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Even if this is a good solution, there's probably so much space for capacity in e.g. parking lots and roads that I doubt there's a need for this, other than it

Even if this is a good solution, there's probably so much space for capacity in e.g. parking lots and roads that I doubt there's a need for this, other than it being beneficial to the farmers. Which is a good enough reason, but the lack of space issues for solar panels are misleading. A sidenote on the first sentence in the article: I question the narrative that we are struggling to support 8 billion people because of lack of arable land. For instance I've seen estimates that 20-30% of perfectly good food is thrown away these days because it's not esthetically pleasing, e.g. a cucumber that might be of unusual shape. Also it's more economical to throw away food that you can't sell but is still good, than it is to give it away because then people would spend less which is bad for business. I don't know if this is a solvable problem, but it exists.

kiba 4y ago
There's perfectly good food and then there's food that rots in our fridge, or food that rot before being harvested.
phil21 4y ago
> For instance I've seen estimates that 20-30% of perfectly good food is thrown away these days because it's not esthetically pleasing, e.g. a cucumber that might be of unusual shape. Also it's more economical to throw away food that you can't sell but is still good, than it is to give it away because then people would spend less which is bad for business. I don't know if this is a solvable problem, but it exists. I'm highly skeptical of this. I have direct experience as my family were (until covid) market gardeners who would sell to farmers markets, local supermarkets, and restaurants. Typically "nothing" gets wasted in these operations. You sell the prime produce at huge markups at the farmers markets, the mid-tier at the supermarkets, and the food service industry gives exactly zero care to the aesthetics of the produce so long as it's high quality and tastes good. I can't imagine this would be any different at an industrial scale, if anything the incentives become even greater. You sort your produce for the market vs. industrial use, and the latter is likely to be a far more reliable income stream. I doubt farmers are throwing away 30% of their product. Yes, there is a lot of loss along the way - but I'm not sure we can really do much better short of everyone growing everything locally.

kiba 4y ago

There's perfectly good food and then there's food that rots in our fridge, or food that rot before being harvested.

phil21 4y ago

> For instance I've seen estimates that 20-30% of perfectly good food is thrown away these days because it's not esthetically pleasing, e.g. a cucumber that might be of unusual shape. Also it's more economical to throw away food that you can't sell but is still good, than it is to give it away because then people would spend less which is bad for business. I don't know if this is a solvable problem, but it exists. I'm highly skeptical of this. I have direct experience as my family were (until covid) market gardeners who would sell to farmers markets, local supermarkets, and restaurants. Typically "nothing" gets wasted in these operations. You sell the prime produce at huge markups at the farmers markets, the mid-tier at the supermarkets, and the food service industry gives exactly zero care to the aesthetics of the produce so long as it's high quality and tastes good. I can't imagine this would be any different at an industrial scale, if anything the incentives become even greater. You sort your produce for the market vs. industrial use, and the latter is likely to be a far more reliable income stream. I doubt farmers are throwing away 30% of their product. Yes, there is a lot of loss along the way - but I'm not sure we can really do much better short of everyone growing everything locally.