Python farming as flexible efficient agricultural food security | Hacker News Reader

Python farming as flexible efficient agricultural food security

nature.com

18 pointsanjel17 comments

Phew, for a moment I was worried that we might have to start eating the plants we'd feed to the animals that we'd feed to the pythons. But it seems like I can avoid yucky tofu a little bit longer - yay!

Why would anyone eat yucky tofu when they can instead tuck into a delicious piece of ... snake meat /s

FWIW, having tried both (and having access to both in walking distance), I personally very much prefer most variants of tofu over snake meat.

That said the occasional meal of snake soup is also nice!

This study doesn't propose anything that can actually move the needle for food security. It requires animal based feedstock for the Pythons, which kills the efficiency claims because you need to grow an animal of mass X in order to obtain another animal of LESS than mass X. This is just a slightly more efficient method of recycling leftover biomass. It'll never be viable as a primary protein source.

If they had suggested a viable cold blooded herbivore, we might get somewhere.

one of the potential food sources is waste protein from agribusiness as per the article. That makes this a useful way to gain human edible protein from a waste product, which isn't nothing but, if you are looking for on idea to save the world, this isn't it.

Wouldn't it be more efficient to convert waste proteins into fertiliser for plants? Plus, while the article makes much of the python's ability to withstand periods of scarcity, I would think storing grains/beans would be even better... for example, properly stored grains/beans aren't vulnerable to respiratory infections..

You might want to give it another read. Authors anticipate this rebuttal and discuss these points.

My brain had quite the jolt, realizing this was not an article about the programming language midway through the title.

Interested in a task farm python client? https://openresearchsoftware.metajnl.com/articles/10.5334/jo...

Well it did have efficient in the title

Seems like a good way to piss off the lizard people

Discussed earlier here: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=39723016

Rust would've been even better!

They go great with a cup of java.

Florida is currently paying bounty hunters to capture the invasive species. (https://www.bbc.com/future/article/20240318-florida-pays-peo...)

Can they start selling the meat too?

...Or will it possibly lead to a Cobra Effect?

(https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Perverse_incentive)

I highly recommend a Florida python hunt on an airboat if you’re up for such an adventure.

Apparently python meat is very tough, even after pressure cooking.

Guga ran an experiment: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bGCYcotfUN4

This makes sense, considering how strong they are.

If someone figures how to cook Python properly....

bad news for pythons!

Reply on news.ycombinator.com