Farming technologies tackle climate-change threats | Hacker News Reader

Farming technologies tackle climate-change threats

wsj.com

48 pointslxm54 comments

One of the "answers" is vertical farming, which as the article notes, eats a shittone of electricity.

Its a bit disappointing that the article doesn't mention landscape management, mixed use arable or general tree coverage for water retention

It’s coming down drastically too with LED full spectrum grow lights. You can now run a row on 100Wh. Way better than the 1.2kWh before.

Don't take it wrong, but it's hard to be credible when you mix power and energy

Indeed I only specified energy consumption, not power.

Ultimately, you cannot make it use less energy than the amount of calories you want to put in. It’s a viable technology but only if you have cheap energy or if transportation costs go ballistic, there’s no way to beat thermodynamics on this.

Quick math: where I live, a kilowatt-hour costs 12 cents. A kilowatt-hour has 860,421 calories. Even with inefficiencies, seems pretty doable to me.

That helps, but the losses in solar panels means it’s never going to be close to just putting the plants outside.

There is a perverse incentive in vertical farming. There is no logical reason to farm indoors while the land outdoors is still arable. This means any form of pollution that makes land less arable increases the relative profitability of vertical farming. Accelerated desertification is good for your business because then you can collect solar energy or wind energy there with little resistance.

My expectation is that if this technology was widely deployed in the Sahara, any afforestation attempts would be cut short because they step on the toes of the vertical farming guys.

I still don't get why vertical with all the support(probably concrete) needed versus just going with green houses. Maybe with semi-reflective surfaces.

Is all that much support needed? Maybe for crops grown on trees or something, but in videos I’ve seen about indoor farming [1], there hasn’t been much other than basic metal cages with containers spaced out.

[1]: https://youtu.be/gW-21CHDkIU

this looks like a good way for humanity get fuxked.

Not only will individuals loose the ability to farm, it will be locked up in companies. Who will likely make it illegal for others to do the same.

Beyond that we will likely loose access to all strains of plants that’s can grow well outside.

As a safe guard. Humanity needs a super farm that is isolated and trains and maintains the old ways.

There are so many problems with vertical farming, but doing it in the sahara is even more problemattic.

First you still need water, and its not like its a closed system, so you'll get significant losses.

Then you need to either think about heating and cooling (it gets really cold at night and super hot in the day) or build under the sand. Either way lots of building materials.

Its literally easier and cheaper to terraform the saraha than it is to do vertical farming there.

The way to do it would be to electrolyze CO into acetate, and feed that to the plants. That's actually more efficient already than to grow on a field.

Or how about adding a transparent roof to the container systems...

Vertical farming seems to be to be the hydrogen power of agriculture. It works in theory, but it currently really only works for fairly niche situations and the effort to break through to economies of scale is pretty intractable. Energy use is one reason; cost and profitablity is another. Compared to the alternative (making traditional agriculture better, improving electric vehicles), there's much less low hanging fruit.

Converting single family lawns into small gardens would do more to help with climate change than these ideas.

So much pollution is generated by industrial farming and transportation of the food to city folk.

Everyone who is _serious_ about helping with climate change should be willing to put in a little sweat equity.

Sadly I do not see that as the case. Much easier to talk about it, and insist other people make changes or sacrifices than to make them oneself.

Most people don’t have very much of a yard, and even a relatively large garden, say a fifth of an acre is not going to replace much industrial farming. I’m not saying it’s valueless (I think many home grown veggies are more delicious than anything available at a store. tomatoes of course, but also consider celery, so strong in flavor from the home garden) but I think it’s a relatively small part of the climate change equation.

As a side note, contractors for my neighbor just dumped a shitload of old asphalt and cement shingles on my 80 sqft garden, thick black dust over every plant. So idk, I’m just talking from the sidelines here, fucking demoralized.

> contractors for my neighbor just dumped a shitload of old asphalt and cement shingles on my 80 sqft garden

You should go talk to the contractor. He needs to clean that up.

>but I think it’s a relatively small part of the climate change equation.

No one wants to discuss Chinese and Indian emissions. Instead we are resigned to demonizing cow farts.

