20 ms·

Startup Puts Everything You Need for a Two-Acre Farm in a Shipping Container

511 points by kungfudoi 10y ago

cobbzilla 10y ago
surprised no one has mentioned farmbot yet. for those with much less space than 2 acres, or just want to start smaller: https://www.farmbot.io https://www.farmbot.io
roel_v 10y ago
Pretty light on details, even the website of this company itself. The claim of being able to feed 150 people off 2 acres (about 1 hectare, for those of us who like to think in units that make sense) is a pretty wild one. Maybe you could grow potatoes with [150 x 1700 x 365] calories in them in a climate where you can grow year round, but that's surely not what they're insinuating in their marketing pictures.
- sweettea 10y ago
  Jean-Martin Fortier, in Quebec (not known for its balmy climate), successfully runs a 200-family CSA on 1.5 acres, which is an even higher level of intensive cropping than this box proposes. No, not everything can be grown on 2 acres for 150 people, but you can grow all the vegetables needed.
  - saycheese 10y ago
    "Rise of the High-Profit Micro Farm" appears to cover the topic in depth: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13310038 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13310038
  - roel_v 10y ago
    A CSA with 200 customers != 'feed 200 people'. Yes with intensive agriculture methods you can grow enough to harvest 150 or 200 boxes of vegetables a week during most part of the year; that's still only - what? 10, 20% at most of the calorie intake of those people? And most of those calories are carbs, too - there's going to be very little protein and fat in those boxes. And not year round, either. Again, yes you can grow lots of potatoes (potatoes are better than e.g. corn for this purpose because they keep better than corn with only slightly lower caloric yield per area unit. Yes you can process corn e.g. into flour but that then has to be calculated into the total energy input, and it requires much more preparation afterwards to turn it back into edible food; again with high energy inputs) for a few years (need to rotate crops, especially nightshade family crops) to close the gap over the winter season; but fill your boxes with potatoes and a pumpkin here or there for 3 months once and watch your subscriptions plummet next spring. People don't generally believe me when I say this, but I've made this point often: for self-sufficiency and/or small scale farming like the GP is proposing, you need a hectare (2 acres) to feed a family year-round. The reason people don't want to believe this is because it shows that it's impossible to do this sort of farming at scale, because there simply isn't enough land to feed everybody this way. So we need industrial scale farming today to produce the food people want in the quantities we need it. I say this as someone with a 1 hectare experimental alternative agriculture plot; it's not that I don't want better, more sustainable agriculture systems. It's just that the 'solutions' being proposed are wildly insufficient, and I'm not talking double digit percentages, but orders of magnitude. How do we fix it - I don't know. But I do (by now) recognize snake oil and sophistry when I see it.
- ComputerGuru 10y ago
  I would say corn, then potato. But you're right, the startup isn't being all that forthcoming with details and it's likely their claims are (greatly) exaggerated, or perhaps, from a purely "well, technically..." point-of-view. There's an excellent article that champions the calories-per-acre metric by WP: https://www.washingtonpost.com/lifestyle/food/in-defense-of-corn-the-worlds-most-important-food-crop/2015/07/12/78d86530-25a8-11e5-b77f-eb13a215f593_story.html https://www.washingtonpost.com/lifestyle/food/in-defense-of-... In the calorie department, corn is king [..] corn averages roughly 15 million calories per acre [..] wheat comes in at about 4 million calories per acre, soy at 6 million. Rice is also very high-yielding, at 11 million, and potatoes are one of the few crops that can rival corn: They also yield about 15 million [..] Broccoli yields about 2.5 million calories per acre, and spinach is under 2 million
  - adrianN 10y ago
    The very optimistic 150 * 1700 * 365 metric above means that you need 93 Million / 15 Million = ~6.2 acres.
  - chiph 10y ago
    These are 1st year or 2nd year numbers. The output per-acre will steadily decline afterwards unless you know to set some land aside to be fallow and grow something that will return nitrogen to the soil. And like was mentioned by dghughes, rotation is important. From about the middle ages to the early 20th century, European farmers practiced the three-crop rotation scheme. Winter wheat or rye in one field, peas, lentils or beans in a second, and the third would be "resting". It got replaced in Britain and Belgium with the four-crop rotation plan, which produced more calories. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crop_rotation https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crop_rotation
  - chrissnell 10y ago
    If I was designing a two-acre farm to feed my family, I wouldn't devote much space to corn. Corn is a very useful crop but mostly once it's processed and you need a lot of it. Here's what I think I'd grow: Potatoes - Incredibly easy to grow. Produces a ton of food. Can be grown in trash cans on otherwise unusable land. Very versatile and useful in so many cuisines. If I had to place my bets on one staple crop, it's potatoes. Green beans (Blue Lake variety or similar) - Also very easy to grow. You trellis them and they don't take up a lot of ground space. Incredibly bountiful crop--you'll have trash bags full from 50 sq ft of beans. Puts nutrients back in the soil--very good crop to rotate. Kale - Nutritious, versatile crop. Easy to grow. Tomatoes - Nutritious and so easy to grow. Can be grown vertically in raised pots for more space efficiency. Tomatillos - Tasty, good for sauces. These grow as voraciously as the green beans. Pumpkins, squashes, etc. - These are wandering vines so you can plant them in good soil on the edge of unusable land and let them grow out over the areas that you couldn't plant in. Various lettuces - Not easy to grow--they're susceptible to pests and they bolt as soon as the weather gets too warm--but they grow fast and if your family likes salad, you'll eat a lot of them.
- devoply 10y ago
  Yeah farming is by far one of the hardest businesses in developed economy. It's a good idea for schools and the like, you know just to get the community spirit going and get in touch with nature, and other hippie stuff like that. But the reality is this is going to make not an iota of difference in the world. What is needed are better policies and laws on ethical farming, and holding up corporate conglomerates up to those laws.
- yann63 10y ago
  There's a gardeners society here (Les Jardiniers de France) which sells a set of packets of seeds which are said to be able to grow on 200m2 and feed a family of 4 people.
  - roel_v 10y ago
    They probably say 'grow vegetables for a family of 4'. On 200m2, you'd have an abundance of vegetables, yes; at least in warm climates like in southern France. But not enough to be self-sufficient, and a 200m2 traditional vegetable garden is a lot of work, too (one day a week, averaged over the year, probably?).
    - lmickh 10y ago
      Takes a bit more then that to make a 200m2 plot thrive. My experience has been that it would roughly equate to 3-4 days of 4-6hrs. That is assuming you are keeping on top of all of the tasks and not using any serious tooling. If you do that and have good conditions/knowledge, you'll see a density that is enough to provide for 4 and generate a small surplus.
- jaclaz 10y ago
  I have troubles in computing the BOM (Bill Of Materials) of such a thing. 1) a container 2) a tin shed leaning on it on one side 3) a small plastic? nursery/seeding house on the other side 4) a 3 Kwh solar plant (including batteries, etc.) 5) a bunch of pumps (and I presume pipes) for drip irrigation 6) web connectivity 7) possibly a bunch of hand farming tools do not sum up to costs that justify the US$ 50,000/60,000 sell price, maybe I am missing something very relevant? And - though admittedly I am not an agriculture expert - the 150 people feeding out of 1 hectare sounds like an extremely tall story to me, I would think more at around 10/15 people per acre (in a proper, fertile piece of land with good climate).
  - atourgates 10y ago
    I was trying to do the math here too. Here's what I came up with. 1) Shipping Container - ~$2,000 2) Tin Shed - Maybe another ~$1,000 3) Hoop Greenhouse - ~$400 [1] 4) 3Kwh Solar Plant with Batteries - ~$8,500 [2] 5) 2 Acre Drip Irrigation System - ~$3,000 [3] 6) WiFi Access - $1,000 (I have no idea what hardware/capabilities they're delivering here, but it seems like that's a safe number) 7) A Bunch of Hand Farming Tools - $1,000 (Another guesstimate) 8) A 1,000 gallon water storage tank - ~$700 [4] So that takes us to about $17,600. Let's add another $5,000 for preparation, packaging, research and educational materials. Let's add another $5,000 for stuff that's more expensive than my guesstimates, and remove nothing for the article's claimed efficiencies that makes this so much more cost-effective than buying a la carte. That still only puts us at $28,000, so either there's something I'm totally missing here, or this is total BS. [1] http://www.greenhousemegastore.com/product/16-foot-wide-cold-frame/cold-frames http://www.greenhousemegastore.com/product/16-foot-wide-cold... [2] http://www.bimblesolar.com/3kwcomplete-sunny-island http://www.bimblesolar.com/3kwcomplete-sunny-island [3] https://www.berryhilldrip.com/Kit-Pro-2-This-Complete-Kit-will-includes-all-the-essentials-for-a-2-ACRE-crop-using-a-Pond-or-River..html https://www.berryhilldrip.com/Kit-Pro-2-This-Complete-Kit-wi... [4] http://www.plastic-mart.com/category/9/plastic-water-tanks http://www.plastic-mart.com/category/9/plastic-water-tanks
    - RyJones 10y ago
      where are you getting WWT containers for $2k? Last one I was involved in was about $8k for WWT + shipping and picking, which was about another $2k with some minimal site prep (pea gravel and railroad ties). Prices were slightly lower to buy them in Seattle instead of the closest port, but the lower purchase price was offset by the much larger shipping costs
billpg 10y ago
"a test plot [in Ethiopia] for Farm From a Box had to be cancelled, due to ethnic protests there" There's a sentence that asks more questions than it answers.
- treehau5 10y ago
  http://lmgtfy.com/?q=ethnic+protests+in+Ethiopia http://lmgtfy.com/?q=ethnic+protests+in+Ethiopia
- pjc50 10y ago
  Not specifically related to the farm. Ethiopia is a very non-free country, as is nearby Eritrea. We just don't hear much about it because journalism is impossible and the government is pro-west.
  - lisivka 10y ago
    Can you explain "pro-west"? I suspect it means somebody who says "I like West. West will help us", not a liberal mind. Liberal philosophy roughly means freedom and same rights to everyone, including very bad persons, in exchange to strict execution of written laws. So to be truly pro-west, person must advocate same right to everyone, including e.g. gays, and strong independent court for everyone, including e.g. top leaders and officials, which will adhere to written laws religiously. He also must fight to death with bribes and bribers. Are you sure you labeling correct person with "pro-west" label? PS. It's looks like offtopic here. Should I delete this message?
