
Startup Puts Everything You Need for a Two-Acre Farm in a Shipping Container - kungfudoi
http://www.smithsonianmag.com/innovation/san-francisco-startup-puts-everything-you-need-two-acre-farm-shipping-container-180961567/?no-ist
======
phillytom
This reminds me (somewhat unfortunately) of the Playpump[1] which I saw
referenced again in some product reading about really understanding customer
and user needs in building new product. The Playpump was a playground toy that
pumped water - got great PR and raised lots of money. Unfortunately it was
also less efficient than existing pumps, required training, was more expensive
and was not field repairable.

[1] [http://unitedexplanations.org/english/2012/03/22/the-
story-o...](http://unitedexplanations.org/english/2012/03/22/the-story-of-
playpumps-merry-go-rounds-water-and-failures-in-development-aid/)

------
syphilis2
I'm having a difficult time finding what is included in the box from the
official website. "Sensor Technology", "Basic Tools", these trigger alarm
bells in my head. The biggest cost component seems to be for the solar power,
which I believe is used to power the irrigation system. Overall this sounds
costly, has few details about the components need for farming, and shows off
bells and whistles like "solar power, micro-drip irrigation, wi-fi and cloud,
and data mapping".

------
toyfarmer
I live on a 2 acre hobby farm. Here are some obvious pieces missing from the
box:

Tractor Backhoe Rototiller Auger Fencing

First necessity: water. Where will you get it from? They include a pump.
That's nice. How will you dig the hole to get down to the water in order to
pump it?

How will you dig the holes for your fence posts? Yes you can use a manual
post-hole digger. That's what I did. I don't recommend it. Does the box
include posts and wire?

How will you compost? I have several animals that generate a lot of manure.
The easiest way to turn it is with a rototiller--preferrably connected to the
PTO on the tractor because the manure pile is very large. It would take a day
to turn it with a walk-behind tiller. It would take one day a week to collect
the new manure by hand without a box scraper on a tractor.

Ever have to bury livestock? You need a deep hole. Anything too shallow
attracts predators. I've buried a few by hand. I don't recommend it.

So, a little 25 hp tractor with a 3-pt PTO and accessories including auger,
tiller, box scraper, backhoe, and front-end bucket is almost mandatory unless
you have a lot of free labor. And this is supposed to be sustainable off-grid,
so that needs to be electric. See the Global Village Construction Set
([http://opensourceecology.org/gvcs/](http://opensourceecology.org/gvcs/)).

------
pontifier
I had a similar idea years ago, the goal was to build a kit that someone from
the developed world could use to go somewhere lacking in modern farming
equipment, set themselves up as a sultan by buying cheap land, farming it
effectively with hired labor, with the eventual goal of building yourself a
palace. I called it Sultanomics... it was a fairly juvenile daydream, that
also included acquiring a Harem...

But, the base idea was that a rising tide lifts all ships, and that by
increasing efficiency you could help to kickstart the economic development in
an area that otherwise would remain stagnant.

------
codeddesign
So...we have a director in business and another in marketing that live in San
Francisco who thought it would be a good idea to sell farmers a bunch of junk
they don't need...or is there market American's who extra money to throw
around? I don't get the need...

1\. Most people in undeveloped countries know how to farm, but just lack
specific necessities.

2\. Unless you have knowledge of these electronic components, how would you
ever fix them if they broke? That isn't very sustainable..

3\. What is the point if you have Amazon? Instead of a large container, FedEx
drop's it off.

in other word's, they are attempting to create a business where there is no
need.

~~~
wott
> _they are attempting to create a business where there is no need._

As 99% of startups :-)

------
terda12
I dont see the point of this. If I were to start a farm I'd buy some farming
books on amazon, do my research, and buy the best equipment part per part. I
dont see why anyone would want to spend 50k on some random farming kit.

------
jrnichols
It's gotten more expensive since I first read about this back in 2015.

[http://www.ecowatch.com/solar-powered-farm-from-a-box-
everyt...](http://www.ecowatch.com/solar-powered-farm-from-a-box-everything-
you-need-to-run-an-off-grid-f-1882128391.html)

So in two years, they're still just at a single prototype installation? This
almost sounds like it's just a back end for the founder's other ambitions,
whatever they might be. A quick search of the name shows her as a speaker at
some women's forums, (with the typical theme of "empowering others" and other
social buzzwords) SXSW, and pics of her at Burning Man.

I think the concept is nice, but totally unaffordable for the third world
nations that they say they want to serve. It's also not that people in the
middle east/etc don't know how to farm. They often times just lack modern
farming equipment. Not sure if a 'farm in a box' solution is what they
actually need.

------
ericzawo
I used to work with a company that modified shipping containers for a whole
slew of uses, including hydroponic growing of vegetables. Shipping containers
present a great solution to food production but sadly many of the companies
I've seen attempt to do this sort of thing get bogged down in the details of
implementing them to various clients (such as the article's mention of testing
in Ethiopia). One company, however, that has seemed to get it all right is
[http://www.freightfarms.com/](http://www.freightfarms.com/) I'm very curious
to see where they go. No affiliation, I just know a few happy customers of
theirs.

