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The amount of economy of scale in agriculture is disconcerting to me. Surely finely-tuned, monoculture mega-farms in rigid supply chains have disadvantages? I

The amount of economy of scale in agriculture is disconcerting to me. Surely finely-tuned, monoculture mega-farms in rigid supply chains have disadvantages? I was hoping with improving technology, the minimum viable size of a farm can be brought down to something more culturally sensible. Even if existing technology in agriculture is as good as the author claims, access remains an issue. Perhaps the real innovation we need right now is to make technology more affordable.

SketchySeaBeast 6y ago
Can you think of products where mass-production makes things less efficient?
- KineticLensman 6y ago
  The apparent efficiency may depend on whether the manufacturers and the immediate customers pick up all of the costs, or whether negative externalities or other costs are picked up by third parties. E.g mass agriculture may make food cheaper at the cost of environmental damage due to use of pesticides, soil erosion, etc. These costs may be picked up by wider society or just ignored.
  - SketchySeaBeast 6y ago
    Yeah, in the big picture that's true - lots of industries suffer from this - but I meant from a "disrupt the market, make lots of money" frame of reference, which is where all these things seem to start from.
greggyb 6y ago
Monocultures are vulnerable to catastrophic phenomena that affect the monoculture. See Irish Potato Famine for one example. Additionally, monocultures tend to deplete soil nutrients, so need land management in the form of fertilizer, crop rotation, or lying fallow. The latter two are often combined. These are (obviously, I hope) not insurmountable.
jefb 6y ago
I'm wondering this myself - and I think it's worth doing the math to sort out. To me, the essential question is "Is it possible to grow produce in a decentralized fashion?" i.e solar panels on the roof of a large apartment complex generating enough power to sustain the building. Could a hypothetical FarmPod3000™ exist at a reasonable scale? I mean, people built greenhouses before right? Could such a system be economically viable at the size of a shipping container? A family home? Staten Island? To be clear, I don't think the FarmPod3000™ would disrupt 90M acres of corn farms - we actually eat <10% of that anyways[1]. We should factor in the +/- environmental & public health impacts of such a system to the viability calculation as well. [1] https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/wonk/wp/2015/07/14/how-corn-made-its-way-into-just-about-everything-we-eat/ https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/wonk/wp/2015/07/14/how-c...
asciimo 6y ago
One inherent inefficiency about mega farms is that most of the soy (not sure how much of the corn, but a lot) goes to feed animals. Eventually, we "harvest" 10% of the input energy as calories. So these systems will never be more than 10% efficient in terms of human sustenance, no matter what technology is thrown at them. Soy use in Brazil: https://globalforestatlas.yale.edu/amazon/land-use/soy https://globalforestatlas.yale.edu/amazon/land-use/soy Trophic levels: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trophic_level#Biomass_transfer_efficiency https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trophic_level#Biomass_transfer...

SketchySeaBeast 6y ago

Can you think of products where mass-production makes things less efficient?

KineticLensman 6y ago
The apparent efficiency may depend on whether the manufacturers and the immediate customers pick up all of the costs, or whether negative externalities or other costs are picked up by third parties. E.g mass agriculture may make food cheaper at the cost of environmental damage due to use of pesticides, soil erosion, etc. These costs may be picked up by wider society or just ignored.
- SketchySeaBeast 6y ago
  Yeah, in the big picture that's true - lots of industries suffer from this - but I meant from a "disrupt the market, make lots of money" frame of reference, which is where all these things seem to start from.

greggyb 6y ago

Monocultures are vulnerable to catastrophic phenomena that affect the monoculture. See Irish Potato Famine for one example. Additionally, monocultures tend to deplete soil nutrients, so need land management in the form of fertilizer, crop rotation, or lying fallow. The latter two are often combined. These are (obviously, I hope) not insurmountable.

jefb 6y ago

I'm wondering this myself - and I think it's worth doing the math to sort out. To me, the essential question is "Is it possible to grow produce in a decentralized fashion?" i.e solar panels on the roof of a large apartment complex generating enough power to sustain the building. Could a hypothetical FarmPod3000™ exist at a reasonable scale? I mean, people built greenhouses before right? Could such a system be economically viable at the size of a shipping container? A family home? Staten Island? To be clear, I don't think the FarmPod3000™ would disrupt 90M acres of corn farms - we actually eat <10% of that anyways[1]. We should factor in the +/- environmental & public health impacts of such a system to the viability calculation as well. [1] https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/wonk/wp/2015/07/14/how-corn-made-its-way-into-just-about-everything-we-eat/ https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/wonk/wp/2015/07/14/how-c...

asciimo 6y ago

One inherent inefficiency about mega farms is that most of the soy (not sure how much of the corn, but a lot) goes to feed animals. Eventually, we "harvest" 10% of the input energy as calories. So these systems will never be more than 10% efficient in terms of human sustenance, no matter what technology is thrown at them. Soy use in Brazil: https://globalforestatlas.yale.edu/amazon/land-use/soy https://globalforestatlas.yale.edu/amazon/land-use/soy Trophic levels: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trophic_level#Biomass_transfer_efficiency https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trophic_level#Biomass_transfer...