    - pjc50 10y ago
      Well, yes, "pro-west" is usually used to mean "compliant with US foreign policy", not "liberal". Regardless of whether this is a good thing by other standards. By your metric, even large parts of the "west" and United States aren't "pro-west". Sadly.
      - lisivka 10y ago
        Yes, large parts of "west" are not "pro-west". Moreover, even most liberal liberals will use utilitarian philosophy in case of war or war-like situation. Usually, it takes about 3 years of war to convert a liberal country back to utilitarian. It's why USA and Britain bombed Dresden, Hiroshima, Nagasaki, which is a war crime, — because they are engaged in war for more than 3 years. Liberal philosophy is luxury. NATO allowed to liberal countries to rise. Without NATO, a war with a strong neighborhood will quickly kick out any liberal minds from heads of people of a west country. Liberal philosophy can be represented in mathematical logic by simple algorithm in a simple game. Game rules: player can make bad(+1,-1), e.g. war, neutral (0,0) or good (+1,+1), e.g. cooperation, moves. Optimal strategy: do a single good move to player neighborhood(s) and then copy their behavior, AKA "pay it forward". It's proven that this algorithm is optimal for growth when all players have equal size and power. For game with unequal players or when group dynamic is allowed (e.g alliances), it's good (not an optimal, because group dynamic is Turing complete, so it's impossible to prove that an algorithm is optimal) only for biggest and most powerful players, otherwise liberal algorithm will make the player to be the most valuable target very quickly. So, to win as liberal, player must be big and powerful, like USA, or be member of large defense alliance, like NATO. If you are liberal and you are nor USA nor in NATO, you are target (e.g. Kuwait - Iraq, Taiwan - China) and your life will be short, unless you will convert your country to utilitarian dictatorship or will create a mix of two, like in Israel, which is unstable.
daveguy 10y ago
It seems odd to me that this is a for-profit company.
- orasis 10y ago
  Profits are the things that allow valuable products to scale. Its odd to me that Venezuela thought that getting rid of profits for producers would help society.
  - daveguy 10y ago
    Non-profit doesn't mean the company can't make a profit on what it sells or even pay employees a fair salary. It does mean that profits go back into the company, rather than having profits siphoned off by investors and shareholders. Non-profit is pro-reinvestment and therefore pro-scaleup.
    - witty_username 10y ago
      Without profits investors and shareholders won't invest. Indeed, you could consider investors and shareholders in a similar manner to workers and lenders; investors provide money and in exchange the company gives them profits.
      - GrinningFool 10y ago
        > Indeed, you could consider investors and shareholders in a similar manner to workers and lenders; investors provide money and in exchange the company gives them profits. To clarify: Investors provide money once and in exchange the company gives them (or whomever they transfer the stock to) profits forever. Is there any model which allows a structure for stocks to expire after a reasonable period (10-20 years but it would vary by industry).
        emodendroket 10y ago
        I guess the model for that is an interest-bearing loan.
mi100hael 10y ago
> All of those things affect the ultimate price of the box, and that’s why we have a range from about $50,000 to $60,000. If you were to a la carte all the different components that we put into this kit, it would end up costing you more than what we’re charging. I seriously doubt that. $50k for what appears to basically be 2 acres of irrigation equipment and a solar-powered raspberry pi is absurd. It also looks like they've so far deployed exactly 1 of these setups in the real world and haven't even really started producing units for sale. Right now this venture is a complete pipe dream and feels awfully out of touch.
- cylinder 10y ago
  My scam senses were tingling before I got to the comments. Most likely this is a routine NGO/EDU/Gov scam backed by an aggressive and shiny sales approach.
  - smoodles 10y ago
    This is not a scam. This is the real deal, with years of research and testing behind it. Disclaimer: I know one of the principals directly.
    - roel_v 10y ago
      You should ping them to get them to answer some questions on here.
      - deleted 10y ago
        [deleted]
  - koolba 10y ago
    > Most likely this is a routine NGO/EDU/Gov scam backed by an aggressive and shiny sales approach. And this is why I don't like those Gov (capital G intentional) programs. The scamsters are the best at exploiting them. That's how you end up with things like this: http://www.cbsnews.com/news/free-golf-cart-but-call-it-a-low-speed-neighborhood-vehicle/ http://www.cbsnews.com/news/free-golf-cart-but-call-it-a-low...
agentgt 10y ago
I think I like the farmbot.io idea a little bit better as it seems far more practical. After all I'm not looking to grow all my food but mainly the dirty dozen vegetables/fruits (as well as seasonal ones I like). One of the main reasons I want to grow food though is some vegetables are not carried by my local grocery stores (I have to go to a farmer market or expensive grocery store). For example many grocery stores do not sell Japanese yams, Yuca, various peppers, or plantains (I suppose plantains would be difficult to grow). I also would like to do it all inside as well (because I live in New England and have more inside space than outside and various other reasons). Basically a refrigerator size farming appliance that you plugin with plumbing and electricity.
- orasis 10y ago
  Unless they put the farmbot on wheels, you're talking about too small of a square footage to generate any interesting yields. You'll spend WAY more time maintaining the bot than you would just planting and mulching. The farmbot development is important, but won't be commercially viable with the current fixed rail system.
  - agentgt 10y ago
    Well that is what I'm wondering. One of the big issues is real estate. I wonder if it would be more viable instead of just going 2D to make a more 3D system (ie stack plants ala hydroponics). Obviously the sun is way more efficient and preferred but if you live in an area where the sun isn't exactly available that much of the year it might be worth it for some automated easy to use large indoor like closet system or cabinet particularly in more urban areas.
    - orasis 10y ago
      As much as it's fun to think about, food doesn't need to be grown in urban areas with expensive real estate. Green houses and hydroponics are great, but they can just as well be done on cheap land. The biggest difficulty in food production isn't land, water, and sunlight - its management at scale. This is why the vast majority of everyone's calories comes from large tractor managed commodity crops. As a metaphor, the easy part of IT is ordering the servers, switches, etc. The setup takes some labor, but the real difficulty is the ongoing management.
dghughes 10y ago
>...and even individuals who want to start a farm. As a person who lives in a farming area this seems like putting a computer and a box of red bull in a box and labeling it "computer programmer kit". I'm not a farmer but things like crop rotation, regulations, WHIMIS (pesticides/herbicides), dangers such as the PTO on the tractor and other farm dangers all needed training. You see at least once per year some farm hand injured by crushing or falling there are so many dangers.
- chinathrow 10y ago
  > all needed training Absolutely true. I do think though that such a box would be coming with a big manual/e-learning/video course to complete the hardware.
- deleted 10y ago
  [deleted]
- jbob2000 10y ago
  >We have a three-part training program that comes with the box. One: Covering sustainable farming, making sure everyone knows a little bit in terms of crop rotation, and composting, and intercropping. Two: Covering technology use and maintenance, making sure that the individuals know how to maintain and troubleshoot all of the components of the farm. Three: Farming as an enterprise, making sure that there is a market-based approach to farming. So it's more like they give you a computer, a box of redbull, and a couple books on putting together a MEAN stack. I think it's a good start for someone who wants to get their feet wet.
  - chrissnell 10y ago
    That's a lot of investment for someone getting their feet wet. I've been growing food for my family at home for the last four years and while I don't have two acres to farm, I can tell you that equipment has been the least of my problems. Learning to grow food has been a gradual process for me, learning what works for my soil and my climate. I can't imagine trying to start with a Conex full of equipment and two acres to farm, unless you have a local farmer there to help you along. It's so much easier to start small, a few hundred square feet, and to get the advice of a local gardening club or garden store when it comes to choosing what to plant.
ericzawo 10y ago
I used to work with a company that modified shipping containers for a whole slew of uses, including hydroponic growing of vegetables. Shipping containers present a great solution to food production but sadly many of the companies I've seen attempt to do this sort of thing get bogged down in the details of implementing them to various clients (such as the article's mention of testing in Ethiopia). One company, however, that has seemed to get it all right is http://www.freightfarms.com/ http://www.freightfarms.com/ I'm very curious to see where they go. No affiliation, I just know a few happy customers of theirs.
- web007 10y ago
  Thought this was FreightFarms from the description. I haven't seen the important details on either side, but it seems a lot easier to guarantee yields and more automated / automate-able by FF than by DIY farm-in-a-box.
- anotheryou 10y ago
  Why would you want to keep the sunlight out?
orasis 10y ago
I love the idea, but as a fairly well-off hobby farmer myself, there is no way I would spend that much on this product. I bought 1 mile of drip tape for $150 off of https://www.berryhilldrip.com https://www.berryhilldrip.com Solar panels are a cheap commodity. There are charge controllers which will only turn on the DC if you're over a certain voltage for the pump. Again, I love the idea, but its way off on execution at this point.
- terda12 10y ago
  Even if the parts were very optimized price/performance wise, would it still be a good idea? I would imagine that each place has a specific biome that is suitable for specific crops, each person has a different amount of acrerage, etc.
  - orasis 10y ago
    You're right that situations are individual - but actually the water distribution side of things can be fairly generic. But note that drip tape is incompatible with tractor-based agriculture and will only be used with perennial or labor intensive annual crops.
    - mythrwy 10y ago
      Drip tape sometimes is used in tractor based agriculture. They have a reel mount that lays the tape (usually when plastic is applied to the bed). Then they throw the tape away at the end of the season. Commercial strawberry growers use this quite often. But yes, to your point, high dollar crops.