Per capita emmisions from India is 10x lower than Usa

The earth does not concern itself with per capita.

I’ve talked to plenty of people, they did actually clean up the pieces mostly (after a different neighbor called the state) but the heavy asphalt dust is just oh well, too bad, deal with it. That we are not aware of an effective method of removing the material, and I should get a soil test. I think probably removing the top 3 inches of soil and trashing all the plants would be pretty effective, but who knows.

I should have taken action faster, but was busy. My buddy’s perspective (who is also a contractor) was I should have called the cops immediately, told them to get the fuck off my property, and caused a huge scene, so that once it was all sorted out and they were back on my property, as they are allowed to be since the neighbors garage is directly on the property line, they would have tread carefully. Only way to get some guys to respect your stuff is to cause trouble, he says anyway.

>Most people don’t have very much of a yard, and even a relatively large garden, say a fifth of an acre is not going to replace much industrial farming.

Even 1/5 of an acre or less will yield more produce than your family and several neighbors families can eat.

I speak from experience. Till composted steer manure into the soil. Lots and lots. Every year.

Work from home would make that more plausible. It would also cut down emissions from pointless commuting.

But I doubt it would make as much of a contribution as a mass shift to vegetarianism.

Then again - why not all of the above?

Replacing lawns with almost anything would help. Less water usage and less fertilizer runnoff would be great. But transporting food to "city folk" is way, way more efficient than transporting food to suburban or rural folk. And a small garden isn't going to move the needle much there. Densification is necessary to reduce per-capita carbon emissions.

First you have to unteach the public that all problems can be solved with another toxic petrochemical, otherwise you’re just rearranging the broccoli on our proverbial plate.

Here in Vancouver there's a program called City Beet Farm (https://www.citybeetfarm.com/) where lawn-owners allow professional farmers to farm produce on their yard, in exchange for a fraction of the resulting vegetables. The homeowner doesn't have to do any of the work themselves, and it's actually quite impressive how much food experienced farmers can grow on a front yard.

I would add biocyclic vegan farming: Vegatable farming without use of manure or artificial fertilizer. https://www.biocyclic-vegan.org/

Permaculture can adapt to almost any climate and convert land into food forest. Basic idea is to conserve moisture by creating swales on contour and planting a wide variety of plants and fruit trees mostly on the ridges. At the moment it is initially labor intensive to get started but is very low maintenance once established. In the future AI robots can tend and harvest it in a way that does not require huge fields of monoculture.

Mycorrhizal fungi could dramatically help sequester carbon while at same time increasing yield and decreasing amount of fertilizer required.

Why is it so expensive?

Because current production methods generally either sacrifice quality or quantity due to the need for a plant host when mass producing mycorrhizal fungi. So there's many production methods. You can grow en masse with e.g. something like sorghum grass roots, but these mycorrhizal products have a greater likelihood of contamination and also most likely lesser quality (less infectious propagules and just generally contain filler). Then you've got mycorhhizal products made more cleanly typically using something like a genetically modified hairy carrot root such that the carrot root doesn't have a stem or leaves and is only the root system. This production method still has complications in that you are still growing 2 organisms (the fungi and the carrot root), but is an easier production system overall. Still, this method also has downfalls in that it can only be used to culture certain species of mycorrhizal fungi and frankly it's still expensive and tedious.

That being said, I am working on a new production method that grows the fungi only (axenically) and hope to be mass producing within a couple years. Benefit of this new method is it's simpler and cheaper (only 1 organism growing), there's very minimal likelyhood of contamination and there's no use of any genetically modified organisms in the production process (this may only matter for e.g. organic farmers, etc.).

So that's all to say that cheaper mycorrhizal products are coming down the line and will be in the market soon. Price is definitely one of the things that's been holding the mycorrhizal market back for sure. That being said, there's so much potential it's wild. E.g. you can breed mycorrhizal fungi (they're very genetically diverse so really amazing opportunity for a breeding program) and that's where we're going.

