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Comment by walleeee | Hacker News Reader

Sustainable agriculture.

Ag is the material basis of human society. We have to stop destroying soil. We have to stop poisoning ecosystems. We have to minimize artificial fertilizer inputs. We have to stop emitting and start sequestering atmospheric carbon to mitigate climate instability.

If we don't do this we will likely see widespread crop failures and food shortages within 50 years. Land use practices must be reformed to protect soil health. Agriculture must become carbon negative. It may be possible to tweak crops to increase CO2 incorporation rates and store more carbon in soil, for instance.[0]

I want to leave future humans a planet with fertile soils, a stable climate, and vibrant life. I do not want our grandchildren to live in concrete domes and eat out of yeast vats.

[0]: https://www.nature.com/articles/nature17174

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It seems like there do exist more than enough research to perfect agriculture, it's just that it's socioeconomically inviable. Set up optimized, automated farms and you'll be seeing unemployment by the millions as traditional farmers are suddenly deemed obsolete, especially in poor countries that still have majorly agrarian economies.

I'm not convinced agriculture can be "perfected", or that automation is necessarily the way to go. In some situations (e.g., dense urban environments) it seems to make sense, but I think there will remain an important role for smallholders. Huge industrial outfits may make sense under some circumstances, but I think we need a renaissance in small- and medium-sized farms in the developed world, and their protection in the developing world, with farmers incentivized to diversify their output, rejuvenate their land, and produce primarily for their local and regional communities, rather than barely scraping by with destructive practices and federal subsidies as they are often forced to do today. Many farmers in the United States do not even own the land they work, reducing incentives for responsible management.

The fact that our political and economic systems do not prioritize long-term agricultural viability, as you point out, ought to give us pause.

Any thoughts on the automated vertical farms that are starting to see good results?

I think they may make sense in some locations. I don't see them scaling to replace traditional ag, barring some unforeseen advance yielding extremely cheap and plentiful clean energy. Besides significant power requirements, large construction projects come with large emissions footprints, as do synthetic fertilizers (it may be possible to repurpose existing buildings, and compost could help provide for some portion of nutrient needs; this would require a sea change in social and lifestyle conventions which is currently happening far too slowly).

There are also real possibilities of supply chain and infrastructure unreliability due to increasingly frequent extreme weather events, geopolitical tensions, etc.

What's most appropriate is likely highly context-dependent. I think a multi-pronged approach is best, and vertical farms could certainly play a role. Personally I see halting deforestation and fossil fuel use/extraction as the most urgent priority. I'm also a bit biased toward crop breeding/engineering for increased carbon uptake and soil sequestration (the lab I work in is pursuing this); it could help restore soil health while improving yield as well as resilience to environmental stressors.

I don't know much about the details of vertical farming, though. If you have anything to share, I'd love to check it out.

> I don't see them scaling to replace traditional ag

That's funny, because I do see vertical farming scaling to replace 100% of two-dimensional (read: "traditional") agriculture, and feeding billions. Every city of over a million should have at least 15 skyscrapers with at least 30 floors each growing staples.

Of course, we also need to switch to meat grown lab for > 75% of our meat demand and mostly stop producing cattle food with agriculture.

It might be a good idea to talk to any agricultural economist in any land grant university in the US before you invest your life savings on that being true in the US in the short/middle term. Or any US dirt farmer. Ag land is cheap in the US, as is water. Electricity and associated infrastructure is not, nor is building high-rise buildings.

I’d guess even reclaiming land from the sea to add conventional farmland would be cheaper, if the numbers were run.

On Mars, maybe another story...

> That's funny, because I do see vertical farming scaling to replace 100% of two-dimensional (read: "traditional") agriculture, and feeding billions.

If you can point me to any resources you've found to support this, I'd be happy to read them and revise my view.

Besides the power/construction overhead, the infrastructure costs, and the lack of political will, many large coastal cities will likely see partial flooding and increasingly frequent weather events this century, while some are at risk of complete loss.

The meat issue is complex. Lab-grown meat is subject to many of the same power and infrastructure constraints as vertical farming; I don't see it scaling to sustainably meet (meat? ;) current demand. We need a massive reduction in meat consumption in the developed world, but we also need to be conscious of the fact that ruminants remain critical to many agricultural ecosystems. We should certainly stop razing the Amazon for cattle pasture, although that will require a dramatic shift in economic incentives.

There was a big thread on this yesterday https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25554941

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