spraak 10y ago
It seems very unlikely that anyone wishing to start a farm would spend 50k on an all in one kit but instead carefully select individual components
- VLM 10y ago
  I could see their idea of a parts kit working better for specific tasks than for "farming in general". In my limited experience with mushrooms I almost instantly went from too much wood and sawdust to know what to do with to the opposite. Even in the field of mushrooms there are the wood varieties and the animal waste compost varieties. And I suppose the psychedelic varieties. I grew my own shiitake with some modest success. The people who burn their scrap woodworking wood are on to something in that a fire turns scrap into heat with 100% success which is a much higher success rate than I experienced with mushrooms. Surely a veg garden kit would look wildly different than a grain farm kit. Ditto orchards and berries. Then you get into cash crops, I can't live off peppers directly but I can certainly grow a lot of them, and I can trade. There is an aspect of specialization that I've fooled around with most of the above or have a family member who did, but my green thumb is container-style-garden pepper production and given a marginally functional economic system I'd be better off maxing out my pepper production, selling almost all of it, and buying a nice balanced diet, than trying to grow my own "everything". In a grid-up normalcy situation my mint production is economically worthless, but in grid-down crash situation I suspect my mint would be quite valuable for flavoring. Grid down in USA is unlikely but has Ethiopia been grid up at any time since the 60s? Perhaps now? If so good, for them. But the point remains that not all of the world is booted up in the world economy and for areas that are not, some weird stuff like sunflower oil probably would sell pretty well until the world economy boots up again in that country. It might not matter if you can't get a shipping crate delivered intact to a down-grid situation country.
al_chemist 10y ago
Sounds like Garden of Eden Creation Kit (G.E.C.K.).
nnain 10y ago
Does it pack a tractor in? Who's gonna till the soil? Very click-baity. I can pack in all the required farming equipment needed for a 2 acre land in under $20,000 in India (including a good tractor!). And I get to chose what I want. $50,000-$60,000 is a STEEP price tag to suggest to African farmers I assume! And then there would be a maintenance costs. These are just two of the field tested equipments that work (with spare parts available throught the Indian market at least) and are available with many options - https://www.mahindratractor.com/ https://www.mahindratractor.com/ http://www.jains.com/irrigation/drip%20irrigation%20system.htm http://www.jains.com/irrigation/drip%20irrigation%20system.h...
- nnain 10y ago
  Also farms usually have a store room attached to keep the equipment. It's also cool in there cause it's made in a traditional way - thatched roof, wood, mud, thick walls etc. So it makes for a nice resting place when it's hot. Why would anyone want to lose a piece of their farm land to keep a container and also pay for it!
  - jdowner 10y ago
    One reason why you may want a container is because it is a movable structure. That means that you do not need a building permit. Acquiring a building permit requires at least a class 5 road. This is the case for New Hampshire. I don't know how representative it is though. Also this not uncommon when for larger lots, but I'm not really sure if there are differences from lots as small as 2 acres.
    - xg15 10y ago
      Africa.
    - Johnny555 10y ago
      If that were indeed a hard requirement, it seems like it would prevent a farmer building any structure within his property that's not adjoining a public (i.e. Class V) road. And indeed the planning board can make an exception: A private road, but as with Class VI roads, only if the governing body, after consulting with the planning board has adopted a policy allowing building on that particular private road, or portion thereof, and then only if the owner has recorded a notice in the registry of deeds acknowledging that the town is not liable for maintenance... So I would think that a farmer that wants to build a storage shed on the far side of his field would be able to get a permit as long as it's accessible by some private road (even a class VI dirt road)
pontifier 10y ago
I had a similar idea years ago, the goal was to build a kit that someone from the developed world could use to go somewhere lacking in modern farming equipment, set themselves up as a sultan by buying cheap land, farming it effectively with hired labor, with the eventual goal of building yourself a palace. I called it Sultanomics... it was a fairly juvenile daydream, that also included acquiring a Harem... But, the base idea was that a rising tide lifts all ships, and that by increasing efficiency you could help to kickstart the economic development in an area that otherwise would remain stagnant.
phillytom 10y ago
This reminds me (somewhat unfortunately) of the Playpump[1] which I saw referenced again in some product reading about really understanding customer and user needs in building new product. The Playpump was a playground toy that pumped water - got great PR and raised lots of money. Unfortunately it was also less efficient than existing pumps, required training, was more expensive and was not field repairable. [1] http://unitedexplanations.org/english/2012/03/22/the-story-of-playpumps-merry-go-rounds-water-and-failures-in-development-aid/ http://unitedexplanations.org/english/2012/03/22/the-story-o...
toyfarmer 10y ago
I live on a 2 acre hobby farm. Here are some obvious pieces missing from the box: Tractor Backhoe Rototiller Auger Fencing First necessity: water. Where will you get it from? They include a pump. That's nice. How will you dig the hole to get down to the water in order to pump it? How will you dig the holes for your fence posts? Yes you can use a manual post-hole digger. That's what I did. I don't recommend it. Does the box include posts and wire? How will you compost? I have several animals that generate a lot of manure. The easiest way to turn it is with a rototiller--preferrably connected to the PTO on the tractor because the manure pile is very large. It would take a day to turn it with a walk-behind tiller. It would take one day a week to collect the new manure by hand without a box scraper on a tractor. Ever have to bury livestock? You need a deep hole. Anything too shallow attracts predators. I've buried a few by hand. I don't recommend it. So, a little 25 hp tractor with a 3-pt PTO and accessories including auger, tiller, box scraper, backhoe, and front-end bucket is almost mandatory unless you have a lot of free labor. And this is supposed to be sustainable off-grid, so that needs to be electric. See the Global Village Construction Set (http://opensourceecology.org/gvcs/ http://opensourceecology.org/gvcs/).
contingencies 10y ago
If anyone hasn't read it, check out The One Straw Revolution, and compare to this approach.
jvandonsel 10y ago
My first thought was "How can they fit two acres of topsoil in a shipping container?"
- pinaceae 10y ago
  no, it's filled to the brim with 100% bullshit. taking the VC game to the next level.
johnhenry 10y ago
I think the problem here is going to be with the agricultural industry. If major industry leaders perceive these as a threat to their operations, it's likely that they will lobby congress to either regulate these our of existence, or somehow just make them flat out illegal.
- randomdata 10y ago
  I had less capital tied up in my >100 acre farm for many years than this small box costs. I'm not quite sure who is going to buy it at all, let alone it reaching a point of it becoming some kind of threat.
kccqzy 10y ago
> Every box also comes with its own renewable energy system. Everything is solar. We’ve got three kilowatts of solar energy pre-installed on the actual kit. What do they mean by this? Kilowatt is not a unit of energy, but a unit of power. Does that mean they provide equipment that is rated to produce three kilowatts? I'm no farmer but that sounds like awfully little power for power-hungry farm equipment.
programLyrique 10y ago
There is an agricultural startup also using containers, first for strawberries, but they literally want to grow fruits or vegetables in a container, while aiming at a better taste: http://www.agricool.co/ http://www.agricool.co/ The idea seems to target cities, to decrease the time to market, so that they can optimize the fruits or vegetables for taste and not for conservation.
terda12 10y ago
I dont see the point of this. If I were to start a farm I'd buy some farming books on amazon, do my research, and buy the best equipment part per part. I dont see why anyone would want to spend 50k on some random farming kit.
deleted 10y ago
[deleted]
kelvin0 10y ago
There really are different 'cliques' on HN, depending on which subject is posted. And this one seems to be the 'not so positive' clique. If framework is bench marked, or if people create a great CSS suite and animations, you get (mostly) constructive criticism. A company is actually doing something about bigger issues which could positively affect the lives of many people in a sustainable way ... and we get this. I'm not saying to turn off our skepticism and critical thinking, but at least recognize the effort and the potential of such an idea. It might introduce people who never though of farming to a whole new way of life. It's not VR, or a new JS framework, but it has a lot of potential.(BTW I am a developer, and am not affiliated in any way with them).
- orasis 10y ago
  There are quite a few of us here with some farm experience that simply don't think this product ads up. Its like posting an article about a $50k Linux distro aimed at coffee shops.
  - kelvin0 10y ago
    I understand this, and maybe it's an opportunity for you to find out more about them considering your expertise. Following your fact finding quest you could then post a detailed blog about your analysis for other HN'ers to read. I would be glad to read such a review with facts and figures explaining objectively what is wrong (or right!) about the proposed product. Keep us posted!
    - oppositelock 10y ago
