Comment by Zenst | Hacker News Reader

Comment by Zenst | Hacker News Reader

Hopefully this may incentivize people to be a bit more self-sufficient. Gardens that you grow your own, allotments - the mentality of that has been driven away over decades and now people are starting to smell the roses and realize they can't eat them. So in many avenues - complacency gets highlighted more and I'm sure many and much will change on the back of this period in time. Overall I'd say for the better. Certainly the environment is doing better, so not all side-effects that bad, but even the bad ones, may well get exacerbated and become fear/panic driven.

Equally many manual aspects of farming have long been on the verge of better automation and with that, robots.

However that drive will only see less people working and the knock-on effects of any change has ripples.

But let's not overlook the whole import/export aspects and SPain for example exports a huge amount of fruit and veg, how that pans out over this period will be of note.

But for some perspective: https://ec.europa.eu/eurostat/web/products-eurostat-news/-/E...

Shows the export and import of food in EUrope as a whole is somewhat balanced. How that balance plays out this year and for few years after will be interesting.

Though I don't see any fear of food shortages, sure may be case of some food items being more expensive.

But such articles, whilst are a caution warning, they themselves can drive fear and panic and they as always do more damage as any toilet roll can attest.

[EDIT spellings and grams]

This is a very naive take on the world. You'll need at the very least half an acre to feed yourself sustainably, and that's if you're highly optimized.

It's also backbreaking work, and you won't be able to do much else except subsistence farming.

In short, it's not practical for the vast majority of the population. The closest we can probably get to this model is instead CSA memberships, supporting farms right outside the dense urban areas which can leverage economies of scale to feed several hundred people.

I mean, sure, grow your spring onions, your herbs, and a tomato plant. It's nice. It keeps you connected to where food comes from. It's a yummy addition to your plate.

It won't feed you in an emergency, though.

Note that it's fine to leave the supply of staples like wheat to large farmers with economies of scale, since that's heavily mechanized and doesn't require many workers, plus the workers it does rely on can be fairly effectively distanced. It's mostly the stuff like fresh fruit and vegetables which is the problem. Those are less reliant on economies of scale and more on cheap imported labour.

Exactly, I grew tomatoes in my flat few years back, was so choice picking a ripe tomato on christmas day grown indoors on a window ledge and no additional lighting needed.

Sure can't grow it all, but certainly makes a positive dent in my needs.

Yikes, you grew tomatoes indoors? How did you stand the smell?

Was not an issue at all.

OK, i'm not saying we all grow all our own food, but certainly a little helps and a step in the right direction and you can bet many will avenue that and what they can in the times ahead now.

Certainly growing your own herbs in a flat very sustainable.

OMG Garden in Auckland is an urban garden that produces 1000NZD per week in commercial produce sales. They think they can get to 1400 per week.

Small <500 sqm plot between buildings.

They have full time farmer.

Is that 1,000 NZD profit, or revenue? It also looks heavily reliant on volunteer effort, basically free labor.

Revenue I think. They have a full time farmer. I don't have all the details, but I think it's main focus is education and as a model.

Here's an idea, put everyone's half acres together, then use automation to reduce the labour needed, freeing people to do other useful work! We can share the food, and share the labour!

This will work as long as some malevolent dick doesn't come along and decide they want more than their fair share ...

It'll be a common area people can share. We'll just need to avoid any sort of tragedy.

luckily there has been some research on averting such tragedies: https://wle.cgiar.org/content/elinor-ostrom-%E2%80%9Cnon-tra...

You can grow a surprising amount on even 0.1 acres. Here's a video where a family grows 6000 pounds on about 4000 square feet.

https://youtu.be/NCmTJkZy0rM

Granted, they have the whole family pitching in with the labor and it's a full-time job for them.

Is there a good resource for a reasonably educated individual on the theory of farming. That is the theory about growing any foodstuff or useful growable product (livestock,plants,edible mushrooms, even houseplants and pets) and selling those products. Managing the economics, top soil, automation, machine repair and maintenance.

Look for Storey's guides for things like basic country skills and small-scale animal husbandry (rabbit, goat, etc.) There is also probably an entire aisle of urban homesteading books to look through at the local bookstore.

Not many calories in what they're growing, either.

I think this is also naive. You don't need an acre, nor is it backbreaking labour. The biggest time sink for home gardeners in my experience is watering, which you can solve by timed drip irrigation. Some plants like beans and peas are so easy to grow that they'll take over if you don't manage them. Potatoes are also pretty robust.

