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I got caught up in this train. After watching the TED talk I saw an opportunity to leverage my product design/engineering consultancy to sell Food Computer kit

I got caught up in this train. After watching the TED talk I saw an opportunity to leverage my product design/engineering consultancy to sell Food Computer kits and pre-assembled circuit boards. I built a website (www.openagriculturesupply.com) and embarked on building a supply chain, having PCBs and fully assembled PCBAs made and stocking kits. After lots of investment in both time and capital I was never able to get one to work. The software stack was unsupported and after talking with everyone I could I was unable to find anyone who was able to get the software working outside of the walls of MiT. I then worked on a related product, growcomputer (www.growcomputer.com) but ultimately there just isn't enough value in these kinds of products. As others have posted here and in previous HN posts on this topic, the A&E schools and plant scientists have long ago figured all this out, one can already purchase plant growth chambers, all manner of hydroponic and aeroponic systems, nutrients, controllers, climate controlled greenhouses, etc. Ultimately it comes down to the economy of powering plant growth with electric lights. It just does't add up except in specific applications like mushroom farming, and very high end "foodie" niche markets. The value proposition just isn't there. edited - formatting

raxxorrax 7y ago
Further prohibiting weed could be good for driving prices on that market then. But I agree. I looked at this as a hobbyist (no, not for weed) and thought it could be helpful since senors and hardware are currently as cheap as they are. But industrial agriculture has complete different set of problems. Aside from that plants in general seem to be quite resilient and don't require perfectly balanced control loops. One might think so, but your room plants constantly dying is probably just due to not watering them for months. So in the end having a few seeds and a bit of water probably beats the food truck full of tech on all levels of efficiency. Still an interesting topic to create these environments. But perhaps not the correct approach to solve food shortages or help with problems large scale agriculture faces.
- lisptw102019 7y ago
  people tend to forget that most plants are around because they've been able to survive for thousands of years with minimal/no human intervention. Of course, there are the outliers (Corn is the big one I'm thinking of here) and the monocropping we tend to do is a whole different problem...
sword_smith 7y ago
I agree. Why pay for the energy to grow food when you can get the enegy for free by putting it out in the sun? This is an example that some scientifically minded people forget an important aspect in the world: economics. Can your New Way of Doing It^{TM} do it cheaper than existing solutions? If not, it most likely does not have a future.
- fragmede 7y ago
  The sun is free, but not all plans will grow everywhere. In many cases, there just isn't enough sun, or the climate is wrong. The economics of growing, say, pineapples in England don't work out, in part because it's so expensive to grow them there (if that's even possible in a highly climate-controlled room), but also because transportation costs are so low.
  - MandieD 7y ago
    It is possible to grow them in English greenhouses: wealthy Britons with skilled gardeners had them in the 18th and 19th century, and the growing middle class often rented pineapples to display at fancy dinners. As you said, cheap transportation is what ended UK domestic pineapple production. https://www.buildingconservation.com/articles/pineapples/pineapples.htm https://www.buildingconservation.com/articles/pineapples/pin...
- namirez 7y ago
  > Why pay for the energy to grow food when you can get the enegy for free by putting it out in the sun? For many reasons: 1) Using vertical space rather than surface area; 2) Producing closer to population centers; 3) Producing year around irrespective of seasonal changes; 4) Not having to use pesticides.
  - barry-cotter 7y ago
    1) and 2) round to “transport costs” economically and freight is cheap except in areas where people don’t have enough money to be worth selling to, like Afghanistan.
Alex3917 7y ago
> It just does't add up except in specific applications like mushroom farming If you want to make money growing food though, mushroom farming seems like the best bet. Right now there are several edible mushroom species where, if you were to start growing them commercially, you would literally be the only person in the country offering them for sale. And some of them solve serious culinary or food science problems. E.g. right now impossible burger has been able to do a pretty good job imitating the texture of protein in ground beef, but they haven't yet been able to do a great job at imitating the texture of the fat components.
- yostrovs 7y ago
  Which mushrooms are you referring to that are easy to grow but not available in stores?
- tyre 7y ago
  Build that whole infrastructure then pivot to magic mushrooms as states legalize
  - yoloswagins 7y ago
    Then when the price crashes on psilocybin mushrooms, switch back the tasty mushrooms.
    - tyre 7y ago
      or keep the mushrooms!
- sct202 7y ago
  Yes if anyone can mass produce chicken of the woods (not to be confused with hen of the woods) that would be awesome. It makes the best fake chicken nuggets. The texture is spot on, and when it's battered and fried the mushroom taste is pretty minimal.
  - AlanYx 7y ago
iamleppert 7y ago
What if you could pipe enough direct sunlight from outside, into the chamber? And be able to control the intensity of the delivered sunlight? Would there still be a novelty product there to have a big enough market with a decent price point?
- ClumsyPilot 7y ago
  if you are in the business of growing anything commercial food-related, the more sunlight the better. You don't control it, you take all you can get.
- knzhou 7y ago
  > What if you could pipe enough direct sunlight from outside, into the chamber? Isn't this just called a window? If you're at the point where you're using soil from outside and sunlight from outside, to support a tiny device, why not just use a pot by the windowsill?
  - tim333 7y ago
    Or use that cutting edge tech, the field.
  - xkcd-sucks 7y ago
    You could make a whole building out of windows... Maybe call it a clearhouse or something
    - dxbydt 7y ago
      I think Bill Gates prefers the term Microsoft.
- dekhn 7y ago
  light pipes do exist: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Light_tube https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Light_tube and I think people do use them.
samvher 7y ago
In the Netherlands our main way of growing food is in greenhouses. It causes a lot of light pollution and I actually found it a quite disturbing sight when I flew over one of the greenhouse areas by night once (there are columns of light in the sky). We export lots of tomatoes, bell peppers, etc. I guess if you have space and a sunny climate the value proposition isn't there, but if you have a cooler climate, a high population density (land is very expensive), and a high-tech agriculture sector it seems to work out differently.
- dmurray 7y ago
  Wow - according to one source "The Netherlands is the world's second largest exporter of agricultural products, after the USA" [0]. Sure, it has good quality soil and high tech farming, but it's amazing that can make up for the sheer lack of space. It's smaller than all but 9 US states, and it's not rural either - it's more populous than all but 4. [0] https://www.hollandtradeandinvest.com/key-sectors/agriculture-and-food https://www.hollandtradeandinvest.com/key-sectors/agricultur...
  - PeterisP 7y ago
    Agricultural products have very, very large differences in value density, and one that Netherlands is seriously exploiting. Ten acres of corn has much less value than ten acres of roses, so growing flowers is a major export industry for Netherlands.
    - dmurray 7y ago
      That's part of it, but looks like only about €9b of €90b total [0]. Meat, dairy and vegetables are all comparable; certainly the east of the country seems to be all cows. Cereals don't crack the top ten categories, though. https://www.cbs.nl/en-gb/news/2018/03/dutch-agricultural-exports-at-record-high https://www.cbs.nl/en-gb/news/2018/03/dutch-agricultural-exp...
- Zeebrommer 7y ago
  To get an impression of what it looks like from the ground: https://www.google.com/search?tbm=isch&q=westland%20lichtvervuiling https://www.google.com/search?tbm=isch&q=westland%20lichtver... It's difficult to compare the real-life view with pictures (just like the aurora). And it isn't always as bad. But on cloudy, cold nights, it can have an apocalyptic feel to it.