      One side of my family comes from a farming background, and I've been around working farms half my life, the impoverished near-subsistence type. This product wouldn't be all that useful. The hard part of running a farm is knowing the local growing conditions, crops which work in these conditions, and then, the harrowing amount of work involved in getting the thing productive. Drip irrigation is cool once set up, but it's not durable and you need to replace it frequently as it gets damaged, breaks down due to weather, some animal chews it, whatever. Their solar driven pump is indeed a labor saving device, but it's a low power low volume pump useful for drip irrigation. I can guarantee you that nobody's going to be supplying affordable drip irrigation gear in a poor area. However, given a well, a powerful irrigation pump would be a huge help, particularly if it can move enough volume to fill traditional irrigation ditches for the times drip tubing is unattainable. The IoT metrics stuff isn't very useful. The sort of person who farms in the places targeted by this isn't very tech savvy, and what's more important than temperature and water delivery statistics is walking the field and inspecting for weeds and pests. The shipping container could make a usable shed, but so would a traditional shed, usually made from scrounged, cheap, local materials. If you want to help poor farmers, I would suggest the following - A powerful irrigation pump, after helping to drill a well, solar driven is cool. - A small ride-on type tractor built to be dead simple to fix and reliable with plowing, seeding, and harvesting attachments. This is the major work of running a farm. Bonus points if this thing doesn't require gasoline, but that would be prohibitively expensive in terms of solar and batteries, since duty cycle would be very high. - Some kind of good, watertight and pest resistant grain storage containers, enough to store a few tons. - A bunch of lessons in the local language teaching people how to maximize food production from minimal resources in a given part of the world. What crops, how to plant, weed, and harvest them, how to store the harvest. - A bunch of fertilizer and pesticide. This will run out one day, so perhaps lessons on how to farm without it, but that drops production to like 1/4 of what's possible for a given unit of land. Modern high density farming requires a permanent supply of modern chemicals. Now, A farm in a box is a cool idea, and the market may be affluent hobbyists, but this won't fix food shortage problems because the gear in it isn't particularly useful to a small farm, but also because food shortage problems are primarily political.
CodeSheikh 10y ago
$60,000 seems like a lot of amount for starving and underdeveloped areas. I went to their funding page and read more about what's inside the "box" https://republic.co/farm-from-a-box https://republic.co/farm-from-a-box 1: micro-drip irrigation system 2: 3kW solar power 3: Pumping System 4: IOT setup 5: Energy management 6: Basic farm tools As of 2016, average cost of solar power is approximately $3.00 per watt so ~ $9K. I have installed a decent sized drip water irrigation system in my backyard purchased with stuff off of Amazon for a total of $200 max. IOT is unnecessary here. I mean would "poor" people require to purchase Iphones and Macbooks too to see data collected from the IOT setup? A manual water pump like this (http://www.top-pumps.com/pro/20090613195613.jpg http://www.top-pumps.com/pro/20090613195613.jpg )or even an electric one does not go north of $1k-1.5k. Most solar panels and reserve battery system come with a built-in energy management feature. This box does not even contain a variety of seeds, soil, fertilizer and other mandatory things required for proper farming. Think outside the box.
- amorphid 10y ago
  For fun, I was looking at cheap (compared to San Francisco) land with no infrastructure in Wyoming. 1 acre of land, $10K USD. Drilling a water well that might work, $5K to $30K.
  - ci5er 10y ago
    The soil here (in much of the state) is fairly good, but the growing season is pathetically short. Assuming you're on the plains and get a full day of sun. (If not, it's even shorter). But, on the plains, then you've got more wind than you want to deal with. So - why Wyoming? Why don't you go some place with milder weather that isn't a desert like Kansas or Arkansas?
    - amorphid 10y ago
      I was just poking around the Internet for the cheapest land I could find. I didn't look for a super long time. I think land below a certain price doesn't stand out because there's little incentive to promote it, so you have to hunt for better prices.
syphilis2 10y ago
I'm having a difficult time finding what is included in the box from the official website. "Sensor Technology", "Basic Tools", these trigger alarm bells in my head. The biggest cost component seems to be for the solar power, which I believe is used to power the irrigation system. Overall this sounds costly, has few details about the components need for farming, and shows off bells and whistles like "solar power, micro-drip irrigation, wi-fi and cloud, and data mapping".
Animats 10y ago
It comes with WiFi, but not a tractor. Or even some small powered push-type tiller. Do they assume the farmer has an ox or a pair of mules? For $50K, they should at least throw in a decent garden tractor with a 3-point hitch and some basic attachments. Priorities. For comparison, see this article in Modern Farmer.[1] This guy has revenue of about $100K per acre and has books and tools on how to replicate his farming techniques. He's working on a turnkey small farming package, and has a track record of making small farms work. [1] http://modernfarmer.com/2016/10/jm-fortier/ http://modernfarmer.com/2016/10/jm-fortier/
- new_hackers 10y ago
  I assumed for the price that would be the first thing in the box. Seriously, a man can do quite a lot with a PTO and some hydraulics. Add to that the ability to move this power around the field and you can really get some work done.
  - snarf21 10y ago
    And if it was diesel, they can make their own fuel eventually too. "Early experimenters on vegetable oil fuels included the French government and Dr. Diesel himself, who envisioned that pure vegetable oils could power early diesel engines for agriculture in remote areas of the world, where petroleum was not available at the time."
  - jasonwatkinspdx 10y ago
    Based on some experiences in rural Mexico, I think folks in the rich world underestimate how daunting power tools are to many people in the poor world. The majority of craftspeople I met and worked a touch with were extremely reluctant to try to use a circular saw, etc. These are folks that can use a machete with the precision of a surgeon. If you didn't grow up around powered equipment, it's a significant hurdle to get over, even when there are tremendous benefits.
- pn0 10y ago
  And he only uses a walk-behind. Curtis Stone also has a "do what I do and you can be successful" book: http://theurbanfarmer.co/ http://theurbanfarmer.co/
prewett 10y ago
The ROI on this for the customer seems pretty terrible. Farms aren't known for their high margins. And in places like Oklahoma, the minimum viable commercial farm is about 640 acres. I'm having a hard time seeing how spending $50k on this farm kit is going to produce a commercial return. I could see how it might enable subsistence farming, maybe, but if you're at that level, you don't have $50k to spend.
codeddesign 10y ago
So...we have a director in business and another in marketing that live in San Francisco who thought it would be a good idea to sell farmers a bunch of junk they don't need...or is there market American's who extra money to throw around? I don't get the need... 1. Most people in undeveloped countries know how to farm, but just lack specific necessities. 2. Unless you have knowledge of these electronic components, how would you ever fix them if they broke? That isn't very sustainable.. 3. What is the point if you have Amazon? Instead of a large container, FedEx drop's it off. in other word's, they are attempting to create a business where there is no need.
- wott 10y ago
  > they are attempting to create a business where there is no need. As 99% of startups :-)
macmac 10y ago
Kind of weird that they use a 40 foot container in most of their illustrations when it clearly states that they will be developing a 20 foot version first.
deleted 10y ago
[deleted]
peteforde 10y ago
This Brandi DiCarli? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ro4Mn7i7hQ8 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ro4Mn7i7hQ8
- LunaSea 10y ago
  Yup, seems like it. hahaha
ucaetano 10y ago
Why would you put it in a container? Containers are very hard to transport, you can't just throw it on the back of an ox cart, or pack mules. You need specialized - and expensive - transportation, as well as a special crane to unload it. Not to mention that you kill the local suppliers of agricultural equipment. And the price tag? Agricultural land is VERY cheap. You can buy an acre of the most expensive prime Corn Belt land for under $6000 [Edit: in some states this number is actually around $10k], while in emerging markets good land can go for as low as as few hundred dollars per acre. So a single container that can be used to farm two acres of land, could be used to buy 10 acres of the best land in the US, or 200 acres of land (or more) in emerging markets. Or you could hire 20 farm workers for 4 years in India. It is clear that the target is well-intended governments, who will write big checks, and leave the units rotting in some depot somewhere as they figure out what to do with it, draining resources which could be used in actual development (roads, infrastructure, rural insurance & credit). San Francisco & Silicon Valley, please go back to solving First World problems.
- syphilis2 10y ago
  Not to diminish your larger point, but your figures for expensive farm land in the cornbelt appears outdated to me. Farmland in southern Indiana (corn/soybeans/wheat) is selling above $10k per acre, with some specific plots around $15k (though this is not strictly because of farming potential so much as location and natural resources). There have been some great increases in value the past few years.
  - ucaetano 10y ago
    Thanks for the info, I added a note!
jimmytidey 10y ago
We'll look back on this article and it will sum up dysfunctional optimism around the idea of a 'startup'
stock_toaster 10y ago
From the title I was hoping to see a farm in a box (shipping container converted to a microfarm/greenhouse with solar panels or something).
jrnichols 10y ago
It's gotten more expensive since I first read about this back in 2015. http://www.ecowatch.com/solar-powered-farm-from-a-box-everything-you-need-to-run-an-off-grid-f-1882128391.html http://www.ecowatch.com/solar-powered-farm-from-a-box-everyt... So in two years, they're still just at a single prototype installation? This almost sounds like it's just a back end for the founder's other ambitions, whatever they might be. A quick search of the name shows her as a speaker at some women's forums, (with the typical theme of "empowering others" and other social buzzwords) SXSW, and pics of her at Burning Man. I think the concept is nice, but totally unaffordable for the third world nations that they say they want to serve. It's also not that people in the middle east/etc don't know how to farm. They often times just lack modern farming equipment. Not sure if a 'farm in a box' solution is what they actually need.
Abishek_Muthian 10y ago
Water.
aaron695 10y ago
Since the jury is in, this is bad idea / vaporware I do find it interesting it's currently at 380 points on HN. I' like to think it was up voted as an example of a bad idea, but I suspect not.
keypusher 10y ago
The average income in Africa is below $1000 / year. You aren't going to sell a $60,000 container to a subsistence farmer, even if the whole town pitches in.
almonj 10y ago
These people don't actually make anything, they just buy a bunch of items and resell them as a package, it has to be overpriced for them to make any money. It seems like a really dumb idea for a business, anyone with any sense would just do their own research and buy what they need themselves. Notice they specifically want to work with governments, which typically means creating elaborate lying games in order to get access to stolen money.
stefek99 10y ago
Love the profit margins!
johnalamos 10y ago
http://www.agricool.co/ http://www.agricool.co/ does this better

