I am skeptical of this project. Not of vertical farming or using machine learning to aid in the management of the farm, but of the fact that this is going to replace farming around the world. In a...
I am skeptical of this project. Not of vertical farming or using machine learning to aid in the management of the farm, but of the fact that this is going to replace farming around the world.
Storey, who is also the company’s chief science officer, says the future of farms is vertical and indoors because that way, the food can grow anywhere in the world, year-round; and the future of farms employ robots and AI to continually improve the quality of growth for fruits, vegetables, and herbs.
In a way, I see this as imperialistic farming. To assume that this is the preferred way of farming for the rest of the world is pretty narrow-minded. Besides, it presents the same supply-chain issues as the current industrial agriculture complex. The difference here is that this is a tech company. Modern farmers aren't stupid, and neither are the people in developing countries, but this sort of company postures itself as a techno-utopian savior that "disrupts" modern farmers and their practices and assumes that the infrastructure for this is just readily available everywhere. It's trying to supersede modern farmers and assumes that adding robots and "AI" makes this superior. This sort of tech-based farming also ignores the very valuable resurgence in regenerative agriculture, which is sustainable and encourages local production.
Excuse me for being incredulous, but there are many very qualified individuals seeking to answer tough questions about modern agriculture, and I just don't buy into the Silicon Valley solution. Maybe as part of a whole, but I do not see a world where it replaces "horizontal" farming.
I’ve read elsewhere that this approach works for certain vegetables like lettuce that grow quickly because they are mostly water, provided they also sell for a lot to restaurants because they’re...
I’ve read elsewhere that this approach works for certain vegetables like lettuce that grow quickly because they are mostly water, provided they also sell for a lot to restaurants because they’re so fresh.
It’s not cost-competitive for most crops, but might still be a profitable niche.
Yep. As far as I understand it, this is basically a dead end in terms of scaling to mass-production of the majority of crops. It's kind of like aquaculture, which has been around for a long time,...
Yep. As far as I understand it, this is basically a dead end in terms of scaling to mass-production of the majority of crops. It's kind of like aquaculture, which has been around for a long time, and does work, but it only functions economically with a couple of species, doesn't replace deep sea catch, and also doesn't taste as good.
Vertical farming is great for water-rich, fast growing crops. Think alfalfa, lettuce, micro greens, and perhaps even strawberries. You're not going to get potatoes, the majority of legumes, tomatoes, or other staples and high calorie crops out of this.
That's not to say it's not effective in its niche, but this isn't going to herald in some future where the amount of food for a million people can be grown in a building. It's really hard to compete with free sunlight, free soil, and rain.
The truth of the matter is that not every process is guaranteed to improve continually forever. There are limits, dead ends, and it's very hard for the human brain—especially technologically-oriented individuals who are attuned to the idea of growth and continued improvement, to sometimes grasp that some things just don't scale like you'd think they would.
Yes, there do seem to be limits currently, and maybe for a long time. But this seems too confident a prediction? People can be creative. Maybe some workarounds might be found, eventually? It's...
Yes, there do seem to be limits currently, and maybe for a long time. But this seems too confident a prediction? People can be creative. Maybe some workarounds might be found, eventually? It's difficult to prove impossibility.
Shrug, you're right that no one can predict the future, but people can take some damn good guesses without needing much insight, especially against processes that bump up against physical laws,...
Shrug, you're right that no one can predict the future, but people can take some damn good guesses without needing much insight, especially against processes that bump up against physical laws, like Tesla's desire for beaming wireless power to planes; and in this case, simple thermodynamics.
There's nothing here that wasn't possible 50-100 years ago, bar perhaps the efficiency of LED lighting (which is rapidly approaching its own limit), and the AI aspect, which, depending on your position, is either a sleazy venture capital pitch, or something that does yield some practical gains, up to the limit of the growing efficiency of the crop.
I don't see anything about vertical farms that violates thermodynamics. This is about economics and in particular, the cost of inputs. Perhaps electricity might get cheaper in some places,...
I don't see anything about vertical farms that violates thermodynamics. This is about economics and in particular, the cost of inputs. Perhaps electricity might get cheaper in some places, particularly if it's okay if it's somewhat intermittent.
