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Comment by johnchristopher | Hacker News Reader

> buying food which was produced and delivered close to you by large, complex and very inefficient industries.

Hmm. I wouldn't use the word `inefficient` so heavily. They are really good at bringing you some kind of products, not the home grown quality kind though.

> This system spends incredible amounts of resources (time, energy, labor) which you can save by simply growing your own food.

No, growing two potatoes only or a bunch of tomatoes take up time blah blah scale blah blah time money salary blah blah.

I am hooked anyway, I always wanted to try to grow something and if filling up an ikea bag with dirt and some seeds is enough to watch green stuff grow I'll be happy to try that as an hobby !

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The industry is absolutely inefficient when you consider what inputs required: pesticides, seed, machinery, fossil fuels for planting/harvesting/transport, massive government subsidies -- not to mention the depletion of the soils that come along with it. It is not even monetarily efficient: take for example the dumping of millions of gallons of milk to match quotas this past year. It's far from efficient.

I would not consider something that requires so much input to be "more efficient at feeding a person". It is however a system that is efficient at feeding mass amounts of people -- if you ignore the inputs.

We created Permapeople alongside the principles of permaculture. The efficiency you can create by designing systems that require few outside inputs is unmatched! While the output is not as far-reaching as industrial production, in the hands of enough local folks, growing in their yards, this maximized efficiency of land could technically provide a LOT of food.

PS: growing potatoes is probably easier than you think. One could grow potatoes with very little time and no monetary input.

> The industry is absolutely inefficient when you consider what inputs required: pesticides, seed, machinery, fossil fuels for planting/harvesting/transport, massive government subsidies -- not to mention the depletion of the soils that come along with it. It is not even monetarily efficient: take for example the dumping of millions of gallons of milk to match quotas this past year. It's far from efficient.

> I would not consider something that requires so much input to be "more efficient at feeding a person". It is however a system that is efficient at feeding mass amounts of people -- if you ignore the inputs.

I do agree but at the end of the day all that matters to most people regarding food is the price in the supermarket aisles.

I have fun memories of my SO digging up her father's potatoes and getting back from the garden with 5 of them “damn, that took a lot of muscle to get them out of the ground”. They were really good though. Gertrude Betrand's stuff.

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