511 points by kungfudoi 10y ago

surprised no one has mentioned farmbot yet. for those with much less space than 2 acres, or just want to start smaller: https://www.farmbot.io https://www.farmbot.io

roel_v 10y ago

Pretty light on details, even the website of this company itself. The claim of being able to feed 150 people off 2 acres (about 1 hectare, for those of us who like to think in units that make sense) is a pretty wild one. Maybe you could grow potatoes with [150 x 1700 x 365] calories in them in a climate where you can grow year round, but that's surely not what they're insinuating in their marketing pictures.

sweettea 10y ago
Jean-Martin Fortier, in Quebec (not known for its balmy climate), successfully runs a 200-family CSA on 1.5 acres, which is an even higher level of intensive cropping than this box proposes. No, not everything can be grown on 2 acres for 150 people, but you can grow all the vegetables needed.
- saycheese 10y ago
  "Rise of the High-Profit Micro Farm" appears to cover the topic in depth: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13310038 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13310038
- roel_v 10y ago
  A CSA with 200 customers != 'feed 200 people'. Yes with intensive agriculture methods you can grow enough to harvest 150 or 200 boxes of vegetables a week during most part of the year; that's still only - what? 10, 20% at most of the calorie intake of those people? And most of those calories are carbs, too - there's going to be very little protein and fat in those boxes. And not year round, either. Again, yes you can grow lots of potatoes (potatoes are better than e.g. corn for this purpose because they keep better than corn with only slightly lower caloric yield per area unit. Yes you can process corn e.g. into flour but that then has to be calculated into the total energy input, and it requires much more preparation afterwards to turn it back into edible food; again with high energy inputs) for a few years (need to rotate crops, especially nightshade family crops) to close the gap over the winter season; but fill your boxes with potatoes and a pumpkin here or there for 3 months once and watch your subscriptions plummet next spring. People don't generally believe me when I say this, but I've made this point often: for self-sufficiency and/or small scale farming like the GP is proposing, you need a hectare (2 acres) to feed a family year-round. The reason people don't want to believe this is because it shows that it's impossible to do this sort of farming at scale, because there simply isn't enough land to feed everybody this way. So we need industrial scale farming today to produce the food people want in the quantities we need it. I say this as someone with a 1 hectare experimental alternative agriculture plot; it's not that I don't want better, more sustainable agriculture systems. It's just that the 'solutions' being proposed are wildly insufficient, and I'm not talking double digit percentages, but orders of magnitude. How do we fix it - I don't know. But I do (by now) recognize snake oil and sophistry when I see it.
ComputerGuru 10y ago
I would say corn, then potato. But you're right, the startup isn't being all that forthcoming with details and it's likely their claims are (greatly) exaggerated, or perhaps, from a purely "well, technically..." point-of-view. There's an excellent article that champions the calories-per-acre metric by WP: https://www.washingtonpost.com/lifestyle/food/in-defense-of-corn-the-worlds-most-important-food-crop/2015/07/12/78d86530-25a8-11e5-b77f-eb13a215f593_story.html https://www.washingtonpost.com/lifestyle/food/in-defense-of-... In the calorie department, corn is king [..] corn averages roughly 15 million calories per acre [..] wheat comes in at about 4 million calories per acre, soy at 6 million. Rice is also very high-yielding, at 11 million, and potatoes are one of the few crops that can rival corn: They also yield about 15 million [..] Broccoli yields about 2.5 million calories per acre, and spinach is under 2 million
- adrianN 10y ago
  The very optimistic 150 * 1700 * 365 metric above means that you need 93 Million / 15 Million = ~6.2 acres.
- chiph 10y ago
  These are 1st year or 2nd year numbers. The output per-acre will steadily decline afterwards unless you know to set some land aside to be fallow and grow something that will return nitrogen to the soil. And like was mentioned by dghughes, rotation is important. From about the middle ages to the early 20th century, European farmers practiced the three-crop rotation scheme. Winter wheat or rye in one field, peas, lentils or beans in a second, and the third would be "resting". It got replaced in Britain and Belgium with the four-crop rotation plan, which produced more calories. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crop_rotation https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crop_rotation
- chrissnell 10y ago
  If I was designing a two-acre farm to feed my family, I wouldn't devote much space to corn. Corn is a very useful crop but mostly once it's processed and you need a lot of it. Here's what I think I'd grow: Potatoes - Incredibly easy to grow. Produces a ton of food. Can be grown in trash cans on otherwise unusable land. Very versatile and useful in so many cuisines. If I had to place my bets on one staple crop, it's potatoes. Green beans (Blue Lake variety or similar) - Also very easy to grow. You trellis them and they don't take up a lot of ground space. Incredibly bountiful crop--you'll have trash bags full from 50 sq ft of beans. Puts nutrients back in the soil--very good crop to rotate. Kale - Nutritious, versatile crop. Easy to grow. Tomatoes - Nutritious and so easy to grow. Can be grown vertically in raised pots for more space efficiency. Tomatillos - Tasty, good for sauces. These grow as voraciously as the green beans. Pumpkins, squashes, etc. - These are wandering vines so you can plant them in good soil on the edge of unusable land and let them grow out over the areas that you couldn't plant in. Various lettuces - Not easy to grow--they're susceptible to pests and they bolt as soon as the weather gets too warm--but they grow fast and if your family likes salad, you'll eat a lot of them.
devoply 10y ago
Yeah farming is by far one of the hardest businesses in developed economy. It's a good idea for schools and the like, you know just to get the community spirit going and get in touch with nature, and other hippie stuff like that. But the reality is this is going to make not an iota of difference in the world. What is needed are better policies and laws on ethical farming, and holding up corporate conglomerates up to those laws.
yann63 10y ago
There's a gardeners society here (Les Jardiniers de France) which sells a set of packets of seeds which are said to be able to grow on 200m2 and feed a family of 4 people.
- roel_v 10y ago
  They probably say 'grow vegetables for a family of 4'. On 200m2, you'd have an abundance of vegetables, yes; at least in warm climates like in southern France. But not enough to be self-sufficient, and a 200m2 traditional vegetable garden is a lot of work, too (one day a week, averaged over the year, probably?).
  - lmickh 10y ago
    Takes a bit more then that to make a 200m2 plot thrive. My experience has been that it would roughly equate to 3-4 days of 4-6hrs. That is assuming you are keeping on top of all of the tasks and not using any serious tooling. If you do that and have good conditions/knowledge, you'll see a density that is enough to provide for 4 and generate a small surplus.
jaclaz 10y ago
I have troubles in computing the BOM (Bill Of Materials) of such a thing. 1) a container 2) a tin shed leaning on it on one side 3) a small plastic? nursery/seeding house on the other side 4) a 3 Kwh solar plant (including batteries, etc.) 5) a bunch of pumps (and I presume pipes) for drip irrigation 6) web connectivity 7) possibly a bunch of hand farming tools do not sum up to costs that justify the US$ 50,000/60,000 sell price, maybe I am missing something very relevant? And - though admittedly I am not an agriculture expert - the 150 people feeding out of 1 hectare sounds like an extremely tall story to me, I would think more at around 10/15 people per acre (in a proper, fertile piece of land with good climate).
- atourgates 10y ago
  I was trying to do the math here too. Here's what I came up with. 1) Shipping Container - ~$2,000 2) Tin Shed - Maybe another ~$1,000 3) Hoop Greenhouse - ~$400 [1] 4) 3Kwh Solar Plant with Batteries - ~$8,500 [2] 5) 2 Acre Drip Irrigation System - ~$3,000 [3] 6) WiFi Access - $1,000 (I have no idea what hardware/capabilities they're delivering here, but it seems like that's a safe number) 7) A Bunch of Hand Farming Tools - $1,000 (Another guesstimate) 8) A 1,000 gallon water storage tank - ~$700 [4] So that takes us to about $17,600. Let's add another $5,000 for preparation, packaging, research and educational materials. Let's add another $5,000 for stuff that's more expensive than my guesstimates, and remove nothing for the article's claimed efficiencies that makes this so much more cost-effective than buying a la carte. That still only puts us at $28,000, so either there's something I'm totally missing here, or this is total BS. [1] http://www.greenhousemegastore.com/product/16-foot-wide-cold-frame/cold-frames http://www.greenhousemegastore.com/product/16-foot-wide-cold... [2] http://www.bimblesolar.com/3kwcomplete-sunny-island http://www.bimblesolar.com/3kwcomplete-sunny-island [3] https://www.berryhilldrip.com/Kit-Pro-2-This-Complete-Kit-will-includes-all-the-essentials-for-a-2-ACRE-crop-using-a-Pond-or-River..html https://www.berryhilldrip.com/Kit-Pro-2-This-Complete-Kit-wi... [4] http://www.plastic-mart.com/category/9/plastic-water-tanks http://www.plastic-mart.com/category/9/plastic-water-tanks
  - RyJones 10y ago
    where are you getting WWT containers for $2k? Last one I was involved in was about $8k for WWT + shipping and picking, which was about another $2k with some minimal site prep (pea gravel and railroad ties). Prices were slightly lower to buy them in Seattle instead of the closest port, but the lower purchase price was offset by the much larger shipping costs

billpg 10y ago

"a test plot [in Ethiopia] for Farm From a Box had to be cancelled, due to ethnic protests there" There's a sentence that asks more questions than it answers.

