
Could basic income be basic free food instead? - click-grow
http://www.psfk.com/2016/12/click-and-grow-founder-mattias-lepp-could-future-of-food-be-free.html
======
click-grow
Hi, I'm Mattias Lepp the founder of Click & Grow.

We have been playing around with the idea of basic free food, something very
similar to basic income [https://blog.ycombinator.com/basic-
income/](https://blog.ycombinator.com/basic-income/) and lately been able to
reduce the cost of our plant growing technology to a level that could actually
make the idea attainable.

The idea behind the technology is simple, instead of using the expensive
mechanical control systems that hydroponic systems employ, we control the most
important parameters affecting plant growth on a micro level and use chemical
not mechanical mechanisms to optimize the grow cycle. Parameters such as pH,
aeration, moisture, and nutrition can be easily manipulated or fixed with
today’s materials.

In place of complex control system and rockwool (most common growing
substrate), we decided to develop a growing medium that provides the exact pH
level, aeration, moisture and nutrition level based on each plant/variety’s
needs.

That growing medium allowed us to get rid of sensors, pumps, mixers, dozers,
aerators, filters etc. and thereby reduce the initial investment for farms and
growing systems nearly 80% when compared to similar hydroponic systems.

We are also using growth phase adaptive lighting system which allows us to
reduce energy cost compared with static LED grow lights. By adjusting
dynamically spectrums and spectrum intensity during the growth periods, we are
able to achieve the optimal photon stream.

I would really appreciate you thinking along with me on this and share your
thoughts/ideas especially about basic free food and if you have any questions,
I would be more than happy to answer.

~~~
trome
Is it cheaper than classic farming, whereby you have 500 acres and grow a cash
crop?

~~~
click-grow
With our grow module [https://goo.gl/0sClyv](https://goo.gl/0sClyv) some crops
are already cheaper today. It is difficult to compete with 500 acres but there
are some aspects we should consider - food mileage, food waste and indirect
damages of intensive farming are growing and mostly because of that the food
prices are trending up, same time the cost of local/organic/urban farming is
going down, at some point those trends will meet. I don't think we'll get rid
of intensive farming but some important crops will be grown in urban farms
soon because of the cost.

~~~
trome
Eh, if you stick to specialty crops you might have a chance, I assume the long
term plan is to pivot to Marijuana as it gets legalized in more states?

At least in Wisconsin & Iowa, I know from family & friends that the smallest
plot your gonna make a run at farming with is 500 acres, anything less than
that and you should lease your land out to someone who has the scale to make
the economics work.

Re: food waste, most isn't occurring at the farm or distribution hubs (Savon,
Unified Grocers, etc), its actually the stores where things are going bad &
getting yard wasted. Locally sourcing produce doesn't seem to reduce this
either, mainly due to the unpredictability of produce sales. Unless you can
cut the time to market lag to a few days for the demand response, food waste
is not going to be reduced significantly in the US.

------
lin-ilv
Sounds interesting. Where could I read more about your technology?

~~~
click-grow
A short overview is available at
[https://www.dropbox.com/s/2pj5eivyaoh0az2/Technology%20prese...](https://www.dropbox.com/s/2pj5eivyaoh0az2/Technology%20presentation.pdf?dl=0)

