5 ms·

I really enjoyed reading your well presented review of the present situation. In a philosophical sense, you seem to share many observations in common with Dimi

I really enjoyed reading your well presented review of the present situation. In a philosophical sense, you seem to share many observations in common with Dimitry Orlov and Howard Kunstler. The biggest stumbling block to your vision is that very few people want to work in agriculture. It is too hard, dirty, unglamorous, uncool. The highly educated youth want to work in flash offices on the latest smartphone app. Then you have the big agribusiness who own the political system and exploit it to their own ends. As you have noted the situation is dire in first-world countries. These countries have moved from an agrarian economy to to capitalistic one. Ecology be damned if it gets in the way of greater profits. In countries such as Vietnam, Thailand, Cambodia, etc - man power is not an issue. A sufficiently large proportion of the population still work on the land. Due to their low capital resources even cheap robotics are infeasible. China is a special case. Whilst they have a massive population, a very large proportion of their country is of low agricultural potential. But they, like Japan in the 1980s, are gravitating to the cities - it is a prestige thing for many. When they are looking to Africa, it isn't just the land they are eyeing, they are looking at the large potential low cost workforce already there. Basically re-inventing the colonial ambitions of the British, Dutch and Germans in the previous century.

jelliclesfarm 10y ago
I am familiar with Kunstler and peak oil although I haven't delved too deep into those topics. Many of my permaculture farmer friends are fans of Kunstler. For a while, I tried to farm without fossil fuels and it was tough!! I even considered aquaponics and hydroponics. While it can part of food production, it is too dependent on plastics and non biodegradable and is fossil fuel dependent. It is highly unstable to be trusted with growing food entirely. The extent to which we are reliant on fossil fuels is rather mind numbingly shocking. And the markets and distributions are all so inefficient that maybe it does make more sense to bring our food from South America. But the flip side of it is a loss of food security and food sovereignty. What happens during a natural disaster here or from where we import..what happens if markets crash or if there is a war. Local food production is super crucial. As a nation, Americans have no clue where their food comes from or the true cost of it. That's why I want my autonomous farm bots to be small in size, have mobility, to be able to swarm any sized farm, be modular and hopefully run on solar and be learning AI systems some day. Food is really really expensive to produce. Really really really high non-renewable input spending..irreversible damage causing..very inefficient and leaky costs. This madness can be stopped by just acknowledging the costs. That would automatically lead to efficient means of resolving this invisible looming crisis. What is stopping us is the low cost of food..and the assurance that the rest of the world won't let another human being starve to death. Should we raise cost of food? How can this be justified with any kind of conscience? Altho many in developed countries have no qualms about the habitat and lives and environmental damage caused in third world countries from where cheap food comes from...when rain forests are destroyed to grow soy and quinoa or fad of the week, we are so far removed from any awareness to be even accused of exploiting the vulnerables of the global economy. It's ignorance and not intentional malice. But it is likely that when we eat..chocolate or quinoa porridge or soy protein in smoothie, someone somewhere is being exploited. So how to work around this..can't raise prices for food. We can try some things like: 1. Decentralized local hubs of urban agriculture with commodity farming in certain rural areas. 2. Eliminate ag subsidies entirely. 3. All farming on corporate scale should be non-profit as food is a basic human right and no one should be able to profit off it. 4. A certain percentage of land should be allocated to agriculture. I think crowded cities and shrinking resources would bring forth the reality of our planet's limitations. 5. Agricultural land cannot be sold to non citizens. 6. Incentivize sustainablity/self sufficiency. 7. Incentivize small families and incentivize even more those who do not procreate. 8. Make it illegal to waste food(as they did recently in France) 9. Redefine distribution with local coops and farm guilds. 10. Tax imported food to be more expensive than locally grown. 11. Every town or county has land set aside as non transferable allotments like in the U.K. Imagine if we are cut off from oil supply..imagine if infrastructure breaks down..if dollar loses its value ..what would we do? Ok. I am being a little extreme here but consider it a thought experiment. What do we do? Where are our seeds? You can't save seeds if it's GMO. Without seed sovereignty, there is no food. If the only way farmers can get rid of weeds is to drive in 1000/ of lbs of equipment running on fossil fuels. Or rely on chemical weed killers. Or have an army of low paid farm workers pulling weeds, we might as well eat weeds. Where is our water going to come from? Regenerative agriculture is super drought tolerant. Urban edges should be the first line of defense and be the perimeter within which there is everything for self sufficient human habitats. AI that can learn from environmental inputs can be a great way to predict weather or droughts to create crop plans. We are already late. I am not saying that we should prepare for the zombie apocalypse(well..), but we need to get smart and real about our food. I am just a little insect in this whole picture and I only want to pitch in with innovating self sufficient clean energy and smart food production system. I just don't know how to go about pitching it to the right ears. In a few weeks, the next growing season in California will begin..the rhythms of farming will start again...I was hoping to maybe change at least one little process this season, but maybe next year. Thanks for hearing me out. Any input on disrupting or innovating food production to make it more smart is appreciated. It will give me something to think about all summer long as I weed my little field.

