6 ms·

What do you think are some ways to boost their voices and/or credibility? Seems like a no brainer to listen to these folks.

bluntfang 6y ago
i think a good first step would be to remove farming subsidies so that they don't make decisions based on the fact that growing corn and soy is profitable because of the subsidies.
jelliclesfarm 6y ago
Partnerships and collaborations. Have tech companies sponsor farms by letting them use tech. Many farmers are land rich, cash poor, labour costs eat up profit margins. Many will die. And with these farms, the knowledge. They will sell the land and retire on the proceeds as rich farmland is paved over. What they need is accessible, affordable tech. And where their inherited generational and practical knowledge can be tested and validated and adopted by tech. It needs to be with trustworthy partners who don’t see farmers as future consumers but as collaborators and partners. Current Agtech is geared towards commodity crops and industrial Ag. All farming knowledge that is soil and environment oriented comes from small family farms. Their goal is to keep the soil fertile. The purpose of a farming corporation is to make profits. Not soil health or environment. By asking big Ag concerns to take care of soil, we are burdening them with a job they don’t want..but that requirement towards soil and environment should be part of the tech they use. So the domain experts of soil..the ones who actually have dirty hands by working in the soil should be the ones who help create the tech. Right now, wrong allocation of responsibility to skill is what’s not working. Farming is intuitive. A farmer tries to maintain the soil and make it better. Industrial Ag razes* down soil with each harvest and supplements With inputs and brute mechanical force, they bring soil back to a threshold that is bare minimum for cultivation. That’s why a farmer says that only sun, water and soil is needed to grow food. Industrial Ag needs inputs, machinery and data. As a small acreage soil focused farmer, I say that we need soil, water, sun...and tech. Tech that would replace manual repetitive labour ..labour costs that is killing our profits can be boosted by small acreage automation/mechanization. *i like to illustrate this with a personal example. When I wanted to redo my garden, I wanted to move a couple of structures, add a fountain, plant a few trees, remove some vegetation and put down a walking path with pavers. When I called a landscape architect, he said that we will have to remove everything, create a blank slate and implement the landscape design. That is the difference between farmers and industrial Ag.
- kitotik 6y ago
  Do you see any other areas in addition to mechanization that tech can be valuable? In other words, are there problems that software alone can help solve or is it simply down to replacing some of the manual labor with robotics and smarter machines?
  - jelliclesfarm 6y ago
    I think we need a systems approach in Ag ..in both small or industrial farming..too. So we can achieve systems level results. Software can be helpful but it’s enhancements contribute very little to the profit margins. Take for example this cost analysis of orient eggplant for 2005(I picked this eggplant because it’s not a commodity crop grown by industrial Ag and is niche. In other words, it’s not like lettuce or strawberries or corn or soy) http://sfp.ucdavis.edu/crops/coststudieshtml/BpEggplantOrientalSJV2005/ http://sfp.ucdavis.edu/crops/coststudieshtml/BpEggplantOrien... Check the percent of labour costs and capital/equip costs wrt operating costs. Software will help as part of the bigger systems approach, but at the end of the day, the urgent problem we need to tackle is labour costs and labour availability.
    - kitotik 6y ago
      Thank you. The systems approach does seem to be the only way to meaningful impact. “Simply” automating the existing systems doesn’t seem the right approach either.
    - abakker 6y ago
      Systems example: farmers are paid per pound for tomatoes. They therefore want to water heavily before harvest so the tomatoes get as heavy as possible. Then they ship the heaviest possible tomatoes to a factory to be dehydrated into ketchup, sauce, and other canned goods. The energy loss comes in 3 different parts - water waste, extra fuel in shipping, and in energy to dehydrate. Everyone pays more. The system solution would be to price the tomato solids, not the water.
      - 6y ago
dylan604 6y ago
Removing corporate farm entities from having such a loud voice would be a good first step to me.

bluntfang 6y ago

i think a good first step would be to remove farming subsidies so that they don't make decisions based on the fact that growing corn and soy is profitable because of the subsidies.

jelliclesfarm 6y ago

Partnerships and collaborations. Have tech companies sponsor farms by letting them use tech. Many farmers are land rich, cash poor, labour costs eat up profit margins. Many will die. And with these farms, the knowledge. They will sell the land and retire on the proceeds as rich farmland is paved over. What they need is accessible, affordable tech. And where their inherited generational and practical knowledge can be tested and validated and adopted by tech. It needs to be with trustworthy partners who don’t see farmers as future consumers but as collaborators and partners. Current Agtech is geared towards commodity crops and industrial Ag. All farming knowledge that is soil and environment oriented comes from small family farms. Their goal is to keep the soil fertile. The purpose of a farming corporation is to make profits. Not soil health or environment. By asking big Ag concerns to take care of soil, we are burdening them with a job they don’t want..but that requirement towards soil and environment should be part of the tech they use. So the domain experts of soil..the ones who actually have dirty hands by working in the soil should be the ones who help create the tech. Right now, wrong allocation of responsibility to skill is what’s not working. Farming is intuitive. A farmer tries to maintain the soil and make it better. Industrial Ag razes* down soil with each harvest and supplements With inputs and brute mechanical force, they bring soil back to a threshold that is bare minimum for cultivation. That’s why a farmer says that only sun, water and soil is needed to grow food. Industrial Ag needs inputs, machinery and data. As a small acreage soil focused farmer, I say that we need soil, water, sun...and tech. Tech that would replace manual repetitive labour ..labour costs that is killing our profits can be boosted by small acreage automation/mechanization. *i like to illustrate this with a personal example. When I wanted to redo my garden, I wanted to move a couple of structures, add a fountain, plant a few trees, remove some vegetation and put down a walking path with pavers. When I called a landscape architect, he said that we will have to remove everything, create a blank slate and implement the landscape design. That is the difference between farmers and industrial Ag.

kitotik 6y ago
Do you see any other areas in addition to mechanization that tech can be valuable? In other words, are there problems that software alone can help solve or is it simply down to replacing some of the manual labor with robotics and smarter machines?
- jelliclesfarm 6y ago
  I think we need a systems approach in Ag ..in both small or industrial farming..too. So we can achieve systems level results. Software can be helpful but it’s enhancements contribute very little to the profit margins. Take for example this cost analysis of orient eggplant for 2005(I picked this eggplant because it’s not a commodity crop grown by industrial Ag and is niche. In other words, it’s not like lettuce or strawberries or corn or soy) http://sfp.ucdavis.edu/crops/coststudieshtml/BpEggplantOrientalSJV2005/ http://sfp.ucdavis.edu/crops/coststudieshtml/BpEggplantOrien... Check the percent of labour costs and capital/equip costs wrt operating costs. Software will help as part of the bigger systems approach, but at the end of the day, the urgent problem we need to tackle is labour costs and labour availability.
  - kitotik 6y ago
    Thank you. The systems approach does seem to be the only way to meaningful impact. “Simply” automating the existing systems doesn’t seem the right approach either.
  - abakker 6y ago
    Systems example: farmers are paid per pound for tomatoes. They therefore want to water heavily before harvest so the tomatoes get as heavy as possible. Then they ship the heaviest possible tomatoes to a factory to be dehydrated into ketchup, sauce, and other canned goods. The energy loss comes in 3 different parts - water waste, extra fuel in shipping, and in energy to dehydrate. Everyone pays more. The system solution would be to price the tomato solids, not the water.
    - 6y ago

dylan604 6y ago

Removing corporate farm entities from having such a loud voice would be a good first step to me.