement.

Re: Upward Farms throws in towel ten years after founding vertical-farming business

#217

Post by smileysteve » Fri, Apr 28, 2023, 10:14 PM UTC

tfourb wrote: post #15

Indoor and especially vertical farming might be worthwhile in some edge cases but all the fancy Startup babble does conveniently ignore that you lose access to thousands of dollars worth of free services provided by nature: irrigation, fertility, pest control, sun light for crying out loud. The idea that more than a fraction of food production can profitably move indoors is laughable and VCs would be much better off…

Irrigation; the Colorado River Basin and California River basins would like a word, irrigation is not free.

The US also also have a number of places where the soil has given way because of poor farming practices.

Also, the dust bowl.

Re: Upward Farms throws in towel ten years after founding vertical-farming business

#218

Post by greenonions » Fri, Apr 28, 2023, 10:19 PM UTC

forgetfreeman wrote: post #216

hosh wrote: post #131

When I first heard of the concept of things like vertical farming, or shipping container farming, or even farm bots. I thought those were a great ideas. That tech like this will solve for food problems, such as urban blight. Back then, I was still optimistic about the role of tech, and that more tech will solve things like this. It was also before I really deep dived into permaculture design, and many of the related…

Uh, no. Permaculture produces a fraction of the calories per acre of traditional monoculture agriculture. It is nothing more than an amusement for dilettantes, as is any other system that claims to significantly improve upon the ~12,000 of human experience with field-based agriculture. I'm in the process of converting a 20 acre tract of woods into a "productive" farm via a combination of aquapontics and permaculture,…

Does the traditional monoculture acres include the acres for fertilizer, the production of all of the equipment needed, fuel, seed, equipment and fuel for transport to final location, storage, pesticides, insecticides, and water?

I agree that intensive agriculture is needed, but it's not so easy to compare the two.

Re: Upward Farms throws in towel ten years after founding vertical-farming business

#219

Post by forgetfreeman » Fri, Apr 28, 2023, 11:29 PM UTC

greenonions wrote: post #218

forgetfreeman wrote: post #216

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Uh, no. Permaculture produces a fraction of the calories per acre of traditional monoculture agriculture. It is nothing more than an amusement for dilettantes, as is any other system that claims to significantly improve upon the ~12,000 of human experience with field-based agriculture. I'm in the process of converting a 20 acre tract of woods into a "productive" farm via a combination of aquapontics and permaculture,…

Does the traditional monoculture acres include the acres for fertilizer, the production of all of the equipment needed, fuel, seed, equipment and fuel for transport to final location, storage, pesticides, insecticides, and water? I agree that intensive agriculture is needed, but it's not so easy to compare the two.

It's trivial to compare the two unless you showed up to the conversation with an agenda or you're pretending issues with population density don't shit all over whatever counterfactual is being peddled by the homesteader-instagram industrial complex. One system feeds the overwhelming majority of humans on the planet, and takes most of the arable dry land surface of the planet to do so. The other produces a fraction of the food per acre, so unless you're planning on raising Atlantis you've got a serious problem to contend with.

Re: Upward Farms throws in towel ten years after founding vertical-farming business

#220

Post by Alupis » Fri, Apr 28, 2023, 11:36 PM UTC

abakker wrote: post #191

Alupis wrote: post #158

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And flying to another planet that happens to be completely inhospitable is somehow cheaper or easier? When you realize there are no hospitable planets, besides earth, within our solar system - you will realize there is no escaping the problems we have created here on earth. No, they must be solved, not avoided. There is no future where any of us alive today, or for many, many generations (dozens, maybe hundreds or th…

That wasn't the comparison I was making. For the record, I'm all for fixing problems, but the OP asked why they were not being solved, so...yeah, money. is it a satisfying and good answer? no. Is it enough of the answer to have explanatory value, I think so.

I would assert a great deal of perceived problems are not being fixed because not everyone agrees they are problems, or agrees to what extent they are problems, or agrees on the solutions.

HN is quite a bubble, and we often form an echo chamber that strongly agrees with itself.