~~~
web007
Thought this was FreightFarms from the description. I haven't seen the
important details on either side, but it seems a lot easier to guarantee
yields and more automated / automate-able by FF than by DIY farm-in-a-box.

------
prewett
The ROI on this for the customer seems pretty terrible. Farms aren't known for
their high margins. And in places like Oklahoma, the minimum viable commercial
farm is about 640 acres. I'm having a hard time seeing how spending $50k on
this farm kit is going to produce a commercial return. I could see how it
might enable subsistence farming, maybe, but if you're at that level, you
don't have $50k to spend.

------
orasis
I love the idea, but as a fairly well-off hobby farmer myself, there is no way
I would spend that much on this product.

I bought 1 mile of drip tape for $150 off of
[https://www.berryhilldrip.com](https://www.berryhilldrip.com)

Solar panels are a cheap commodity. There are charge controllers which will
only turn on the DC if you're over a certain voltage for the pump.

Again, I love the idea, but its way off on execution at this point.

~~~
terda12
Even if the parts were very optimized price/performance wise, would it still
be a good idea? I would imagine that each place has a specific biome that is
suitable for specific crops, each person has a different amount of acrerage,
etc.

~~~
orasis
You're right that situations are individual - but actually the water
distribution side of things can be fairly generic.

But note that drip tape is incompatible with tractor-based agriculture and
will only be used with perennial or labor intensive annual crops.

~~~
mythrwy
Drip tape sometimes is used in tractor based agriculture. They have a reel
mount that lays the tape (usually when plastic is applied to the bed).

Then they throw the tape away at the end of the season.

Commercial strawberry growers use this quite often.

But yes, to your point, high dollar crops.

------
spraak
It seems very unlikely that anyone wishing to start a farm would spend 50k on
an all in one kit but instead carefully select individual components

~~~
VLM
I could see their idea of a parts kit working better for specific tasks than
for "farming in general".

In my limited experience with mushrooms I almost instantly went from too much
wood and sawdust to know what to do with to the opposite. Even in the field of
mushrooms there are the wood varieties and the animal waste compost varieties.
And I suppose the psychedelic varieties. I grew my own shiitake with some
modest success. The people who burn their scrap woodworking wood are on to
something in that a fire turns scrap into heat with 100% success which is a
much higher success rate than I experienced with mushrooms.

Surely a veg garden kit would look wildly different than a grain farm kit.
Ditto orchards and berries. Then you get into cash crops, I can't live off
peppers directly but I can certainly grow a lot of them, and I can trade.

There is an aspect of specialization that I've fooled around with most of the
above or have a family member who did, but my green thumb is container-style-
garden pepper production and given a marginally functional economic system I'd
be better off maxing out my pepper production, selling almost all of it, and
buying a nice balanced diet, than trying to grow my own "everything".

In a grid-up normalcy situation my mint production is economically worthless,
but in grid-down crash situation I suspect my mint would be quite valuable for
flavoring. Grid down in USA is unlikely but has Ethiopia been grid up at any
time since the 60s? Perhaps now? If so good, for them. But the point remains
that not all of the world is booted up in the world economy and for areas that
are not, some weird stuff like sunflower oil probably would sell pretty well
until the world economy boots up again in that country. It might not matter if
you can't get a shipping crate delivered intact to a down-grid situation
country.

------
al_chemist
Sounds like Garden of Eden Creation Kit (G.E.C.K.).

------
aaron695
Since the jury is in, this is bad idea / vaporware I do find it interesting
it's currently at 380 points on HN.

I' like to think it was up voted as an example of a bad idea, but I suspect
not.

------
almonj
These people don't actually make anything, they just buy a bunch of items and
resell them as a package, it has to be overpriced for them to make any money.
It seems like a really dumb idea for a business, anyone with any sense would
just do their own research and buy what they need themselves. Notice they
specifically want to work with governments, which typically means creating
elaborate lying games in order to get access to stolen money.

------
ucaetano
Why would you put it in a container? Containers are very hard to transport,
you can't just throw it on the back of an ox cart, or pack mules. You need
specialized - and expensive - transportation, as well as a special crane to
unload it.

Not to mention that you kill the local suppliers of agricultural equipment.

And the price tag? Agricultural land is VERY cheap. You can buy an acre of the
most expensive prime Corn Belt land for under $6000 [Edit: in some states this
number is actually around $10k], while in emerging markets good land can go
for as low as as few hundred dollars per acre.

So a single container that can be used to farm two acres of land, could be
used to buy 10 acres of the best land in the US, or 200 acres of land (or
more) in emerging markets. Or you could hire 20 farm workers for 4 years in
India.

It is clear that the target is well-intended governments, who will write big
checks, and leave the units rotting in some depot somewhere as they figure out
what to do with it, draining resources which could be used in actual
development (roads, infrastructure, rural insurance & credit).