However, growing year-round is hard. It's relatively easy to feed yourself over the summer/fall if you're dedicated, but maintaining enough to feed your family over the winter is much more difficult and requires planning (and if anything goes wrong you lose the crop).

The biggest advantage for me is growing crops which are very expensive in stores and are easily wasted - like bagged salads, tomatoes that taste good, etc. Plus you can pick weird heritage varieties. We get a small veg box once a week and a small plot in our garden and we rarely buy vegetables when we go shopping.

> like bagged salads, tomatoes

salads, tomatoes are extremly wasteful form of transporting water so the benefit of growing your own is enormous

Well, yes, I was specifically speaking to the self-sustainable part. (And really, growing enough to eat year round? Yeah, it's back breaking. Not when you're 20 or 30, but come back to me when you're in your 50s :)

I'm totally in favor of growing the things that you mention - and combined with a CSA, it's the best of both worlds.

But I really, really, wouldn't want to grow all the staples myself and be dependent on it.

What is your take on vertical farming [1]? If this was more widespread, we could take large loads off the farming sector and support the promise of grown local benefits.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vertical_farming

Vertical farming takes just as much labor as horizontal farming and the capital expenses are higher. The economics only work for highly perishable luxury crops, not staples.

To be fair, they did say "a bit more self-sufficient". I have a half-dozen raised garden beds, herbs and fruit trees on a very standard-sized suburban block. I can cook occasional meals that are largely from the garden and definitely supplement staples (protein, pasta/rice from the shop). In recent weeks, I've paid more attention to sowing seeds and looked at adding chickens. With reliably laying chickens, we could do a meal/day at least.

> Certainly the environment is doing better,

I wouldn't be so sure (yet) about the overall outcome. For example, the EPA just suspends enforcement of all environmental laws "because corona".

https://thehill.com/policy/energy-environment/489753-epa-sus...

> The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) issued a sweeping suspension of its enforcement of environmental laws Thursday, telling companies they would not need to meet environmental standards during the coronavirus outbreak.

> The temporary policy, for which the EPA has set no end date, would allow any number of industries to skirt environmental laws, with the agency saying it will not “seek penalties for noncompliance with routine monitoring and reporting obligations.”

I really don’t get this. How is this helpful against the pandemic?

What? No more illegal pangolin for dinner?.

Honest question. How is the EPA suspending enforcement aid in the fight against Covid-19?

The EPA says not only that your new chemical plant can't dump waste in the river, but also that before you even start your factory you have to file elaborate plans explaining all the measures you're going to take to make sure it never happens.

If we want companies to quickly spin up new factories for ventilators and masks, it's a good idea to let them start the factory now and file the plans next year.

It's sad, but here in CA, most people don't have yards and there's nowhere to grow food. It's especially dumb because there's miles and miles of undeveloped land everywhere (at least in the east bay suberbs), not being used for anything in particular except maybe some farms with cows on it: I'm sure they're taking advantage of huge tax wholes because they're sitting on land that would cost 10s of millions of dollars in property taxes were it taxed at the same rate that people need to pay.

Also, there's no community compost which means people need to buy all of it at stores like home depot, making it expensive because they have to bag it and warehouse it, etc. The nearest compost I have to my house where I can get compost is nearly 35 miles away.

I live in a flat, it has windows and window ledges and I grow things - sure not enough to sustain, but makes a dent in the right direction, also helps flats air quality.

As for compost, i'm supprised as I live in London and can easily get it. But appreciate that it may be a case of supply/demand and if no demand, the supply moves away.

Seems like an opportunity business wise in the times ahead as if you have that issue - many others will.

SF Bay Area is not really representative of California as a whole. Most people outside of the dense cores have a place for a small garden. State is large and diverse. Los Angeles is a lot less dense and most people have at least a balcony on which you can grow stuff in pots. Won’t sustain you as the only source, but will provide greens and some variety. Yards are pretty common and usually green. Water shortages have led to some converting to hardscape, but that can be reversed.

Prop 13 is an issue, but the level of development opposition in Bay Area is another matter all together compared to the rest of the state. Where little you can build developers end up cramming every last inch with profit-producing structures. Couple with crappy commuting infrastructure and you have what we are living.

You can drive out as far as fairfield, about 70 miles outside of the bay area and still see housing communities packed together like slums with nothing but yellow and green for miles in every direction.