I wouldn't mind paying $10 for a starter innoculant amount (small bag) if that would grow in my soil over time so need to figure out the right conditions to keep it growing and maybe how to grow one's own for further propagation. Here is what Chat GPT says:

what are good ways to propagate Mycorrhizal fungi and to keep it multiplying in your soil

ChatGPT Propagating and maintaining mycorrhizal fungi in your soil can have numerous benefits for plant health and nutrient uptake. Here are some good ways to propagate and sustain mycorrhizal fungi:

Minimize disturbance: Mycorrhizal fungi establish and spread through their extensive networks of hyphae. Minimizing soil disturbance, such as avoiding excessive tilling or compacting the soil, can help maintain the fungal network and prevent disruption.

Maintain soil organic matter: Mycorrhizal fungi thrive in soils with high organic matter content. Adding organic matter, such as compost or well-rotted manure, provides a favorable environment for their growth and proliferation.

Avoid overuse of synthetic fertilizers: High levels of synthetic fertilizers, especially phosphorus, can inhibit mycorrhizal colonization. It's advisable to use fertilizers sparingly and opt for slow-release organic fertilizers whenever possible.

Introduce mycorrhizal inoculants: Mycorrhizal inoculants are commercially available products that contain beneficial mycorrhizal fungi. These inoculants can be applied during planting to introduce or supplement the existing fungal populations in the soil.

Promote plant diversity: Different species of mycorrhizal fungi have varying symbiotic relationships with different plant species. Promoting plant diversity in your garden or landscape can support a diverse mycorrhizal community.

Avoid fungicides: Fungicides can harm mycorrhizal fungi, so it's best to minimize or avoid their use. If fungicides are necessary, opt for those that have minimal impact on beneficial soil organisms.

Maintain proper soil moisture: Mycorrhizal fungi require adequate soil moisture to thrive. Avoid waterlogging or excessive dryness, as both can negatively impact their growth. Maintain consistent soil moisture levels appropriate for the specific plant and fungal species.

Practice crop rotation: Rotating crops can help diversify the types of mycorrhizal fungi in your soil. Different plants associate with different species of mycorrhizal fungi, so rotating crops can foster a broader range of beneficial fungal symbionts.

Remember that the presence and abundance of mycorrhizal fungi in your soil can depend on various factors, including soil type, climate, and plant species. It may take time for mycorrhizal populations to establish and expand. Patience and consistent practices that support soil health are key to promoting and maintaining mycorrhizal fungi in your soil.

Your best bet is just grabbing small samples of topsoil from the forests around your land, they'll have plenty of the native mycorrhizal fungi in them. Then just scatter on your soil and mix in

Then once they start to establish in your soils, the best ways to keep them propagating and multiplying in the soil is basically to ensure you have roots that are feeding them the sugars they need (through photosynthesis). Also you'll want to avoid tilling the soil if possible (tilling is basically just cutting through the mycorrhizal networks in the soil), but basically the key is to have crop cover on your soil as much as possible so the mycorrhizal communities have some sugar source to keep them through.

Can different style of cow farming be carbon negative? I've seen one YouTube farmer claiming so but I have hard time believing it.

He says bacteria takes carbon from manure and take it back to the soil but that cannot be more than was present in the grass that the cow ate right? It can put some small amount of carbon back but it will be net positive, not negative.

> Can different style of cow farming be carbon negative?

Maybe, but with much less animals and a mix of animals (not just cows, but ducks, chicken, ..) and mostly vegetable, that's how it's meant to be in nature

Currently animal farms are disastrous: https://www.google.com/search?q=why+is+animal+farm+impact+on... total weight of farm animals is 10 times the one of wild animals, which itself is about the same as pets, this is nonsensical

There isn’t a way “farming is meant to be in nature”. There are all domesticated animals and plants.

This is how farming is meant to be in nature:

https://www.goodreads.com/en/book/show/797805.Tending_the_Wi...

This is just the noble savage myth. There is no “meant to be”.

No, it really isn’t. They had their own stuff going on but they clearly had low input farming dialed in.

I think you should read the book. Or, you know, stay flippant. It’s your circus not mine.

There is no singular they. I’ve read a few books on the topic. You’re ultimately drawing from at best a snapshot of when the Spanish arrived or otherwise when English settlers or their American descendants were encountering populations wrecked by successive waves of disease. So it’s hard to know what things looked like prior and whether there was a stable equilibrium.