jelliclesfarm 10y ago

I am familiar with Kunstler and peak oil although I haven't delved too deep into those topics. Many of my permaculture farmer friends are fans of Kunstler. For a while, I tried to farm without fossil fuels and it was tough!! I even considered aquaponics and hydroponics. While it can part of food production, it is too dependent on plastics and non biodegradable and is fossil fuel dependent. It is highly unstable to be trusted with growing food entirely. The extent to which we are reliant on fossil fuels is rather mind numbingly shocking. And the markets and distributions are all so inefficient that maybe it does make more sense to bring our food from South America. But the flip side of it is a loss of food security and food sovereignty. What happens during a natural disaster here or from where we import..what happens if markets crash or if there is a war. Local food production is super crucial. As a nation, Americans have no clue where their food comes from or the true cost of it. That's why I want my autonomous farm bots to be small in size, have mobility, to be able to swarm any sized farm, be modular and hopefully run on solar and be learning AI systems some day. Food is really really expensive to produce. Really really really high non-renewable input spending..irreversible damage causing..very inefficient and leaky costs. This madness can be stopped by just acknowledging the costs. That would automatically lead to efficient means of resolving this invisible looming crisis. What is stopping us is the low cost of food..and the assurance that the rest of the world won't let another human being starve to death. Should we raise cost of food? How can this be justified with any kind of conscience? Altho many in developed countries have no qualms about the habitat and lives and environmental damage caused in third world countries from where cheap food comes from...when rain forests are destroyed to grow soy and quinoa or fad of the week, we are so far removed from any awareness to be even accused of exploiting the vulnerables of the global economy. It's ignorance and not intentional malice. But it is likely that when we eat..chocolate or quinoa porridge or soy protein in smoothie, someone somewhere is being exploited. So how to work around this..can't raise prices for food. We can try some things like: 1. Decentralized local hubs of urban agriculture with commodity farming in certain rural areas. 2. Eliminate ag subsidies entirely. 3. All farming on corporate scale should be non-profit as food is a basic human right and no one should be able to profit off it. 4. A certain percentage of land should be allocated to agriculture. I think crowded cities and shrinking resources would bring forth the reality of our planet's limitations. 5. Agricultural land cannot be sold to non citizens. 6. Incentivize sustainablity/self sufficiency. 7. Incentivize small families and incentivize even more those who do not procreate. 8. Make it illegal to waste food(as they did recently in France) 9. Redefine distribution with local coops and farm guilds. 10. Tax imported food to be more expensive than locally grown. 11. Every town or county has land set aside as non transferable allotments like in the U.K. Imagine if we are cut off from oil supply..imagine if infrastructure breaks down..if dollar loses its value ..what would we do? Ok. I am being a little extreme here but consider it a thought experiment. What do we do? Where are our seeds? You can't save seeds if it's GMO. Without seed sovereignty, there is no food. If the only way farmers can get rid of weeds is to drive in 1000/ of lbs of equipment running on fossil fuels. Or rely on chemical weed killers. Or have an army of low paid farm workers pulling weeds, we might as well eat weeds. Where is our water going to come from? Regenerative agriculture is super drought tolerant. Urban edges should be the first line of defense and be the perimeter within which there is everything for self sufficient human habitats. AI that can learn from environmental inputs can be a great way to predict weather or droughts to create crop plans. We are already late. I am not saying that we should prepare for the zombie apocalypse(well..), but we need to get smart and real about our food. I am just a little insect in this whole picture and I only want to pitch in with innovating self sufficient clean energy and smart food production system. I just don't know how to go about pitching it to the right ears. In a few weeks, the next growing season in California will begin..the rhythms of farming will start again...I was hoping to maybe change at least one little process this season, but maybe next year. Thanks for hearing me out. Any input on disrupting or innovating food production to make it more smart is appreciated. It will give me something to think about all summer long as I weed my little field.