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Comment by VBprogrammer | Hacker News Reader

As for vertical farming, there is an interesting video debunking it by some professor of agriculture. In essence it boils down to the fact that the 1000w of light applied per square meter by the sun dwarfs all of the other inputs.

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)

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I think these experiments are meaningful and fascinating for research purposes, but they will never be more efficient than nature. The solution to food security is not to re-engineer the farm, but to return food production to people, because the most dangerous thing we can do is to consolidate our food production into the hands of a few ag-tech corporations.

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.

Gardening is great, but you can't get your full diet from a suburban sized lot. No matter what, big staple food farms will be needed.

Depending on what you mean by a suburban-sized lot... here's my blog post on complete nutrition from plants, eggs, and fish (all of which can be grown/raised on a typical lot): https://automicrofarm.com/blog/2018/08/complete-nutrition-no...

And how much space do you need to grow all of that for 2 people for 365 days in a year considering that only some of it can grow year round in many places.

To grow year-round, you would need to have a greenhouse in a lot of climates.

(I'm working on a blog post to answer the space needed question.)

Can you put lot size into square-feet or fractions of acres? How much arable land exactly (considering buildings and other things take up land space)?

I'm currently looking at places where growing some of my own food might be possible and I'm curious what is possible.

Yes, will do when I get the needed spacing blog post up!

I don't think the average person should expect or try to. But there are people who produce tonnages of produce on a 1/10th acre (granted, these are in California and Florida with year-round growing). The person in my parent post talks about how he was able to grow 300 lbs of sweet potatoes on 200 sqft of yard with very little effort and input. I think the most important thing is for people to realize how much, 30%, 50%, 80% of their diet they could hypothetically produce. It is also great motivation to transition one's diet away from processed food to vegetables.

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

> The solution to food security is not to re-engineer the farm, but to return food production to people...

I agree so much I started a side project, https://automicrofarm.com/

What a cool idea. I'm encouraged everytime I see projects like these and I realize that there's a massive movement towards sustainable agriculture in small spaces.

I really like the idea of growing our own food and have intended to create some raised beds in our garden. I've started taking baby steps this year by growing some herbs. Turns out that's about 10x the effort I imagined it was going to be. I think I might have killed a good portion of them yesterday with the 38 degree heat.

It is a lot of work, but there is litterally an order of magnitude in time and energy you spend to get the same result, depending of your technic. And when you start, you usually do it the hardest way.

I agree. For a beginner, the first year is almost always disappointing. But after several years of trying and learning, you may be shocked at the abundance you can produce. I'm grateful for all the authors and youtube-ers doing some incredible and crazy projects that I can learn from

Took me a moment to figure it out, but the word you are looking for is "technique". Unless you're talking about using Lego blocks :)

Herbs are a fantastic place to start, and there are tons of medical benefits for consuming them regularly. I chew fresh mint and basil every day instead of gum

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

Might need to ship all the extra people somewhere. I understand most of the arable land is already used for that purpose by extremely efficient (whatever else you might think of them) megafarms.

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.

The problem with megafarms is that they are not sustainable long-term. Such intensive agriculture pulls nutrients from the soil faster than they can be replenished - year after year after year. So farmers have to supplement more and more with chemical fertilizers, and the soil effectively becomes little more than a hydroponic medium. Potassium and phosphorous reserves are a finite resource to be mined.

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.

That’s very true for calorie dense foods like wheat, potatoes, rice, etc. It’s less so for other plants like lettuce which have a short lifespan, don’t store or transport well, and have significant risks for contamination as they are eaten raw.

Essentially vertical farms would be limited to 0.01% of food production, but could be profitable.

Lettuce stores and transports well enough. In 1919 farmers in Salinas, CA started shipping lettuce on ice via rail to the east coast.

Didn't work out so well for Adam Trask :)

I stumbled across some interesting history related to this when doing a research paper in college.

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

Near noon sun is angled closer to 90°, but in higher latitudes it's a lower angle. For example at noon it's 60° on first day of summer in Berlin and 30° at 7am when it's at 0° east. So it may be possible to have a building that would be longer on EW axis and narrower on NS axis. With possible shift for every floor allowing some flexibility.

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?

>there is an interesting video debunking it by some professor of agriculture

Link? Not doubting your claim, just thought it would be interesting to watch.

This was the one I was thinking of:

https://youtu.be/ISAKc9gpGjw

I think OP is referring to Bruce Bugbee from Utah state https://youtu.be/ISAKc9gpGjw Even if it isn't him the conclusion is the same.

Prof.Bugbee. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ISAKc9gpGjw

Would solar farms help mitigate the cost of running these vertical farms in any meaningful way?

Using current tech, you end up using more land gathering solar power as you gain back by going vertical.

On top of that you need to pay for incredible amounts of solar panels.

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

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.

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