The lots in those communities (including Fairfield) look to be reasonably sized - some pools even. That’s plenty to have a few beds of greens. It’s not acre-sized, but that’s hardly a requirement.

What do you propose then, Los Altos or Atherton-sized lots?

10K sq ft lots isn't too much to ask for is it? especially when there's open land in every direction you can see as far as the horizon. It doesn't even look like all that open land is used for anything at all.

i'll never understand the CA obsession with keeping so much land undeveloped at the expense of humanity.

I think saying that most people don't have yards in California is misleading. More people have yards in California than in many other places where there are more dense cities.

Just FYI that if you’re in Northern California I believe that Mission Trail or whoever has a centralized compost where you can pick up what you need. In normal times, at least. I’d imagine that service is currently shut down, but worth checking.

> Hopefully this may incentivize people to be a bit more self-sufficient

This has nothing to do with "people". Securing the food supply is a matter of national security, which is why such a shortage of labour should have never been allowed to even happen. The correct way to go about this would have been subsidized pay for local farmhands, a directive that a given / high percentage of food crop must be preserved at any cost and regulation that subsidies that already go to agriculture do not go into profits but actually trickle down.

> incentivize people to be a bit more self-sufficient

The drawback to this is the opportunity cost. Comparative advantage is the benefit of the current set-up. Although 'self-sufficient' may sound warm and nice.

Where (physically) do you expect 500.000 (a small town example) people garden their own food? They'd need to travel outside town, garden, then get back (and all this while also commuting to work on a daily basis).

Also, the amount of tools every single person would need to buy.

"Decentralisation" is a goof idea, but not feasible in the real world, IMHO. And this is a small town example, leave alone a huge capital like Madrid or Barcelona.

Surrounding farmland, greenhouses if necessary. Can't scale now, but this is the result of fragile ag supply chains. Lessons for the future. Not just ag, manufacturing capacity and black swan preparedness in general.

Fragile systems break more easily. Make sturdy systems humans rely on, even if more costly and less efficient.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Allotment_(gardening)

In Britain and Germany, allotment gardening was promoted as a social measure and by all accounts it was successful.

It's successful at giving people the option to occasionally put some fresh produce on their plates. It's not enough to keep yourself fed all year round, let alone your family or everyone else who doesn't have an allotment. If an acute food shortage hit right during harvest season I might be able to hold out for a few weeks, but any other time of year would be pretty bad.

> It's not enough to keep yourself fed all year round

In 2019 I produced almost 300 Kg of my own food at home without really trying hard, so maybe not all year round, but is possible to notice a difference. The garden had provided me with at least a piece of fresh fruit each day of 2020 and this point is covered until june-2020 at least.

The problem is trying to obtain your food without space, without feeding your plants, and relying in magical products. This never works as intended.

People needs to understand also that producing food at home is more expensive (but the quality is better).

Possibly too successful. The waiting lists are usually very long: https://www.edinburghnews.scotsman.com/news/edinburgh-allotm...

Tools can be shared.

It's also amazing how little land is needed to grow enough food to live on. One person can be fed from around 9 square meters. In dense cities people may not have that much land, but in many areas, people do have that much land in their yards.

That's preposterous. You need 5-10 acres to be self-sufficient in the steady state.

Do you have a source that the 9sqm claim? It seems... completely unbelievable.

My wife's parents grow various vegetables in an area of that size, and there is no way it could provide all their vegetable needs.

If you grew potatoes you’d get 15000-45000 calories out of 9 sq meters. Not enough. 9mX9m (81sqm) and at the high end of yield you could get above starvation.

At least in the UK, I thought you could only harvest potatoes once a year? There is a 2-week school holiday in October, which in some parts of Scotland are still referred to as the "tattie holidays", because that's when the potatoes are harvested (I did it as a kid, it was back-breaking work...).

Did you honestly just call half a million people a small town? That is a major metro in many parts of the world.

Your idea of a "small town" has the population of Sacramento or Atlanta (and almost the population of Frankfurt, if you prefer Europe). I live in what would reasonably be considered a small town in the northeast US outside a major metro. The population of our town is about 7,000 people. (And most people would have the room for respectable garden.)

Every bit counts and even on a small balcony it’s possible to at least grow fresh herbs and a few other things in pots and containers. There’s also the indoor microgreen approach. There have been some cool prototypes that look about the size of a mini fridge and can grow a decent amount of fresh salad greens.

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