The Clean Farming Revolution
bbc.com
bbc.com
1. Farmers are using chemicals in bulk, they pick them up in 110-240 gallon containers that include a meter and a pump which are then returned to the dealership. The number of 2.5 gallon containers of old has been greatly reduced
2. He talks about finer and finer sprays. But there is a huge problem with that and it's drift. Drift over on a neighbors crops too often and your insurance carrier will cancel you.
3. I am not certain of the percentage but a fairly large percentage of pesticides are applied by commercial pesticide applicators, often part of a fertilizer company or grain elevator. These commercial applicators must be certified and are held to much higher standards than farmers.
4. He also talks about a positive and a negative charge or what is called electrostatic spraying. This has been around a fairly long while. It's had some success applying fungicides but not that much for other uses.
5. Lastly he speaks about what he calls vertical farming. People have been building these vertical farms for a number of years. I've yet to see the numbers work out so they can make a profit. It's often a high value crop like fruit or vegetables. For example tomatoes out of season where people in an East coast city are willing to pay 2-3x as much at say a Whole Foods. Funny but you never see a follow up story on these farms.
1. Smaller containers have some advantages, which is correct measurement, washing and disposal. I still use 200 l barrels of herbicide, because I require more of it. Everything else comes in 5-10 l containers. Preferably in liquid/gel form to avoid spillage or drift.
2. Absolutely. I'd add that depending on the pesticide, different droplet size mean different effectiveness. Normally, 3-5 bar for herbicides (larger droplets), 10-15 bar for insecticides, and 15-20 bar for fungicides (smaller droplets). There are also different rate anti-drifting beaks one should choose.
3. I apply my pesticides myself. I had training, but coming from STEM helps a lot. Many farmers do not do well with measurements, simple proportions or pH scales.
Unless we suddenly gain some form of near unlimited clean energy it doesn't make sense (except for some very limited circumstances like expensive micro-greens for classy restaurants)
Granted, I'm talking about a cultural shift and you can't force people to enjoy gardening, but there are some people who are doing incredible experiments in urban farming which is still mostly low-tech. Even though he is an extreme example, Rob Greenfield shows what is possible with a typical 1/8 acre city/suburban lot. He is currently experimenting with growing/foraging 100% of his diet in a city.
http://robgreenfield.tv/foodfreedom/
The biggest shift will be to convince people that turfgrass lawns are the one of the biggest waste of resources in the modern world, and a silly cultural relic.
I agree so much I started a side project, https://automicrofarm.com/
Rob Greenfield's project only works because nobody else wants to forage the city and he says he farms yards of some people who don't do it themselves.
https://news.berkeley.edu/2015/05/07/soil-depletion-human-se...
The US needs more farmers and people living choosing a sustainable simple life, not smart tractors.
Depending on your climate, you might enjoy mushroom cultivation. It's very low-effort and climate resistant to grow shiitakes or winecaps if you have some shade in your garden
I'm currently looking at places where growing some of my own food might be possible and I'm curious what is possible.
(I'm working on a blog post to answer the space needed question.)
I don't believe any of these ideas should be an all-or-nothing venture but if individuals can take back just 10% -20% of their diet from unethical agri-business, it's a MASSIVE win for health, self-reliance, environmental awareness, and community building
Essentially vertical farms would be limited to 0.01% of food production, but could be profitable.
Basically, because of a huge apple crop failure in the Santa Clara Valley, as well as having recently laid railroad crossing the area (this was in the 1800’s), apple growers in the Pajaro Valley (between Santa Clara and Salinas) began shipping their apples to markets farther away than usual. This eventually boomed into a global scale thing, with Pajaro Valley apples being sold in New York, then London, and even places like South Africa.
After developing a successful global distribution model, growers in Washington state took notice. Apples were shipped on northern rail lines after the growing season in Fall. No ice needed.
Soon, other industries followed (Salinas Valley lettuce included). This blossomed into the global food system we know today.
Tl;dr: Money in proto-silicon valley was used to start up the global food system
Is it all for nothing? I imagine such building could be closer to city centers, but would have to face sun at premium. Maybe even integrated with regular buildings from south side?
Link? Not doubting your claim, just thought it would be interesting to watch.
In theory we can get a lot of efficiency by converting wavelengths plants cannot use wavelengths plants can use. However after accounting for all the system losses it is really hard to make up the difference. This assumes too that you use the best available solar panels, which are generally only in labs, real world solar installations are generally less efficient (just the chlorophyll vs solar cell number). Most of the losses in photosynthesis still exist either way as well.
On top of that you need to pay for incredible amounts of solar panels.
https://www.quora.com/How-is-China-able-to-provide-enough-fo...
It's a description of how China does farming at scale. Some interesting points: seafood farms (floating in the sea) instead of fishing, sensible sustainable (or "sustainable") cycles (e.g. fish -> fertilizer -> mulberry trees -> silkworm -> fish) (they also need aerators so the fish don't suffocate, and solar panels to power the aerators), massive amounts of greenhouses (including in places where it was previously impossible to grow vegetables due to climate), drip irrigation (Israeli technology for growing vegetables in the desert, saves a lot of water), returning farmland to the forest (to prevent mudslides).
