Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Microfarms come to South L.A. frontyards, bringing fresh produce to food deserts

latimes.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

71–80 of 90 posts

Re: Microfarms come to South L.A. frontyards, bringing fresh produce to food deserts

#71

Post by iammisc »

clairity wrote: post #15
iammisc wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Growing more things in the place of lawns in Southern CA ain't gonna cut down on water usage. I was born and raised in SoCal and the only thing meant to grow there is the natural chaparral. Definitely not leafy greens.

the article says that one of the gardens uses 8% of the water of the grass it replaced. the point is that, while it's not gonna significantly reverse socal's water deficit, it is a net benefit.

And if the area was planted as native chaparral it would use 100% less of the water? I'm not saying this is as bad as a lawn. It's obviously not. It's just not obviously great either.

Re: Microfarms come to South L.A. frontyards, bringing fresh produce to food deserts

#72

Post by iammisc »

philips wrote: post #30
iammisc wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

For my first claim (that rapid decentralization will not achieve the climate ends), this is my own analysis based on the fact that growing enough food to feed the world requires fertilizers as inputs. Currently the fertilizers are transported in trucks to farms and spread over large swaths of land by machine. The alternative is for it to be packaged up and spread by hand or with small machines. This would require mor…

Thanks for the study link. Is the article asserting that they can feed the world this way? Also the word climate didn't appear in the article either but I might have forgotten in the few hours since I read it. I saw the story more as a calorie supplement like a victory garden in WW2. I garden in a small space like the article quite a bit as well and find that worm compost from cooking scraps is sufficient for keeping…

Yes, you're right that for home gardens composting is enough. However, we are able to sustain the current population -- most of whom is not engaged in farming -- on the current arable land by intense agriculture. This means planting extremely hungry crops that produce high caloric foods.

Your home garden is not intensively cultivated the way most farmland is.

Yes, more people should garden. No one should think it's the end-all answer to our food problems, or even that it's going to make a huge difference. Still good to know where your food came from and some stuff tastes better.

Re: Microfarms come to South L.A. frontyards, bringing fresh produce to food deserts

#73

Post by iammisc »

jazzyjackson wrote: post #44
iammisc wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

For my first claim (that rapid decentralization will not achieve the climate ends), this is my own analysis based on the fact that growing enough food to feed the world requires fertilizers as inputs. Currently the fertilizers are transported in trucks to farms and spread over large swaths of land by machine. The alternative is for it to be packaged up and spread by hand or with small machines. This would require mor…

Not here to say you're wrong but I think you may be interested by the book "Farmers of Forty Centuries" if you haven't already come by it, basically describing the amount of labor it takes to feed the population dense areas of China/Japan/Korea ~100 years ago off very small plots of land. Basically the answer is a long growing season: getting 3 rounds of crops out of the same field each season, and keeping the dirt r…

Thanks, I love books like these!

Re: Microfarms come to South L.A. frontyards, bringing fresh produce to food deserts

#74

Post by iammisc »

qqqwerty wrote: post #47
iammisc wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

For my first claim (that rapid decentralization will not achieve the climate ends), this is my own analysis based on the fact that growing enough food to feed the world requires fertilizers as inputs. Currently the fertilizers are transported in trucks to farms and spread over large swaths of land by machine. The alternative is for it to be packaged up and spread by hand or with small machines. This would require mor…

Something is seriously off with the study you cited. This image leads me to believe that the scenarios they are comparing are not remotely close in calories, which would invalidate their conclusion: https://2020science.org/wp-content/uploads/2015/12/Diet-and-... Additionally, the study is using the USDA guidelines in their model scenarios. Those guidelines are heavily influenced by food lobbyists and are not entirely…

> It is more like: replace a steak with a head of broccoli from your local CSA. That would likely be very net positive in terms of emissions

Except the brocolli is less nutritious and less caloric than the steak. 8oz of steak is more calorie dense and is a form of complete nutrition, whereas a head of brocolli gives you a very tiny amount of calories, some fiber, and a lot of vitamin C. It's missing vital nutrition. Growing enough brocolli to make up for the missing calories is quite environmentally taxing, and consuming enough brocolli to make up for the steak would be sickening.

Re: Microfarms come to South L.A. frontyards, bringing fresh produce to food deserts

#75

Post by adrianN »

iammisc wrote: post #70
adrianN wrote: post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Lettuce is not consumed for its calories. Grains, legumes, and oils are the vegetarian sources of calories.

Grains are incredibly inefficient. Legumes are good, but not very good at calorie density. The idea that oil seed is more efficient than meat is funny, and really shows how the vegetarian-industrial complex has gaslighted the world. Oil seeds are incredibly inefficient, extremely environmentally harmful, and incredibly resource intensive. Not to mention a good portion of modern oil seed relies on petrochemicals to ex…

A good chunk of the grains and legumes we grow is fed to livestock.