treehau5 10y ago
http://lmgtfy.com/?q=ethnic+protests+in+Ethiopia http://lmgtfy.com/?q=ethnic+protests+in+Ethiopia
pjc50 10y ago
Not specifically related to the farm. Ethiopia is a very non-free country, as is nearby Eritrea. We just don't hear much about it because journalism is impossible and the government is pro-west.
- lisivka 10y ago
  Can you explain "pro-west"? I suspect it means somebody who says "I like West. West will help us", not a liberal mind. Liberal philosophy roughly means freedom and same rights to everyone, including very bad persons, in exchange to strict execution of written laws. So to be truly pro-west, person must advocate same right to everyone, including e.g. gays, and strong independent court for everyone, including e.g. top leaders and officials, which will adhere to written laws religiously. He also must fight to death with bribes and bribers. Are you sure you labeling correct person with "pro-west" label? PS. It's looks like offtopic here. Should I delete this message?
  - pjc50 10y ago
    Well, yes, "pro-west" is usually used to mean "compliant with US foreign policy", not "liberal". Regardless of whether this is a good thing by other standards. By your metric, even large parts of the "west" and United States aren't "pro-west". Sadly.
    - lisivka 10y ago
      Yes, large parts of "west" are not "pro-west". Moreover, even most liberal liberals will use utilitarian philosophy in case of war or war-like situation. Usually, it takes about 3 years of war to convert a liberal country back to utilitarian. It's why USA and Britain bombed Dresden, Hiroshima, Nagasaki, which is a war crime, — because they are engaged in war for more than 3 years. Liberal philosophy is luxury. NATO allowed to liberal countries to rise. Without NATO, a war with a strong neighborhood will quickly kick out any liberal minds from heads of people of a west country. Liberal philosophy can be represented in mathematical logic by simple algorithm in a simple game. Game rules: player can make bad(+1,-1), e.g. war, neutral (0,0) or good (+1,+1), e.g. cooperation, moves. Optimal strategy: do a single good move to player neighborhood(s) and then copy their behavior, AKA "pay it forward". It's proven that this algorithm is optimal for growth when all players have equal size and power. For game with unequal players or when group dynamic is allowed (e.g alliances), it's good (not an optimal, because group dynamic is Turing complete, so it's impossible to prove that an algorithm is optimal) only for biggest and most powerful players, otherwise liberal algorithm will make the player to be the most valuable target very quickly. So, to win as liberal, player must be big and powerful, like USA, or be member of large defense alliance, like NATO. If you are liberal and you are nor USA nor in NATO, you are target (e.g. Kuwait - Iraq, Taiwan - China) and your life will be short, unless you will convert your country to utilitarian dictatorship or will create a mix of two, like in Israel, which is unstable.

daveguy 10y ago

It seems odd to me that this is a for-profit company.

orasis 10y ago
Profits are the things that allow valuable products to scale. Its odd to me that Venezuela thought that getting rid of profits for producers would help society.
- daveguy 10y ago
  Non-profit doesn't mean the company can't make a profit on what it sells or even pay employees a fair salary. It does mean that profits go back into the company, rather than having profits siphoned off by investors and shareholders. Non-profit is pro-reinvestment and therefore pro-scaleup.
  - witty_username 10y ago
    Without profits investors and shareholders won't invest. Indeed, you could consider investors and shareholders in a similar manner to workers and lenders; investors provide money and in exchange the company gives them profits.
    - GrinningFool 10y ago
      > Indeed, you could consider investors and shareholders in a similar manner to workers and lenders; investors provide money and in exchange the company gives them profits. To clarify: Investors provide money once and in exchange the company gives them (or whomever they transfer the stock to) profits forever. Is there any model which allows a structure for stocks to expire after a reasonable period (10-20 years but it would vary by industry).
      - emodendroket 10y ago
        I guess the model for that is an interest-bearing loan.

mi100hael 10y ago

> All of those things affect the ultimate price of the box, and that’s why we have a range from about $50,000 to $60,000. If you were to a la carte all the different components that we put into this kit, it would end up costing you more than what we’re charging. I seriously doubt that. $50k for what appears to basically be 2 acres of irrigation equipment and a solar-powered raspberry pi is absurd. It also looks like they've so far deployed exactly 1 of these setups in the real world and haven't even really started producing units for sale. Right now this venture is a complete pipe dream and feels awfully out of touch.

cylinder 10y ago
My scam senses were tingling before I got to the comments. Most likely this is a routine NGO/EDU/Gov scam backed by an aggressive and shiny sales approach.
- smoodles 10y ago
  This is not a scam. This is the real deal, with years of research and testing behind it. Disclaimer: I know one of the principals directly.
  - roel_v 10y ago
    You should ping them to get them to answer some questions on here.
    - deleted 10y ago
      [deleted]
- koolba 10y ago
  > Most likely this is a routine NGO/EDU/Gov scam backed by an aggressive and shiny sales approach. And this is why I don't like those Gov (capital G intentional) programs. The scamsters are the best at exploiting them. That's how you end up with things like this: http://www.cbsnews.com/news/free-golf-cart-but-call-it-a-low-speed-neighborhood-vehicle/ http://www.cbsnews.com/news/free-golf-cart-but-call-it-a-low...

agentgt 10y ago

I think I like the farmbot.io idea a little bit better as it seems far more practical. After all I'm not looking to grow all my food but mainly the dirty dozen vegetables/fruits (as well as seasonal ones I like). One of the main reasons I want to grow food though is some vegetables are not carried by my local grocery stores (I have to go to a farmer market or expensive grocery store). For example many grocery stores do not sell Japanese yams, Yuca, various peppers, or plantains (I suppose plantains would be difficult to grow). I also would like to do it all inside as well (because I live in New England and have more inside space than outside and various other reasons). Basically a refrigerator size farming appliance that you plugin with plumbing and electricity.

orasis 10y ago
Unless they put the farmbot on wheels, you're talking about too small of a square footage to generate any interesting yields. You'll spend WAY more time maintaining the bot than you would just planting and mulching. The farmbot development is important, but won't be commercially viable with the current fixed rail system.
- agentgt 10y ago
  Well that is what I'm wondering. One of the big issues is real estate. I wonder if it would be more viable instead of just going 2D to make a more 3D system (ie stack plants ala hydroponics). Obviously the sun is way more efficient and preferred but if you live in an area where the sun isn't exactly available that much of the year it might be worth it for some automated easy to use large indoor like closet system or cabinet particularly in more urban areas.
  - orasis 10y ago
    As much as it's fun to think about, food doesn't need to be grown in urban areas with expensive real estate. Green houses and hydroponics are great, but they can just as well be done on cheap land. The biggest difficulty in food production isn't land, water, and sunlight - its management at scale. This is why the vast majority of everyone's calories comes from large tractor managed commodity crops. As a metaphor, the easy part of IT is ordering the servers, switches, etc. The setup takes some labor, but the real difficulty is the ongoing management.

dghughes 10y ago

>...and even individuals who want to start a farm. As a person who lives in a farming area this seems like putting a computer and a box of red bull in a box and labeling it "computer programmer kit". I'm not a farmer but things like crop rotation, regulations, WHIMIS (pesticides/herbicides), dangers such as the PTO on the tractor and other farm dangers all needed training. You see at least once per year some farm hand injured by crushing or falling there are so many dangers.

chinathrow 10y ago
> all needed training Absolutely true. I do think though that such a box would be coming with a big manual/e-learning/video course to complete the hardware.
deleted 10y ago
[deleted]
jbob2000 10y ago
>We have a three-part training program that comes with the box. One: Covering sustainable farming, making sure everyone knows a little bit in terms of crop rotation, and composting, and intercropping. Two: Covering technology use and maintenance, making sure that the individuals know how to maintain and troubleshoot all of the components of the farm. Three: Farming as an enterprise, making sure that there is a market-based approach to farming. So it's more like they give you a computer, a box of redbull, and a couple books on putting together a MEAN stack. I think it's a good start for someone who wants to get their feet wet.
- chrissnell 10y ago
  That's a lot of investment for someone getting their feet wet. I've been growing food for my family at home for the last four years and while I don't have two acres to farm, I can tell you that equipment has been the least of my problems. Learning to grow food has been a gradual process for me, learning what works for my soil and my climate. I can't imagine trying to start with a Conex full of equipment and two acres to farm, unless you have a local farmer there to help you along. It's so much easier to start small, a few hundred square feet, and to get the advice of a local gardening club or garden store when it comes to choosing what to plant.

ericzawo 10y ago

I used to work with a company that modified shipping containers for a whole slew of uses, including hydroponic growing of vegetables. Shipping containers present a great solution to food production but sadly many of the companies I've seen attempt to do this sort of thing get bogged down in the details of implementing them to various clients (such as the article's mention of testing in Ethiopia). One company, however, that has seemed to get it all right is http://www.freightfarms.com/ http://www.freightfarms.com/ I'm very curious to see where they go. No affiliation, I just know a few happy customers of theirs.

web007 10y ago
Thought this was FreightFarms from the description. I haven't seen the important details on either side, but it seems a lot easier to guarantee yields and more automated / automate-able by FF than by DIY farm-in-a-box.
anotheryou 10y ago
Why would you want to keep the sunlight out?

orasis 10y ago

I love the idea, but as a fairly well-off hobby farmer myself, there is no way I would spend that much on this product. I bought 1 mile of drip tape for $150 off of https://www.berryhilldrip.com https://www.berryhilldrip.com Solar panels are a cheap commodity. There are charge controllers which will only turn on the DC if you're over a certain voltage for the pump. Again, I love the idea, but its way off on execution at this point.

