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Climate-controlled cultivation will likely become a necessity for food production as climate change intensifies. Spain, South Africa, many Middle Eastern and ot

Climate-controlled cultivation will likely become a necessity for food production as climate change intensifies. Spain, South Africa, many Middle Eastern and other countries are already heavily reliant on greenhouses. Also given that megadroughts, floods, and hurricanes are likely to be the new normal, sufficient capacities of solar-powered desalination will be important to sustain food production levels. My main immediate concern with climate change is that greater numbers of and more intense storms will destroy infrastructure and food production, leading to wars and/or pan migration.

Scoundreller 7y ago
Problem is that greenhouses are the most laborious. Can’t drive a tractor through to plant and pick everything.
- blaser-waffle 7y ago
  Incredibly laborious. Pretty much everything has to be done by hand -- watering, fertilizing, etc. Totally worth it for specialized plants, or in certain climates, but you can't scale them to feed 6-going-on-7 billion people.
  - yesbabyyes 7y ago
    There are in fact about 7.8 billion of us. I believe we will have to change from this <1% of the population growing all the food. Growing part of your own food is a good idea. We should all plant some potatoes this year – a not so laborious way of producing nutritious food.
    - pjc50 7y ago
      Kind of Maoist and inefficient to have all your specially trained valuable first world labour do manual work, badly.
      - jfk13 7y ago
        As a specially trained valuable first world labourer -- at least, my employer seems to think I'm worth a salary -- I find growing my own potatoes (and a few other things) a welcome break from my desk and screen. I'm sure my garden is nowhere near as efficient as a real farmer could make it, but that's hardly the point. And a few rows of potatoes (even with my inefficient management), are a much more productive use of the land than a typical suburban lawn.
        loeg 7y ago
        Do it if you enjoy it, but that isn't the point GP was making or responding to. (I also maintain a small garden, FWIW.)
        yesbabyyes 7y ago
        In fact, it is in part the point I want to make. It is a giving pursuit, in more ways than one.
        loeg 7y ago
        In my comment, GP is pjc50; not you. You literally said that everyone should plant potatoes, which I, and pjc50, disagree with. As I said before, do it if you enjoy it; it's not a great use of everyone's time.
    - pinkfoot 7y ago
      Wait until you find our how little of the world's population builds and maintains the telecommunications, liquid fuel, and pharmaceutical ecosystems that we also reply on. Yours, David Ricardo
- glaberficken 7y ago
  Actually its the other way around! Automation in the controlled environment of a greenhouse is much simpler to implement than out on a field. Ok, there are certain crops that still haven't been cracked in terms of automating the picking mostly due to fragility/spoilage of the items being picked, but other than that, you have a regulated climate/humidity/temp (you can pause "rain" , etc in sync with the tasks you want to automate), you have a flat surface for your machines, or vertical rigging to hang machines off of, etc.
  - mod 7y ago
    Sure, but one guy with a tractor in a field has a lot of advantages over that.
- hutzlibu 7y ago
  https://farm.bot/ https://farm.bot/
- wenc 7y ago
  Instead of a tractor, wouldn't robotics work? [1] The scale would be much smaller, and the cost higher of course. [1] https://www.postscapes.com/smart-greenhouse-robotics-material-handling-and-harvesting/ https://www.postscapes.com/smart-greenhouse-robotics-materia...
  - hutzlibu 7y ago
    The technic is pretty awesome, but in the video with tomato harvesting ... the robot is about a 100 times slower than a human at picking tomatos. So while there is potential for it, it does not seem ready yet. At least not for the real economy, where manual labour is still quite cheap.
- ip26 7y ago
  Some of the industrial scale "greenhouses" I see are PVC frames with sheet plastic. Lift them right off come harvest.
outworlder 7y ago
> Climate-controlled cultivation will likely become a necessity for food production as climate change intensifies This is interesting, as massive greenhouse are seen in fiction as the only way to grow crop in hostile environments: Mars, the Moon, Space. Who knew we would be making our own planet a hostile environment.
freeflight 7y ago
Case in point: Parts of Spain look like a winter-resort on Google maps [0], but that's actually greenhouses. [0] https://www.google.com/maps/@36.8292745,-2.7821357,115749m/data=!3m1!1e3 https://www.google.com/maps/@36.8292745,-2.7821357,115749m/d...