That CCP is just so nice and helpful!
You can process almost any powdered food item flour into something resembling bread, if you expend enough effort on it. You can make bread with cricket flour. Even meatloaf could be considered a type of "bread", if you massage the definitions long enough.
But I'd guess that Tibetans mainly eat barley bread. Rye and barley aren't as good as wheat is for making leavened breads, but they can make a loaf that isn't entirely brick-like, if the baker keeps a good sourdough starter and it gets a lot more rise time.
In all seriousness, you can make "bread" from damn near any grain if you're persistent enough and grains of various types (and small fruits, i.e. berries) can grow basically anywhere. It's large fruit and vegetables that tend to require easy mode to grow (which makes sense since they spend proportionally more resources growing that the fruit they produce). I'm not sure what's native to tibet but I assume they have some sort of wheat-like grass that can be farmed and provides grain for bread.
The rise of permaculture/regenerative agriculture practices are some of the revolutions in 'farming' that I believe are what are going to be the basis for people producing food that are reasonable going forward. Cooperating with nature instead of fighting it is continually being proven to be the best practice for growing food from a environmental and deliciousness perspective.
Every time I see an article about farmers having some kind of trouble, their crops are one massive monoculture. It's not natural, it's not sustainable, it's destructive for the environment, and that party is going to be over in the future. Go look at the permaculture forests that people have established and you'll be shocked at the production, lack of work required (after some years, of course), and complete lack of chemical/nutrient input.
Something's got to give.
We are going to make to growing all our food in giant box farms.
The simplest and most glaring issue is the Sun itself. Only a few hours a day for plants. Water is a massive issue! Huge swaths of the earth have very limited rainfall or access to fresh water. Factory farms can make efficient use of its water supply rather than watching the ground soak it up. Pesticides can be used sparingly when the whole environment is controlled.
I'm willing to bet that within 30 years a very large chunk of food grown to eat directly (strawberries, avocados, oranges, etc) will be box farm grown and the transition of wheat and corn will have started.
I have no idea what you're talking about.
"Only a few hours a day for plants." About half the day is decidated to sunshine, give or take. It's been this way for ... since plants.
"Huge swaths of the earth..." Don't grow there. Don't live there. People don't live in volcanoes for a reason. It's too inhospitable. OTO, you could import your goods via plane/copter/whatever if you're brave. Good on you.
We're already able to grow tropical fruit 1,500 feet up in the freezing Alps with no (artificial) chemicals/fertilizers/pesticides and effective (natural) water management. Can't imagine it will be much more difficult in growth friendly places.
Sadly, I've looked into it extensively, and the costs are way too high in comparison with outdoor farming. There are a few niche scenarios where you can get it to work, but they have to be priced at the high end. Things would need to get horrifically bad with the climate before the equation would change much. Indoor farming also couldn't be done at nearly the same volume, and expanding capacity would be very slow.
I'm optimistic that in the long run, we'll find sources of nourishment which can be grown quickly in compact, easily managed closed-loop environments with minimal inputs... however, after the disillusionment of trying to find progress toward this end the real world, all I can say is we need a LOT more people working on it.
Huh, your dataset must look very different than the one I can see.
> people can still think that technology is somehow going to save us from bad agri practices
So one thing we're doing at my company is we're trying to de-commoditize agriculture. You're right in that the current agriculture practices are all about creating a baseline crop for the commodities trading market. The truth is that these practices vary from farm to farm, and there are quantifiable metrics you can track in crops. These crop qualities vary wildly and certain buyers of the major crops want different qualities. If we can turn our major crops from being treated as commodities, we can incentivize more sustainable agricultural practices that both create better crops for the economy and the environment.
> Cooperating with nature instead of fighting it is continually being proven to be the best practice for growing food from a environmental and deliciousness perspective.
Agreed. This is exactly what we're working on because we recognize that fighting the environment with harmful pesticides and herbicides has long-lasting residual effects on the soil and the economy.
> Every time I see an article about farmers having some kind of trouble, their crops are one massive monoculture
Are you referring to the fact that there are 4 major seed producers for 60% of the seed sales on the planet? [1]
The economics of a farm are such that, because of commoditization, the margins are so razor thin that the only way to turn a profit (which they aren't, because prices on major crops have plummeted in the last 4 years) is to have a highly refined process from the purchase of the seeds, to fertilization, to hydration, to transport. The whole process is streamlined in a way that doesn't benefit the end consumer. Again, there are people hard at work to break this bad habit. Even still, there is plenty of variability in the end result of those crops, which is why crop quality can vary wildly depending on things such as rain, nitrogen in the soil, etc.
A great primer on the lifecycle of a year in farming in the US is This Blessed Earth.[2] If you're interested in understanding the agriculture economy from a farmer's perspective, this is a must read.
[1] https://finance.yahoo.com/news/how-consolidation-in-the-seed...
[2] https://www.amazon.com/This-Blessed-Earth-American-Family/dp...
Another interesting area not covered in the article is genetic engineering bacteria in soil to fix nitrogen, reducing the need for chemical fertilizers: https://geneticliteracyproject.org/2018/11/20/can-genetic-en...
So much potential...