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Comment by mherrmann | Hacker News Reader

Having watched Clarkson's Farm, I can't help but feel that farming is extremely antiquated. The sensitivity to unexpected weather and the low profit margins despite the high investments of time and money seem terrible. I can't see us as an advanced species doing this in 100 years, except for specialty experiences.

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Modern farming is anything but antiquated. A lot of science goes into it, and it's the most efficient use of national resources to produce food. The downsides you mentioned is purely the fault of the market, not farming itself.

I understand that a lot of science and technology goes into modern farming, and that it's much better than it used to be. You did not address one of the main downsides I mentioned, which is that it still seems to be extremely reliant on the weather.

It also makes use of the sun and rain for free, unlike controlled setups. Weather is an issue, but it's not an issue everywhere at once. Even now with the progressing climate change farmers are adapting. You have introduction of regenerative farming to mitigate erosion and help with water retention, planting wind barriers, more resistant plant varieties, and much more. It's all designed to help mitigate weather fluctuations. Startups growing wheat under UV lighting are not going to feed the planet.

There's a reason hundreds of miles of abandoned stone walls are hidden inside forests all throughout the Northeast US - people deforested everything and tried to farm, but abandoned it all until nature reclaimed it again. It's tough.

>Having watched Clarkson's Farm, I can't help but feel that farming is extremely antiquated.

That's like saying you watched The Bachelor and now have Opinions about marriage.

You're telling me I have no clue. I don't disagree. But what would be much more interesting is for you to address the points I made.

You didn't really make any points worth addressing.

If you want to drink Soylent, go ahead. But even the predominant ingredient, soy, comes from agriculture.

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