raxxorrax 7y ago

Further prohibiting weed could be good for driving prices on that market then. But I agree. I looked at this as a hobbyist (no, not for weed) and thought it could be helpful since senors and hardware are currently as cheap as they are. But industrial agriculture has complete different set of problems. Aside from that plants in general seem to be quite resilient and don't require perfectly balanced control loops. One might think so, but your room plants constantly dying is probably just due to not watering them for months. So in the end having a few seeds and a bit of water probably beats the food truck full of tech on all levels of efficiency. Still an interesting topic to create these environments. But perhaps not the correct approach to solve food shortages or help with problems large scale agriculture faces.

lisptw102019 7y ago
people tend to forget that most plants are around because they've been able to survive for thousands of years with minimal/no human intervention. Of course, there are the outliers (Corn is the big one I'm thinking of here) and the monocropping we tend to do is a whole different problem...

sword_smith 7y ago

I agree. Why pay for the energy to grow food when you can get the enegy for free by putting it out in the sun? This is an example that some scientifically minded people forget an important aspect in the world: economics. Can your New Way of Doing It^{TM} do it cheaper than existing solutions? If not, it most likely does not have a future.

fragmede 7y ago
The sun is free, but not all plans will grow everywhere. In many cases, there just isn't enough sun, or the climate is wrong. The economics of growing, say, pineapples in England don't work out, in part because it's so expensive to grow them there (if that's even possible in a highly climate-controlled room), but also because transportation costs are so low.
- MandieD 7y ago
  It is possible to grow them in English greenhouses: wealthy Britons with skilled gardeners had them in the 18th and 19th century, and the growing middle class often rented pineapples to display at fancy dinners. As you said, cheap transportation is what ended UK domestic pineapple production. https://www.buildingconservation.com/articles/pineapples/pineapples.htm https://www.buildingconservation.com/articles/pineapples/pin...
namirez 7y ago
> Why pay for the energy to grow food when you can get the enegy for free by putting it out in the sun? For many reasons: 1) Using vertical space rather than surface area; 2) Producing closer to population centers; 3) Producing year around irrespective of seasonal changes; 4) Not having to use pesticides.
- barry-cotter 7y ago
  1) and 2) round to “transport costs” economically and freight is cheap except in areas where people don’t have enough money to be worth selling to, like Afghanistan.