terda12 10y ago
Even if the parts were very optimized price/performance wise, would it still be a good idea? I would imagine that each place has a specific biome that is suitable for specific crops, each person has a different amount of acrerage, etc.
- orasis 10y ago
  You're right that situations are individual - but actually the water distribution side of things can be fairly generic. But note that drip tape is incompatible with tractor-based agriculture and will only be used with perennial or labor intensive annual crops.
  - mythrwy 10y ago
    Drip tape sometimes is used in tractor based agriculture. They have a reel mount that lays the tape (usually when plastic is applied to the bed). Then they throw the tape away at the end of the season. Commercial strawberry growers use this quite often. But yes, to your point, high dollar crops.

spraak 10y ago

It seems very unlikely that anyone wishing to start a farm would spend 50k on an all in one kit but instead carefully select individual components

VLM 10y ago
I could see their idea of a parts kit working better for specific tasks than for "farming in general". In my limited experience with mushrooms I almost instantly went from too much wood and sawdust to know what to do with to the opposite. Even in the field of mushrooms there are the wood varieties and the animal waste compost varieties. And I suppose the psychedelic varieties. I grew my own shiitake with some modest success. The people who burn their scrap woodworking wood are on to something in that a fire turns scrap into heat with 100% success which is a much higher success rate than I experienced with mushrooms. Surely a veg garden kit would look wildly different than a grain farm kit. Ditto orchards and berries. Then you get into cash crops, I can't live off peppers directly but I can certainly grow a lot of them, and I can trade. There is an aspect of specialization that I've fooled around with most of the above or have a family member who did, but my green thumb is container-style-garden pepper production and given a marginally functional economic system I'd be better off maxing out my pepper production, selling almost all of it, and buying a nice balanced diet, than trying to grow my own "everything". In a grid-up normalcy situation my mint production is economically worthless, but in grid-down crash situation I suspect my mint would be quite valuable for flavoring. Grid down in USA is unlikely but has Ethiopia been grid up at any time since the 60s? Perhaps now? If so good, for them. But the point remains that not all of the world is booted up in the world economy and for areas that are not, some weird stuff like sunflower oil probably would sell pretty well until the world economy boots up again in that country. It might not matter if you can't get a shipping crate delivered intact to a down-grid situation country.

al_chemist 10y ago

Sounds like Garden of Eden Creation Kit (G.E.C.K.).

nnain 10y ago

Does it pack a tractor in? Who's gonna till the soil? Very click-baity. I can pack in all the required farming equipment needed for a 2 acre land in under $20,000 in India (including a good tractor!). And I get to chose what I want. $50,000-$60,000 is a STEEP price tag to suggest to African farmers I assume! And then there would be a maintenance costs. These are just two of the field tested equipments that work (with spare parts available throught the Indian market at least) and are available with many options - https://www.mahindratractor.com/ https://www.mahindratractor.com/ http://www.jains.com/irrigation/drip%20irrigation%20system.htm http://www.jains.com/irrigation/drip%20irrigation%20system.h...

nnain 10y ago
Also farms usually have a store room attached to keep the equipment. It's also cool in there cause it's made in a traditional way - thatched roof, wood, mud, thick walls etc. So it makes for a nice resting place when it's hot. Why would anyone want to lose a piece of their farm land to keep a container and also pay for it!
- jdowner 10y ago
  One reason why you may want a container is because it is a movable structure. That means that you do not need a building permit. Acquiring a building permit requires at least a class 5 road. This is the case for New Hampshire. I don't know how representative it is though. Also this not uncommon when for larger lots, but I'm not really sure if there are differences from lots as small as 2 acres.
  - xg15 10y ago
    Africa.
  - Johnny555 10y ago
    If that were indeed a hard requirement, it seems like it would prevent a farmer building any structure within his property that's not adjoining a public (i.e. Class V) road. And indeed the planning board can make an exception: A private road, but as with Class VI roads, only if the governing body, after consulting with the planning board has adopted a policy allowing building on that particular private road, or portion thereof, and then only if the owner has recorded a notice in the registry of deeds acknowledging that the town is not liable for maintenance... So I would think that a farmer that wants to build a storage shed on the far side of his field would be able to get a permit as long as it's accessible by some private road (even a class VI dirt road)

pontifier 10y ago

I had a similar idea years ago, the goal was to build a kit that someone from the developed world could use to go somewhere lacking in modern farming equipment, set themselves up as a sultan by buying cheap land, farming it effectively with hired labor, with the eventual goal of building yourself a palace. I called it Sultanomics... it was a fairly juvenile daydream, that also included acquiring a Harem... But, the base idea was that a rising tide lifts all ships, and that by increasing efficiency you could help to kickstart the economic development in an area that otherwise would remain stagnant.

phillytom 10y ago

This reminds me (somewhat unfortunately) of the Playpump[1] which I saw referenced again in some product reading about really understanding customer and user needs in building new product. The Playpump was a playground toy that pumped water - got great PR and raised lots of money. Unfortunately it was also less efficient than existing pumps, required training, was more expensive and was not field repairable. [1] http://unitedexplanations.org/english/2012/03/22/the-story-of-playpumps-merry-go-rounds-water-and-failures-in-development-aid/ http://unitedexplanations.org/english/2012/03/22/the-story-o...

toyfarmer 10y ago

I live on a 2 acre hobby farm. Here are some obvious pieces missing from the box: Tractor Backhoe Rototiller Auger Fencing First necessity: water. Where will you get it from? They include a pump. That's nice. How will you dig the hole to get down to the water in order to pump it? How will you dig the holes for your fence posts? Yes you can use a manual post-hole digger. That's what I did. I don't recommend it. Does the box include posts and wire? How will you compost? I have several animals that generate a lot of manure. The easiest way to turn it is with a rototiller--preferrably connected to the PTO on the tractor because the manure pile is very large. It would take a day to turn it with a walk-behind tiller. It would take one day a week to collect the new manure by hand without a box scraper on a tractor. Ever have to bury livestock? You need a deep hole. Anything too shallow attracts predators. I've buried a few by hand. I don't recommend it. So, a little 25 hp tractor with a 3-pt PTO and accessories including auger, tiller, box scraper, backhoe, and front-end bucket is almost mandatory unless you have a lot of free labor. And this is supposed to be sustainable off-grid, so that needs to be electric. See the Global Village Construction Set (http://opensourceecology.org/gvcs/ http://opensourceecology.org/gvcs/).

contingencies 10y ago

If anyone hasn't read it, check out The One Straw Revolution, and compare to this approach.

jvandonsel 10y ago

My first thought was "How can they fit two acres of topsoil in a shipping container?"

pinaceae 10y ago
no, it's filled to the brim with 100% bullshit. taking the VC game to the next level.

johnhenry 10y ago

I think the problem here is going to be with the agricultural industry. If major industry leaders perceive these as a threat to their operations, it's likely that they will lobby congress to either regulate these our of existence, or somehow just make them flat out illegal.

randomdata 10y ago
I had less capital tied up in my >100 acre farm for many years than this small box costs. I'm not quite sure who is going to buy it at all, let alone it reaching a point of it becoming some kind of threat.

kccqzy 10y ago

> Every box also comes with its own renewable energy system. Everything is solar. We’ve got three kilowatts of solar energy pre-installed on the actual kit. What do they mean by this? Kilowatt is not a unit of energy, but a unit of power. Does that mean they provide equipment that is rated to produce three kilowatts? I'm no farmer but that sounds like awfully little power for power-hungry farm equipment.

programLyrique 10y ago

There is an agricultural startup also using containers, first for strawberries, but they literally want to grow fruits or vegetables in a container, while aiming at a better taste: http://www.agricool.co/ http://www.agricool.co/ The idea seems to target cities, to decrease the time to market, so that they can optimize the fruits or vegetables for taste and not for conservation.

terda12 10y ago

I dont see the point of this. If I were to start a farm I'd buy some farming books on amazon, do my research, and buy the best equipment part per part. I dont see why anyone would want to spend 50k on some random farming kit.

deleted 10y ago

[deleted]

kelvin0 10y ago

There really are different 'cliques' on HN, depending on which subject is posted. And this one seems to be the 'not so positive' clique. If framework is bench marked, or if people create a great CSS suite and animations, you get (mostly) constructive criticism. A company is actually doing something about bigger issues which could positively affect the lives of many people in a sustainable way ... and we get this. I'm not saying to turn off our skepticism and critical thinking, but at least recognize the effort and the potential of such an idea. It might introduce people who never though of farming to a whole new way of life. It's not VR, or a new JS framework, but it has a lot of potential.(BTW I am a developer, and am not affiliated in any way with them).

orasis 10y ago
There are quite a few of us here with some farm experience that simply don't think this product ads up. Its like posting an article about a $50k Linux distro aimed at coffee shops.
- kelvin0 10y ago
  I understand this, and maybe it's an opportunity for you to find out more about them considering your expertise. Following your fact finding quest you could then post a detailed blog about your analysis for other HN'ers to read. I would be glad to read such a review with facts and figures explaining objectively what is wrong (or right!) about the proposed product. Keep us posted!
  - oppositelock 10y ago
    One side of my family comes from a farming background, and I've been around working farms half my life, the impoverished near-subsistence type. This product wouldn't be all that useful. The hard part of running a farm is knowing the local growing conditions, crops which work in these conditions, and then, the harrowing amount of work involved in getting the thing productive. Drip irrigation is cool once set up, but it's not durable and you need to replace it frequently as it gets damaged, breaks down due to weather, some animal chews it, whatever. Their solar driven pump is indeed a labor saving device, but it's a low power low volume pump useful for drip irrigation. I can guarantee you that nobody's going to be supplying affordable drip irrigation gear in a poor area. However, given a well, a powerful irrigation pump would be a huge help, particularly if it can move enough volume to fill traditional irrigation ditches for the times drip tubing is unattainable. The IoT metrics stuff isn't very useful. The sort of person who farms in the places targeted by this isn't very tech savvy, and what's more important than temperature and water delivery statistics is walking the field and inspecting for weeds and pests. The shipping container could make a usable shed, but so would a traditional shed, usually made from scrounged, cheap, local materials. If you want to help poor farmers, I would suggest the following - A powerful irrigation pump, after helping to drill a well, solar driven is cool. - A small ride-on type tractor built to be dead simple to fix and reliable with plowing, seeding, and harvesting attachments. This is the major work of running a farm. Bonus points if this thing doesn't require gasoline, but that would be prohibitively expensive in terms of solar and batteries, since duty cycle would be very high. - Some kind of good, watertight and pest resistant grain storage containers, enough to store a few tons. - A bunch of lessons in the local language teaching people how to maximize food production from minimal resources in a given part of the world. What crops, how to plant, weed, and harvest them, how to store the harvest. - A bunch of fertilizer and pesticide. This will run out one day, so perhaps lessons on how to farm without it, but that drops production to like 1/4 of what's possible for a given unit of land. Modern high density farming requires a permanent supply of modern chemicals. Now, A farm in a box is a cool idea, and the market may be affluent hobbyists, but this won't fix food shortage problems because the gear in it isn't particularly useful to a small farm, but also because food shortage problems are primarily political.