We certainly know the Yucatán had at one point been basically stripped of trees for slash and burn agriculture.

The forest agronomy that may have been practiced in the eastern woodlands probably relied heavily on both burning vast swaths of the land periodically and low population density. I’m not sure what that really does for us.

Supporting really small numbers of people with vast swaths of highly fertile land has never really been a big problem.

For sure we should reduce the total meat & fish production, people eat and waste far too much, just the fact that 1/5th of that production goes to pets say it all

After that, I was talking about the equilibirum in nature or permaculture farms between animals and vegetals, which looks nothing like current intensive farming, which produce poor quality anyway. We don't need to eat meat once a day, even once a week isn't needed, more than half people are overweight in rich countries

So it'd make sense to do those 2 changes

Sounds like BS to me. Cows would have an environmental impact both by their release of methane when they digest the food they eat, and the hydrocarbons it takes to transport them/their food etc. And the electric power it takes to support them. There's also the issue of opportunity cost, i.e. that farm land could be carbon trapping forest instead. Considering eating beef is much more energy intensive then eating the equivalent vegetarian diet, there's simply no way cattle farm is energy negative just from bacteria taking carbon from the manure.

The great plains in the US were legendary for having multiple feet of deep, rich topsoil for farming.

Rich topsoil is that which has lots of organic matter in it, i.e. carbon.

There are people who say the great plains were built by roaming buffalo herds, grazing on the grasses growing there.

So if that natural system was able to sequester carbon it stands to reason that humans could mimic it and in doing so also sequester carbon.

We should also figure out how many millennia it took the bison to do this and whether other uses for the land could sequester more carbon.

Some regenerative agriculture advocates say soil can build up pretty fast with the right techniques that include animals: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9yPjoh9YJMk

Soil builds up real fast. A few leaves here and there, some dust, a little water and boom: grass, bushes, flowers. All this in several weeks to months. I've seen it happen so many times because our streets aren't well maintained. 5cm soil on concrete, asphalt, rooftops, etc.

> and the hydrocarbons it takes to transport them/their food etc.

Obviously, if you graze sheep / cattle / goats on marginal land, or even relatively arable land (jumping ahead to your op-cost comments) you don't have to transport food to them.

Transporting grain to feed grass-eating animals is not uniquely a north-American strategy, but is much less common in other parts of the world.

> Considering eating beef is much more energy intensive then eating the equivalent vegetarian diet, there's simply no way cattle farm is energy negative just from bacteria taking carbon from the manure

Eating beef, or raising beef? Again, if you focus on large tracts of relatively non-arable land to run cattle, the numbers are quite different than if you look only at land that can support nutrient- or calorific- dense crops.

I'd suggest Simon Fairlie's excellent 2010 book 'Meat - a Benign Extravagance' for some deeper examination of the logistics / numbers here.

Our cows don't use much electricity. And I don't think the claims was about being energy negative, just carbon negative. That's an important difference. I'll also call BS, but for a different reason. The growing animal takes carbon from the soil by eating grass. If one continually harvests animals off the land, that's carbon being continually removed and taken elsewhere. What happens to that carbon downstream is complicated, but one can be sure it's not being sequestered in the ground where the cattle originated.

Replying to my own comment, because I can't seem to edit it from this mobile app.

Thinking about this a little more, I had it a somewhat wrong above. Most of the carbon that makes up the animal comes from the air in the form of photosynthesis. So if it's re-released back into the atmosphere, that's not a net gain. So I suppose to be completely neutral there would need to be an equal amount of carbon being sequestered in the soil to offset the factors already mentioned, like transport and processing. That does actually seem conceptually possible.

It depends on the land they are farming.

A decent well managed meadow will be carbon negative. but turning forest into meadow isn't normally carbon negative.

I’m actually more worried about soil depletion and pesticides than climate effects.

(Does that make me a bad person?)

First time i really want to RTFA but run into the paywall. Reader didnct help. Help very welcome, thanks in advance.

If you go to archive.ph and paste in the link, it will usually already have a snapshot saved for most popular publications: https://archive.is/sP6AR

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