Scoundreller 7y ago

Problem is that greenhouses are the most laborious. Can’t drive a tractor through to plant and pick everything.

blaser-waffle 7y ago
Incredibly laborious. Pretty much everything has to be done by hand -- watering, fertilizing, etc. Totally worth it for specialized plants, or in certain climates, but you can't scale them to feed 6-going-on-7 billion people.
- yesbabyyes 7y ago
  There are in fact about 7.8 billion of us. I believe we will have to change from this <1% of the population growing all the food. Growing part of your own food is a good idea. We should all plant some potatoes this year – a not so laborious way of producing nutritious food.
  - pjc50 7y ago
    Kind of Maoist and inefficient to have all your specially trained valuable first world labour do manual work, badly.
    - jfk13 7y ago
      As a specially trained valuable first world labourer -- at least, my employer seems to think I'm worth a salary -- I find growing my own potatoes (and a few other things) a welcome break from my desk and screen. I'm sure my garden is nowhere near as efficient as a real farmer could make it, but that's hardly the point. And a few rows of potatoes (even with my inefficient management), are a much more productive use of the land than a typical suburban lawn.
      - loeg 7y ago
        Do it if you enjoy it, but that isn't the point GP was making or responding to. (I also maintain a small garden, FWIW.)
        yesbabyyes 7y ago
        In fact, it is in part the point I want to make. It is a giving pursuit, in more ways than one.
        loeg 7y ago
        In my comment, GP is pjc50; not you. You literally said that everyone should plant potatoes, which I, and pjc50, disagree with. As I said before, do it if you enjoy it; it's not a great use of everyone's time.
  - pinkfoot 7y ago
    Wait until you find our how little of the world's population builds and maintains the telecommunications, liquid fuel, and pharmaceutical ecosystems that we also reply on. Yours, David Ricardo
glaberficken 7y ago
Actually its the other way around! Automation in the controlled environment of a greenhouse is much simpler to implement than out on a field. Ok, there are certain crops that still haven't been cracked in terms of automating the picking mostly due to fragility/spoilage of the items being picked, but other than that, you have a regulated climate/humidity/temp (you can pause "rain" , etc in sync with the tasks you want to automate), you have a flat surface for your machines, or vertical rigging to hang machines off of, etc.
- mod 7y ago
  Sure, but one guy with a tractor in a field has a lot of advantages over that.
hutzlibu 7y ago
https://farm.bot/ https://farm.bot/
wenc 7y ago
Instead of a tractor, wouldn't robotics work? [1] The scale would be much smaller, and the cost higher of course. [1] https://www.postscapes.com/smart-greenhouse-robotics-material-handling-and-harvesting/ https://www.postscapes.com/smart-greenhouse-robotics-materia...
- hutzlibu 7y ago
  The technic is pretty awesome, but in the video with tomato harvesting ... the robot is about a 100 times slower than a human at picking tomatos. So while there is potential for it, it does not seem ready yet. At least not for the real economy, where manual labour is still quite cheap.
ip26 7y ago
Some of the industrial scale "greenhouses" I see are PVC frames with sheet plastic. Lift them right off come harvest.

outworlder 7y ago

> Climate-controlled cultivation will likely become a necessity for food production as climate change intensifies This is interesting, as massive greenhouse are seen in fiction as the only way to grow crop in hostile environments: Mars, the Moon, Space. Who knew we would be making our own planet a hostile environment.

freeflight 7y ago

Case in point: Parts of Spain look like a winter-resort on Google maps [0], but that's actually greenhouses. [0] https://www.google.com/maps/@36.8292745,-2.7821357,115749m/data=!3m1!1e3 https://www.google.com/maps/@36.8292745,-2.7821357,115749m/d...