I had to laugh at "vegetarian-industrial complex" :D.

Re: Microfarms come to South L.A. frontyards, bringing fresh produce to food deserts

#76

Post by qqqwerty »

iammisc wrote: post #74
qqqwerty wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Something is seriously off with the study you cited. This image leads me to believe that the scenarios they are comparing are not remotely close in calories, which would invalidate their conclusion: https://2020science.org/wp-content/uploads/2015/12/Diet-and-... Additionally, the study is using the USDA guidelines in their model scenarios. Those guidelines are heavily influenced by food lobbyists and are not entirely…

> It is more like: replace a steak with a head of broccoli from your local CSA. That would likely be very net positive in terms of emissions Except the brocolli is less nutritious and less caloric than the steak. 8oz of steak is more calorie dense and is a form of complete nutrition, whereas a head of brocolli gives you a very tiny amount of calories, some fiber, and a lot of vitamin C. It's missing vital nutrition.…

Here is a generous interpretation of my comment: Sustainability advocates are pushing to replace high emissions foods (like meat and non-local produce) and unhealthy foods (like soda and chips) with locally grown produce.

You linked to a study that critiques USDA guidelines, which has nothing to do with the changes that sustainability advocates are pushing for. And now you are picking apart a short internet comment analogy to try to make the case that beef consumption is a good thing. The fact is, beef is one of the highest emissions foods per calorie that a person can eat. Until you directly address that argument, you should stop "encouraging more meat consumption" (from your top comment).

Re: Microfarms come to South L.A. frontyards, bringing fresh produce to food deserts

#77

Post by gadaprog »

PostOnce wrote: post #67
jillesvangurp wrote: post #63

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They are similar in size but not in quality. A microfarm is a profitable (hopefully) but small business. A garage is where you park your car. A microfactory is where you build goods that you sell. Quite a few famous companies started in garages of course. Trailer parks are where trailer trash live in old and broken trailers. People with limited means may choose to live in a place that doesn't suck that just happens t…

People sell stuff from their gardens at local markets on weekends and always have, some are quite productive. People keep their tools in their garage and that's where they make stuff, like the local wooden toymaker here. It's his "microfactory" and he has 50+ (articulated, stained-in-multiple-colors, interesting and varied in type) on display every weekend for sale, quantity enough to justify the haughty "factory" la…

I don't disagree with your original point that marketing is likely the key driver here.

However, I don't think your second point really stands up when considering 'kinds' and classification of things.

jillesvangurp's response was that "micro-whatevers" are a profitized subset of the original definitions (e.g., they are saying a 'microfarm' is a profit-driven subset of 'home vegetable gardens'. You then say that people can and do make money from their gardens, thus arguing that microfarms are not a thing?

The existence of profitable home vegetable gardens does not mean that they are not microfarm's in jillesvangurp's definition.

Re: Microfarms come to South L.A. frontyards, bringing fresh produce to food deserts

#78

Post by ThrowawayR2 »

nobltt wrote: post #33
ffggvv wrote: post #22

They say theres an albertsons a mile away. I guarantee they have fresh veggies and they can easily walk there.

At a brisk pace, 2 miles (there and back) will take about 40 minutes...and then carrying bags of groceries on the way back too. Easy I suppose if you've not had to do that too many times yourself.

> 2 miles

That's trivial; I do that much to get to the bus stop to commute to work daily in the US.

Re: Microfarms come to South L.A. frontyards, bringing fresh produce to food deserts

#79

Post by floren »

AngryData wrote: post #45
mc32 wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Heh, sure... but hopefully not with unneutralized disease carrying pathogens.

The only neutralization cow shit gets is the sun beating down on it and the microbes within it decomposing it. Cow and other herbivore shit is unlikely to make you sick though, it is incredibly well digested.

Well, horse shit is incredibly poorly digested, so poorly that it's basically just stinky straw, but I never got sick from using it as fertilizer either :)

Re: Microfarms come to South L.A. frontyards, bringing fresh produce to food deserts

#80

Post by idiotsecant »

jillesvangurp wrote: post #63
PostOnce wrote: post #58

garden -> microfarm garage -> microfactory trailer park -> tiny house village gruel -> soylent I'm not sure if there's a word for this other than "marketing", but it's an interesting phenomenon I've been noticing lately. Just re-label something old and it sells better. See also: the McDonald's celebrity meals, it's the same chicken nuggets or hamburgers they've been selling for decades, but call it the "____ Meal" an…

They are similar in size but not in quality. A microfarm is a profitable (hopefully) but small business. A garage is where you park your car. A microfactory is where you build goods that you sell. Quite a few famous companies started in garages of course. Trailer parks are where trailer trash live in old and broken trailers. People with limited means may choose to live in a place that doesn't suck that just happens t…

I guess all those working class people who have been doing this exact thing for centuries better get with the times.
Post reply on HN