Alex3917 7y ago

> It just does't add up except in specific applications like mushroom farming If you want to make money growing food though, mushroom farming seems like the best bet. Right now there are several edible mushroom species where, if you were to start growing them commercially, you would literally be the only person in the country offering them for sale. And some of them solve serious culinary or food science problems. E.g. right now impossible burger has been able to do a pretty good job imitating the texture of protein in ground beef, but they haven't yet been able to do a great job at imitating the texture of the fat components.

yostrovs 7y ago
Which mushrooms are you referring to that are easy to grow but not available in stores?
tyre 7y ago
Build that whole infrastructure then pivot to magic mushrooms as states legalize
- yoloswagins 7y ago
  Then when the price crashes on psilocybin mushrooms, switch back the tasty mushrooms.
  - tyre 7y ago
    or keep the mushrooms!
sct202 7y ago
Yes if anyone can mass produce chicken of the woods (not to be confused with hen of the woods) that would be awesome. It makes the best fake chicken nuggets. The texture is spot on, and when it's battered and fried the mushroom taste is pretty minimal.
- AlanYx 7y ago

iamleppert 7y ago

What if you could pipe enough direct sunlight from outside, into the chamber? And be able to control the intensity of the delivered sunlight? Would there still be a novelty product there to have a big enough market with a decent price point?

ClumsyPilot 7y ago
if you are in the business of growing anything commercial food-related, the more sunlight the better. You don't control it, you take all you can get.
knzhou 7y ago
> What if you could pipe enough direct sunlight from outside, into the chamber? Isn't this just called a window? If you're at the point where you're using soil from outside and sunlight from outside, to support a tiny device, why not just use a pot by the windowsill?
- tim333 7y ago
  Or use that cutting edge tech, the field.
- xkcd-sucks 7y ago
  You could make a whole building out of windows... Maybe call it a clearhouse or something
  - dxbydt 7y ago
    I think Bill Gates prefers the term Microsoft.
dekhn 7y ago
light pipes do exist: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Light_tube https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Light_tube and I think people do use them.

samvher 7y ago

In the Netherlands our main way of growing food is in greenhouses. It causes a lot of light pollution and I actually found it a quite disturbing sight when I flew over one of the greenhouse areas by night once (there are columns of light in the sky). We export lots of tomatoes, bell peppers, etc. I guess if you have space and a sunny climate the value proposition isn't there, but if you have a cooler climate, a high population density (land is very expensive), and a high-tech agriculture sector it seems to work out differently.

dmurray 7y ago
Wow - according to one source "The Netherlands is the world's second largest exporter of agricultural products, after the USA" [0]. Sure, it has good quality soil and high tech farming, but it's amazing that can make up for the sheer lack of space. It's smaller than all but 9 US states, and it's not rural either - it's more populous than all but 4. [0] https://www.hollandtradeandinvest.com/key-sectors/agriculture-and-food https://www.hollandtradeandinvest.com/key-sectors/agricultur...
- PeterisP 7y ago
  Agricultural products have very, very large differences in value density, and one that Netherlands is seriously exploiting. Ten acres of corn has much less value than ten acres of roses, so growing flowers is a major export industry for Netherlands.
  - dmurray 7y ago
    That's part of it, but looks like only about €9b of €90b total [0]. Meat, dairy and vegetables are all comparable; certainly the east of the country seems to be all cows. Cereals don't crack the top ten categories, though. https://www.cbs.nl/en-gb/news/2018/03/dutch-agricultural-exports-at-record-high https://www.cbs.nl/en-gb/news/2018/03/dutch-agricultural-exp...
Zeebrommer 7y ago
To get an impression of what it looks like from the ground: https://www.google.com/search?tbm=isch&q=westland%20lichtvervuiling https://www.google.com/search?tbm=isch&q=westland%20lichtver... It's difficult to compare the real-life view with pictures (just like the aurora). And it isn't always as bad. But on cloudy, cold nights, it can have an apocalyptic feel to it.