Urban Agriculture Could Potentially Produce a Tenth of the World's Food.

Indy Week ^ | April 25, 2018 | Amanda Abrams

[KarlInOhio]

4,000 square feet—one-tenth of an acre—for a single person“

How many cows can fit in there?

Quite a few with multistory veal cages. (Eat that, libbies).

[mywholebodyisaweapon]

Yes, there are several 24 hour a day operations around the world, many in the U.S. That’s not the problem here. Mechanized agriculture uses haute technology. Nontraditional agriculture not so much.

If the division of labor doesn’t exceed population growth, then we have problems. Malthus was wrong, but only in his timing. Each new advance brings us closer to a black swan event and then it’s cataclysmic.

The trouble with the greenies is that they inevitably turn to collective action to deal with the problems that they think the evil free market has saddled us with. They refuse to acknowledge that it is collective action, i.e. governments, that place us on the fast track to division of labor on steroids. The problems we have in production, distribution, and consumption are not results of free markets. They are results of collective action because the appetites of the collective are always greater than the sum of its parts (individuals).

A really cool use of technology to feed people is the vertical harvest concept. There are several sites that do this. My favorite is Vertical Harvest of Jackson, Wyoming. They feed people in the middle of winter in a valley that is sometimes cut off from the rest of the world by snow. Cool stuff, but highly dependent on division of labor. It takes both new technology and old technology for a solution.

[hinckley buzzard]

I see no downside at all to some one with a yard who wants to grow edibles in it. They cost me nothing and ask nothing of me. What’s the big objection? Of course they will not feed one tenth of the world. That’s stupid. But other than that, conservatives should love that they want to do their own thing, and leave them the hell alone.

[BeauBo]

“Poor people in Africa and elsewhere have far more acreage and still starve.”

Part of it is the labor required, part could be the learning curve.

Robots will transform both. They will start work fully loaded with best practices, and wirelessly get updates when available. In a home garden, they could hunt all night, killing every invasive bug, one at a time, or just blow them away every day with the water spray. Perfectly consistent weeding and watering.

Indoor farming (underground, underwater or multistory) is becoming more feasible over time as well, as LEDs grow cheaper to buy and operate, and are tuned to the optimum frequencies of light for the crop.

[SamAdams76]

Why the hostility? I grew up in the urban jungle and some of my fondest memories as a boy was growing tomato plants and other vegetables in my tiny postage stamp yard. How small was my yard back then? The living room that I'm typing this from is twice as big as that yard was. But it was very satisfying to bring in fresh veggies from the garden that I planted myself. I used to get those egg carton type containers and start my plants in the windowsills of the house while waiting for the last frost to transplant them outside.

[BeauBo]

Prototype design for small, low cost, energy efficient, garden tending robots (roombas for the vegetables);

[umgud]

I look forward to robot’s farming.

[Mrs. Don-o]

I love gardens.

I love gardeners.

Best people on earth.

[BeauBo]

Vertical Harvest of Jackson, Wyoming says they produce 100,000 pounds of produce a year, on 1/10th of an acre.

[mywholebodyisaweapon]

That is GREAT! ROFL

[mywholebodyisaweapon]

It’s an interesting place with a compelling story. The city had to take it over, though. It started off as a private venture but they just couldn’t get it done without a lot of government money. They have automated systems they had to order from some place in Europe because we don’t have anything as reliable in the states (at least that’s what the VH folks say).

They don’t have many options in a location where it gets 30 below and has several feet of snow in some years. It supports what you have said about getting more produce out of a small amount of space.