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It's not a huge amount of work, but it is a significant time investment. I'm thinking more of a nearly-sealed box that is entirely automated, a family could pu

It's not a huge amount of work, but it is a significant time investment. I'm thinking more of a nearly-sealed box that is entirely automated, a family could purchase for a couple thousand dollars, and then it produces food for a few years. It's not so much robots in the sense of things which drive around the landscape that will improve that sort of things, but the work in the 'vertical farming' market. Isolated systems which eliminate the need for pesticides, herbicides, etc, can greatly reduce water usage, can optimize light cycling, maybe even automatically perform selective breeding to a degree, etc.

HeyLaughingBoy 8y ago
You're very unlikely to get a couple thousand dollars of food over a couple of years out of even a large "box," where the box is approximately the size of a bedroom. This is one of those cases where it's cheaper to simply buy the food from someone who has economies of scale on his side. It costs even less if you cut out the middlemen (supermarkets, distribution, etc) and buy directly from the farmers where possible.
nradov 8y ago
Vertical farming is not an economical method of producing useful quantities of food. The people pursuing it appear to be motivated by utopian idealism and inaccurate cost estimates. Any future "farm in a box" is going to require about as much labor as a garden does today. Someone has to clean the filters, wipe off the mold, plug the leaks, replace the corroded parts, etc. Those activities won't be practical to automate in our lifetimes.
- abecedarius 8y ago
  A lifetime is a long time. I have no trouble believing enclosed agriculture is uneconomical now, but look at the trends: robots and AI are set for a long run of improvement, daytime electricity is likely to get much cheaper with the progress in solar power (when prices have been roughly level since 1970), people increasingly want local and fresh food without pesticides, harm to the ecosystem is an increasingly big deal, and so is variability from climate change. A couple of more speculative possibilities: median income might start going up again (it roughly doubled in 1950-1970) and nuclear power could make a comeback with the new startups tackling it, for even more abundant cheap electricity. So how far is the tipping point for some crops, and then most?
deialtrous 8y ago
>but it is a significant time investment No, it really isn't. Place organic matter on the ground in fall or early spring. When the last frost has passed, plant seeds through it onto the ground. To do grow enough for a family of four is not even one day of work for one person. During the summer and fall, pick food and eat it. That's it. A robot isn't going to save enough time to be worth it. Using your palm-top to tell your robot tended garden to pick 300 grams of lettuce for you and then going out and picking it up from the robot isn't noticeably faster than just picking the lettuce yourself. >but the work in the 'vertical farming' market. That is not a real market. It is just techno-dystopian sci-fi. It has no purpose, there are not enough benefits to offset the huge downsides.
- jpatokal 8y ago
  > To do grow enough for a family of four is not even one day of work for one person. Citation needed. What crop would this be?
  - deialtrous 8y ago
    Citation of what? That seeds grow if you plant them? It isn't a crop, it is vegetables. You would hopefully plant things you want to eat, but I do potatoes, carrots, parsnips, turnips (rutabagas if you are american), celeriac, broccoli, cabbage, tomatoes, peppers, beans, peas, corn, cucumbers, squash, pumpkins, melons, onions, garlic, leeks, beets, and some salad stuff. I'm sure I'm forgetting something but you get the idea. Plus there's the perennials which obviously you don't have to plant every year like asparagus and most berries and herbs. I spend precisely two days per year on all non-harvesting activities but that's because I start everything from seed instead of buying started plants so one day to plant the seeds and one day to transplant them 2 months later. It is cheaper and lets you get a lot of heirloom varieties your local nursery probably won't carry, but it is more work. I use only four simple non-powered tools assuming you count a popsicle stick as a tool. If you are going to grow your mulch because you don't have trees or neighbors doing it for you then you'll have to have something to cut your mulch crop with too.

HeyLaughingBoy 8y ago

You're very unlikely to get a couple thousand dollars of food over a couple of years out of even a large "box," where the box is approximately the size of a bedroom. This is one of those cases where it's cheaper to simply buy the food from someone who has economies of scale on his side. It costs even less if you cut out the middlemen (supermarkets, distribution, etc) and buy directly from the farmers where possible.

nradov 8y ago

Vertical farming is not an economical method of producing useful quantities of food. The people pursuing it appear to be motivated by utopian idealism and inaccurate cost estimates. Any future "farm in a box" is going to require about as much labor as a garden does today. Someone has to clean the filters, wipe off the mold, plug the leaks, replace the corroded parts, etc. Those activities won't be practical to automate in our lifetimes.

abecedarius 8y ago
A lifetime is a long time. I have no trouble believing enclosed agriculture is uneconomical now, but look at the trends: robots and AI are set for a long run of improvement, daytime electricity is likely to get much cheaper with the progress in solar power (when prices have been roughly level since 1970), people increasingly want local and fresh food without pesticides, harm to the ecosystem is an increasingly big deal, and so is variability from climate change. A couple of more speculative possibilities: median income might start going up again (it roughly doubled in 1950-1970) and nuclear power could make a comeback with the new startups tackling it, for even more abundant cheap electricity. So how far is the tipping point for some crops, and then most?

deialtrous 8y ago

>but it is a significant time investment No, it really isn't. Place organic matter on the ground in fall or early spring. When the last frost has passed, plant seeds through it onto the ground. To do grow enough for a family of four is not even one day of work for one person. During the summer and fall, pick food and eat it. That's it. A robot isn't going to save enough time to be worth it. Using your palm-top to tell your robot tended garden to pick 300 grams of lettuce for you and then going out and picking it up from the robot isn't noticeably faster than just picking the lettuce yourself. >but the work in the 'vertical farming' market. That is not a real market. It is just techno-dystopian sci-fi. It has no purpose, there are not enough benefits to offset the huge downsides.

jpatokal 8y ago
> To do grow enough for a family of four is not even one day of work for one person. Citation needed. What crop would this be?
- deialtrous 8y ago
  Citation of what? That seeds grow if you plant them? It isn't a crop, it is vegetables. You would hopefully plant things you want to eat, but I do potatoes, carrots, parsnips, turnips (rutabagas if you are american), celeriac, broccoli, cabbage, tomatoes, peppers, beans, peas, corn, cucumbers, squash, pumpkins, melons, onions, garlic, leeks, beets, and some salad stuff. I'm sure I'm forgetting something but you get the idea. Plus there's the perennials which obviously you don't have to plant every year like asparagus and most berries and herbs. I spend precisely two days per year on all non-harvesting activities but that's because I start everything from seed instead of buying started plants so one day to plant the seeds and one day to transplant them 2 months later. It is cheaper and lets you get a lot of heirloom varieties your local nursery probably won't carry, but it is more work. I use only four simple non-powered tools assuming you count a popsicle stick as a tool. If you are going to grow your mulch because you don't have trees or neighbors doing it for you then you'll have to have something to cut your mulch crop with too.