Disclaimer: Despite growing up in a moderately rural part of the midwestern US, I have a black thumb and know very little about farming. These may be ignorant questions. Feel free to tell me so....
Disclaimer: Despite growing up in a moderately rural part of the midwestern US, I have a black thumb and know very little about farming. These may be ignorant questions. Feel free to tell me so.
Yeah, I read similar comments on HackerNews. They claimed that free natural light and rainwater also made regular farms much more cost effective than piping in water and using grow lights or other technology.
But it made me wonder about this. Would it still be viable and perhaps produce something more if we made the following changes:
Limit the buildings to 2 stories
Have the high-water, high profit lettuce-like plants inside on the ground floor
On the roof (the second story) grow the lower water crops in open air and sunlight
It's not 10 stories of agriculture, but it approximately doubles the usable land.
If that's not possible, would it be possible using non-electric optics and rainwater collection to get natural light and water inside to grow other types of crops on multiple stories on a single plot of land?
It's raining pretty hard right now here in Los Angeles (which is a rarity). In our yard we have a small amount of grass, some fruit trees, and a number of lower-water plants. They'll use some of it, but the majority is just going to run off into the streets and drain to the ocean. If we could collect it, we could water our yard for at least several months with it. (You know, now that you no longer need a permit to collect rain water 🙄.) I wonder how viable that could be? I wonder if you could do something like have a basement that's just a large tank for holding rain water that you later pump into the plants to help them grow?
Overall I agree with you. But there’s nothing wrong with the idea itself. This should be a tax funded effort. A nation wealthy enough to do so could dramatically lower the cost of producing food...
Overall I agree with you. But there’s nothing wrong with the idea itself. This should be a tax funded effort. A nation wealthy enough to do so could dramatically lower the cost of producing food by providing farms with a more open version of this technology.
I definitely agree that this should be an open project. Here's an article from Logic Mag about open-source agriculture. I think there are communities all over the world that could get an...
I definitely agree that this should be an open project. Here's an article from Logic Mag about open-source agriculture. I think there are communities all over the world that could get an open-source version of this up and running. But I do not believe in the fully-centralized Silicon Valley version.
These articles always make me happy. I'm usually a doom and gloom kind of guy expecting that there might not be a world for my future grand children's children to inherit. But, these stories seem...
These articles always make me happy. I'm usually a doom and gloom kind of guy expecting that there might not be a world for my future grand children's children to inherit. But, these stories seem to be show me a glimmer of hope that we all won't starve to death at least! Even if we end up destroying most of the arable land due to top soil erosion and we kill the seas by overfishing, we might still find a way to survive.
In this article, even if they are off by two orders of magnitude they'd still be out performing conventional farms. That feels significant. I wonder if there are any major pitfalls to this approach. If not I think this will become a common way to produce food in the foreseeable future just due to the economic advantages.
I am skeptical of this project. Not of vertical farming or using machine learning to aid in the management of the farm, but of the fact that this is going to replace farming around the world.
In a way, I see this as imperialistic farming. To assume that this is the preferred way of farming for the rest of the world is pretty narrow-minded. Besides, it presents the same supply-chain issues as the current industrial agriculture complex. The difference here is that this is a tech company. Modern farmers aren't stupid, and neither are the people in developing countries, but this sort of company postures itself as a techno-utopian savior that "disrupts" modern farmers and their practices and assumes that the infrastructure for this is just readily available everywhere. It's trying to supersede modern farmers and assumes that adding robots and "AI" makes this superior. This sort of tech-based farming also ignores the very valuable resurgence in regenerative agriculture, which is sustainable and encourages local production.
Excuse me for being incredulous, but there are many very qualified individuals seeking to answer tough questions about modern agriculture, and I just don't buy into the Silicon Valley solution. Maybe as part of a whole, but I do not see a world where it replaces "horizontal" farming.
I’ve read elsewhere that this approach works for certain vegetables like lettuce that grow quickly because they are mostly water, provided they also sell for a lot to restaurants because they’re so fresh.