CodeSheikh 10y ago

$60,000 seems like a lot of amount for starving and underdeveloped areas. I went to their funding page and read more about what's inside the "box" https://republic.co/farm-from-a-box https://republic.co/farm-from-a-box 1: micro-drip irrigation system 2: 3kW solar power 3: Pumping System 4: IOT setup 5: Energy management 6: Basic farm tools As of 2016, average cost of solar power is approximately $3.00 per watt so ~ $9K. I have installed a decent sized drip water irrigation system in my backyard purchased with stuff off of Amazon for a total of $200 max. IOT is unnecessary here. I mean would "poor" people require to purchase Iphones and Macbooks too to see data collected from the IOT setup? A manual water pump like this (http://www.top-pumps.com/pro/20090613195613.jpg http://www.top-pumps.com/pro/20090613195613.jpg )or even an electric one does not go north of $1k-1.5k. Most solar panels and reserve battery system come with a built-in energy management feature. This box does not even contain a variety of seeds, soil, fertilizer and other mandatory things required for proper farming. Think outside the box.

amorphid 10y ago
For fun, I was looking at cheap (compared to San Francisco) land with no infrastructure in Wyoming. 1 acre of land, $10K USD. Drilling a water well that might work, $5K to $30K.
- ci5er 10y ago
  The soil here (in much of the state) is fairly good, but the growing season is pathetically short. Assuming you're on the plains and get a full day of sun. (If not, it's even shorter). But, on the plains, then you've got more wind than you want to deal with. So - why Wyoming? Why don't you go some place with milder weather that isn't a desert like Kansas or Arkansas?
  - amorphid 10y ago
    I was just poking around the Internet for the cheapest land I could find. I didn't look for a super long time. I think land below a certain price doesn't stand out because there's little incentive to promote it, so you have to hunt for better prices.

syphilis2 10y ago

I'm having a difficult time finding what is included in the box from the official website. "Sensor Technology", "Basic Tools", these trigger alarm bells in my head. The biggest cost component seems to be for the solar power, which I believe is used to power the irrigation system. Overall this sounds costly, has few details about the components need for farming, and shows off bells and whistles like "solar power, micro-drip irrigation, wi-fi and cloud, and data mapping".

Animats 10y ago

It comes with WiFi, but not a tractor. Or even some small powered push-type tiller. Do they assume the farmer has an ox or a pair of mules? For $50K, they should at least throw in a decent garden tractor with a 3-point hitch and some basic attachments. Priorities. For comparison, see this article in Modern Farmer.[1] This guy has revenue of about $100K per acre and has books and tools on how to replicate his farming techniques. He's working on a turnkey small farming package, and has a track record of making small farms work. [1] http://modernfarmer.com/2016/10/jm-fortier/ http://modernfarmer.com/2016/10/jm-fortier/

new_hackers 10y ago
I assumed for the price that would be the first thing in the box. Seriously, a man can do quite a lot with a PTO and some hydraulics. Add to that the ability to move this power around the field and you can really get some work done.
- snarf21 10y ago
  And if it was diesel, they can make their own fuel eventually too. "Early experimenters on vegetable oil fuels included the French government and Dr. Diesel himself, who envisioned that pure vegetable oils could power early diesel engines for agriculture in remote areas of the world, where petroleum was not available at the time."
- jasonwatkinspdx 10y ago
  Based on some experiences in rural Mexico, I think folks in the rich world underestimate how daunting power tools are to many people in the poor world. The majority of craftspeople I met and worked a touch with were extremely reluctant to try to use a circular saw, etc. These are folks that can use a machete with the precision of a surgeon. If you didn't grow up around powered equipment, it's a significant hurdle to get over, even when there are tremendous benefits.
pn0 10y ago
And he only uses a walk-behind. Curtis Stone also has a "do what I do and you can be successful" book: http://theurbanfarmer.co/ http://theurbanfarmer.co/

prewett 10y ago

The ROI on this for the customer seems pretty terrible. Farms aren't known for their high margins. And in places like Oklahoma, the minimum viable commercial farm is about 640 acres. I'm having a hard time seeing how spending $50k on this farm kit is going to produce a commercial return. I could see how it might enable subsistence farming, maybe, but if you're at that level, you don't have $50k to spend.

codeddesign 10y ago

So...we have a director in business and another in marketing that live in San Francisco who thought it would be a good idea to sell farmers a bunch of junk they don't need...or is there market American's who extra money to throw around? I don't get the need... 1. Most people in undeveloped countries know how to farm, but just lack specific necessities. 2. Unless you have knowledge of these electronic components, how would you ever fix them if they broke? That isn't very sustainable.. 3. What is the point if you have Amazon? Instead of a large container, FedEx drop's it off. in other word's, they are attempting to create a business where there is no need.

wott 10y ago
> they are attempting to create a business where there is no need. As 99% of startups :-)

macmac 10y ago

Kind of weird that they use a 40 foot container in most of their illustrations when it clearly states that they will be developing a 20 foot version first.

deleted 10y ago

[deleted]

peteforde 10y ago

This Brandi DiCarli? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ro4Mn7i7hQ8 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ro4Mn7i7hQ8

LunaSea 10y ago
Yup, seems like it. hahaha

ucaetano 10y ago

Why would you put it in a container? Containers are very hard to transport, you can't just throw it on the back of an ox cart, or pack mules. You need specialized - and expensive - transportation, as well as a special crane to unload it. Not to mention that you kill the local suppliers of agricultural equipment. And the price tag? Agricultural land is VERY cheap. You can buy an acre of the most expensive prime Corn Belt land for under $6000 [Edit: in some states this number is actually around $10k], while in emerging markets good land can go for as low as as few hundred dollars per acre. So a single container that can be used to farm two acres of land, could be used to buy 10 acres of the best land in the US, or 200 acres of land (or more) in emerging markets. Or you could hire 20 farm workers for 4 years in India. It is clear that the target is well-intended governments, who will write big checks, and leave the units rotting in some depot somewhere as they figure out what to do with it, draining resources which could be used in actual development (roads, infrastructure, rural insurance & credit). San Francisco & Silicon Valley, please go back to solving First World problems.

syphilis2 10y ago
Not to diminish your larger point, but your figures for expensive farm land in the cornbelt appears outdated to me. Farmland in southern Indiana (corn/soybeans/wheat) is selling above $10k per acre, with some specific plots around $15k (though this is not strictly because of farming potential so much as location and natural resources). There have been some great increases in value the past few years.
- ucaetano 10y ago
  Thanks for the info, I added a note!

jimmytidey 10y ago

We'll look back on this article and it will sum up dysfunctional optimism around the idea of a 'startup'

stock_toaster 10y ago

From the title I was hoping to see a farm in a box (shipping container converted to a microfarm/greenhouse with solar panels or something).

jrnichols 10y ago

It's gotten more expensive since I first read about this back in 2015. http://www.ecowatch.com/solar-powered-farm-from-a-box-everything-you-need-to-run-an-off-grid-f-1882128391.html http://www.ecowatch.com/solar-powered-farm-from-a-box-everyt... So in two years, they're still just at a single prototype installation? This almost sounds like it's just a back end for the founder's other ambitions, whatever they might be. A quick search of the name shows her as a speaker at some women's forums, (with the typical theme of "empowering others" and other social buzzwords) SXSW, and pics of her at Burning Man. I think the concept is nice, but totally unaffordable for the third world nations that they say they want to serve. It's also not that people in the middle east/etc don't know how to farm. They often times just lack modern farming equipment. Not sure if a 'farm in a box' solution is what they actually need.

Abishek_Muthian 10y ago

Water.

aaron695 10y ago

Since the jury is in, this is bad idea / vaporware I do find it interesting it's currently at 380 points on HN. I' like to think it was up voted as an example of a bad idea, but I suspect not.

keypusher 10y ago

The average income in Africa is below $1000 / year. You aren't going to sell a $60,000 container to a subsistence farmer, even if the whole town pitches in.

almonj 10y ago

These people don't actually make anything, they just buy a bunch of items and resell them as a package, it has to be overpriced for them to make any money. It seems like a really dumb idea for a business, anyone with any sense would just do their own research and buy what they need themselves. Notice they specifically want to work with governments, which typically means creating elaborate lying games in order to get access to stolen money.

stefek99 10y ago

Love the profit margins!

johnalamos 10y ago

http://www.agricool.co/ http://www.agricool.co/ does this better