3 ms·

Done both. Farming is harder. Bloomberg has no clue whatsoever. Farming is not just gardening. That would be like saying programming is just typing. Wrong.

salawat 7y ago
To expand on this, Agriculture is so god-blessed complicated when it comes to doing it in a way that gets you worthwhile returns. Off the top of my head: Plant Ag: Soil quality is an art form of it's own. Figure out what your soil is, and ameliorate the he'll out of it to get it fertile again. Plant/crop choice: Guess what? Now you get to learn the biology of every crop you're familiar with, their cultivars, and the effect they have on soils/the local fauna. Decide whether you are going mono-culture, or companion planting. If monoculture, Note your lifecycle (for harvest times and other necessary processing ) then proceed to equipment maintenance, operation, and financials. If companion planting, get ready for making your jigsaw of a planting space, and figure out your crop rotation for the next few seasons; then jump to equipment operation, maintenance, and financial buggery. Oh yeah, make sure your choice properly reflects what your environment can support, and decide whether or not you're going no-till or not, pesticide/herbicide free and adjust accordingly. Did you remember pollination? Them Bees hardly ever just grow on trees anymore! Better make friends with a bee keeper! Animal Ag: Welcome to fence and belligerent animal hell. Make sure you have your herd culled of any children of the last sure, or you've rotated out last season's males, as inbreeding is a big fat nono. Keep your males spread out if you don't want injuries and be ready when your carefully orchestrated separation fails because somebody got randy. Farmers could make fantastic frigging programmers, I have no doubt; what I doubt they'll be is the most accommodating or tolerant of the typical code or feature mill environment; and for that God bless 'em. Besides which, I'm fairly sure you'd have some serious tech culture shock as the other side of the intellectual landscape filtered in. These are people who have become optimized in figuring out how to do things without creating extra work. If the man truly had the gall to suggest IT is somehow harder than farming, I hate to bust bubbles, but he needs a reality check. It often only looks easy because years of hard work have gone into the land and processes to keep it productive.
- jelliclesfarm 7y ago
  There is a general derisiveness towards farmers because we produce a lot of value and give it away for so very little. It became worse with govt subsidies and market forces because it further devalued what we do. Tech does not help farming and ag. Whatever ‘Agtech’ is happening now is a data play. Every technology out there that has gotten funding is because they collect data and that data is a commodity that can be sold for more than the value of the food produced by farmers who are at the bottom most rung of the supply chain. I do say this with a touch of bitterness because I applied for YC twice and won’t again because I was told that there is no money. (Without serving the data gods) I get the logic of it, but that doesn’t stop me from being bitter. It is particularly nauseating that Bloomberg should say this because the most invested Agtech is for commodity crops that get traded on Wall Street and the kind of crops like corn and soy and input companies and land surveys etc. and it’s business. I will never vote for Bloomberg even though he was in my shortlist. Something has been triggered that bought forth all that I have witnessed and subconsciously recorded about the devaluation of farming by tech and business communities since 2011 when I first started looking into at ways to improve ag with tech. The bubble just burst when I read that. This quote was from 2016.
  - rs23296008n1 7y ago
    I remotely occasionally support a bunch of farmers with fleets of raspberry pi, arduino and psoc. Those guys probably directly look after more computers than a lot of webguys. Writing C/python seems the most common.
    - jelliclesfarm 7y ago
      Farmers can learn anything. Still laughing over Mike Bloomberg’s instructions for growing corn “1. Dig a hole..” Show me a guy who digs a hole to grow corn..and I will show you someone who has never farmed before. Don’t need gray matter for that..
      - rs23296008n1 7y ago

salawat 7y ago

To expand on this, Agriculture is so god-blessed complicated when it comes to doing it in a way that gets you worthwhile returns. Off the top of my head: Plant Ag: Soil quality is an art form of it's own. Figure out what your soil is, and ameliorate the he'll out of it to get it fertile again. Plant/crop choice: Guess what? Now you get to learn the biology of every crop you're familiar with, their cultivars, and the effect they have on soils/the local fauna. Decide whether you are going mono-culture, or companion planting. If monoculture, Note your lifecycle (for harvest times and other necessary processing ) then proceed to equipment maintenance, operation, and financials. If companion planting, get ready for making your jigsaw of a planting space, and figure out your crop rotation for the next few seasons; then jump to equipment operation, maintenance, and financial buggery. Oh yeah, make sure your choice properly reflects what your environment can support, and decide whether or not you're going no-till or not, pesticide/herbicide free and adjust accordingly. Did you remember pollination? Them Bees hardly ever just grow on trees anymore! Better make friends with a bee keeper! Animal Ag: Welcome to fence and belligerent animal hell. Make sure you have your herd culled of any children of the last sure, or you've rotated out last season's males, as inbreeding is a big fat nono. Keep your males spread out if you don't want injuries and be ready when your carefully orchestrated separation fails because somebody got randy. Farmers could make fantastic frigging programmers, I have no doubt; what I doubt they'll be is the most accommodating or tolerant of the typical code or feature mill environment; and for that God bless 'em. Besides which, I'm fairly sure you'd have some serious tech culture shock as the other side of the intellectual landscape filtered in. These are people who have become optimized in figuring out how to do things without creating extra work. If the man truly had the gall to suggest IT is somehow harder than farming, I hate to bust bubbles, but he needs a reality check. It often only looks easy because years of hard work have gone into the land and processes to keep it productive.

jelliclesfarm 7y ago
There is a general derisiveness towards farmers because we produce a lot of value and give it away for so very little. It became worse with govt subsidies and market forces because it further devalued what we do. Tech does not help farming and ag. Whatever ‘Agtech’ is happening now is a data play. Every technology out there that has gotten funding is because they collect data and that data is a commodity that can be sold for more than the value of the food produced by farmers who are at the bottom most rung of the supply chain. I do say this with a touch of bitterness because I applied for YC twice and won’t again because I was told that there is no money. (Without serving the data gods) I get the logic of it, but that doesn’t stop me from being bitter. It is particularly nauseating that Bloomberg should say this because the most invested Agtech is for commodity crops that get traded on Wall Street and the kind of crops like corn and soy and input companies and land surveys etc. and it’s business. I will never vote for Bloomberg even though he was in my shortlist. Something has been triggered that bought forth all that I have witnessed and subconsciously recorded about the devaluation of farming by tech and business communities since 2011 when I first started looking into at ways to improve ag with tech. The bubble just burst when I read that. This quote was from 2016.
- rs23296008n1 7y ago
  I remotely occasionally support a bunch of farmers with fleets of raspberry pi, arduino and psoc. Those guys probably directly look after more computers than a lot of webguys. Writing C/python seems the most common.
  - jelliclesfarm 7y ago
    Farmers can learn anything. Still laughing over Mike Bloomberg’s instructions for growing corn “1. Dig a hole..” Show me a guy who digs a hole to grow corn..and I will show you someone who has never farmed before. Don’t need gray matter for that..
    - rs23296008n1 7y ago