It’s not cost-competitive for most crops, but might still be a profitable niche.
Yep. As far as I understand it, this is basically a dead end in terms of scaling to mass-production of the majority of crops. It's kind of like aquaculture, which has been around for a long time, and does work, but it only functions economically with a couple of species, doesn't replace deep sea catch, and also doesn't taste as good.
Vertical farming is great for water-rich, fast growing crops. Think alfalfa, lettuce, micro greens, and perhaps even strawberries. You're not going to get potatoes, the majority of legumes, tomatoes, or other staples and high calorie crops out of this.
That's not to say it's not effective in its niche, but this isn't going to herald in some future where the amount of food for a million people can be grown in a building. It's really hard to compete with free sunlight, free soil, and rain.
The truth of the matter is that not every process is guaranteed to improve continually forever. There are limits, dead ends, and it's very hard for the human brain—especially technologically-oriented individuals who are attuned to the idea of growth and continued improvement, to sometimes grasp that some things just don't scale like you'd think they would.
Yes, there do seem to be limits currently, and maybe for a long time. But this seems too confident a prediction? People can be creative. Maybe some workarounds might be found, eventually? It's difficult to prove impossibility.
Shrug, you're right that no one can predict the future, but people can take some damn good guesses without needing much insight, especially against processes that bump up against physical laws, like Tesla's desire for beaming wireless power to planes; and in this case, simple thermodynamics.
There's nothing here that wasn't possible 50-100 years ago, bar perhaps the efficiency of LED lighting (which is rapidly approaching its own limit), and the AI aspect, which, depending on your position, is either a sleazy venture capital pitch, or something that does yield some practical gains, up to the limit of the growing efficiency of the crop.
I don't see anything about vertical farms that violates thermodynamics. This is about economics and in particular, the cost of inputs. Perhaps electricity might get cheaper in some places, particularly if it's okay if it's somewhat intermittent.
Disclaimer: Despite growing up in a moderately rural part of the midwestern US, I have a black thumb and know very little about farming. These may be ignorant questions. Feel free to tell me so.
Yeah, I read similar comments on HackerNews. They claimed that free natural light and rainwater also made regular farms much more cost effective than piping in water and using grow lights or other technology.
But it made me wonder about this. Would it still be viable and perhaps produce something more if we made the following changes:
It's not 10 stories of agriculture, but it approximately doubles the usable land.
If that's not possible, would it be possible using non-electric optics and rainwater collection to get natural light and water inside to grow other types of crops on multiple stories on a single plot of land?
It's raining pretty hard right now here in Los Angeles (which is a rarity). In our yard we have a small amount of grass, some fruit trees, and a number of lower-water plants. They'll use some of it, but the majority is just going to run off into the streets and drain to the ocean. If we could collect it, we could water our yard for at least several months with it. (You know, now that you no longer need a permit to collect rain water 🙄.) I wonder how viable that could be? I wonder if you could do something like have a basement that's just a large tank for holding rain water that you later pump into the plants to help them grow?
I'm not an expert either. I guess we will see what people come up with?
It's a niche as compared to "entirely transforming agriculture."
Overall I agree with you. But there’s nothing wrong with the idea itself. This should be a tax funded effort. A nation wealthy enough to do so could dramatically lower the cost of producing food by providing farms with a more open version of this technology.
I definitely agree that this should be an open project. Here's an article from Logic Mag about open-source agriculture. I think there are communities all over the world that could get an open-source version of this up and running. But I do not believe in the fully-centralized Silicon Valley version.
These articles always make me happy. I'm usually a doom and gloom kind of guy expecting that there might not be a world for my future grand children's children to inherit. But, these stories seem to be show me a glimmer of hope that we all won't starve to death at least! Even if we end up destroying most of the arable land due to top soil erosion and we kill the seas by overfishing, we might still find a way to survive.
In this article, even if they are off by two orders of magnitude they'd still be out performing conventional farms. That feels significant. I wonder if there are any major pitfalls to this approach. If not I think this will become a common way to produce food in the foreseeable future just due to the economic advantages.
Very interesting, although I’m curious to see what crops they could grow besides lettuce and greens.