San Francisco & Silicon Valley, please go back to solving First World
problems.

~~~
syphilis2
Not to diminish your larger point, but your figures for expensive farm land in
the cornbelt appears outdated to me. Farmland in southern Indiana
(corn/soybeans/wheat) is selling above $10k per acre, with some specific plots
around $15k (though this is not strictly because of farming potential so much
as location and natural resources). There have been some great increases in
value the past few years.

~~~
ucaetano
Thanks for the info, I added a note!

------
programLyrique
There is an agricultural startup also using containers, first for
strawberries, but they literally want to grow fruits or vegetables in a
container, while aiming at a better taste:
[http://www.agricool.co/](http://www.agricool.co/)

The idea seems to target cities, to decrease the time to market, so that they
can optimize the fruits or vegetables for taste and not for conservation.

------
macmac
Kind of weird that they use a 40 foot container in most of their illustrations
when it clearly states that they will be developing a 20 foot version first.

------
kccqzy
> Every box also comes with its own renewable energy system. Everything is
> solar. We’ve got three kilowatts of solar energy pre-installed on the actual
> kit.

What do they mean by this? Kilowatt is not a unit of energy, but a unit of
power. Does that mean they provide equipment that is rated to produce three
kilowatts? I'm no farmer but that sounds like awfully little power for power-
hungry farm equipment.

------
peteforde
This Brandi DiCarli?

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ro4Mn7i7hQ8](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ro4Mn7i7hQ8)

~~~
LunaSea
Yup, seems like it. hahaha

------
Animats
It comes with WiFi, but not a tractor. Or even some small powered push-type
tiller. Do they assume the farmer has an ox or a pair of mules? For $50K, they
should at least throw in a decent garden tractor with a 3-point hitch and some
basic attachments. Priorities.

For comparison, see this article in Modern Farmer.[1] This guy has revenue of
about $100K per acre and has books and tools on how to replicate his farming
techniques. He's working on a turnkey small farming package, and has a track
record of making small farms work.

[1] [http://modernfarmer.com/2016/10/jm-
fortier/](http://modernfarmer.com/2016/10/jm-fortier/)

~~~
new_hackers
I assumed for the price that would be the first thing in the box. Seriously, a
man can do quite a lot with a PTO and some hydraulics. Add to that the ability
to move this power around the field and you can really get some work done.

~~~
jasonwatkinspdx
Based on some experiences in rural Mexico, I think folks in the rich world
underestimate how daunting power tools are to many people in the poor world.
The majority of craftspeople I met and worked a touch with were extremely
reluctant to try to use a circular saw, etc. These are folks that can use a
machete with the precision of a surgeon. If you didn't grow up around powered
equipment, it's a significant hurdle to get over, even when there are
tremendous benefits.

------
johnhenry
I think the problem here is going to be with the agricultural industry. If
major industry leaders perceive these as a threat to their operations, it's
likely that they will lobby congress to either regulate these our of
existence, or somehow just make them flat out illegal.

~~~
randomdata
I had less capital tied up in my >100 acre farm for many years than this small
box costs. I'm not quite sure who is going to buy it at all, let alone it
reaching a point of it becoming some kind of threat.

------
keypusher
The average income in Africa is below $1000 / year. You aren't going to sell a
$60,000 container to a subsistence farmer, even if the whole town pitches in.

------
stock_toaster
From the title I was hoping to see a farm _in_ a box (shipping container
converted to a microfarm/greenhouse with solar panels or something).

------
johnalamos
[http://www.agricool.co/](http://www.agricool.co/) does this better

------
jimmytidey
We'll look back on this article and it will sum up dysfunctional optimism
around the idea of a 'startup'

------
cobbzilla
surprised no one has mentioned farmbot yet. for those with much less space
than 2 acres, or just want to start smaller:
[https://www.farmbot.io](https://www.farmbot.io)

------
jvandonsel
My first thought was "How can they fit two acres of topsoil in a shipping
container?"

~~~
pinaceae
no, it's filled to the brim with 100% bullshit. taking the VC game to the next
level.

------
contingencies
If anyone hasn't read it, check out _The One Straw Revolution_ , and compare
to this approach.

------
stefek99
Love the profit margins!

------
kelvin0
There really are different 'cliques' on HN, depending on which subject is
posted. And this one seems to be the 'not so positive' clique.

If framework is bench marked, or if people create a great CSS suite and
animations, you get (mostly) constructive criticism.

A company is actually doing something about bigger issues which could
positively affect the lives of many people in a sustainable way ... and we get
this.

I'm not saying to turn off our skepticism and critical thinking, but at least
recognize the effort and the potential of such an idea. It might introduce
people who never though of farming to a whole new way of life.

It's not VR, or a new JS framework, but it has a lot of potential.(BTW I am a
developer, and am not affiliated in any way with them).

~~~
orasis
There are quite a few of us here with some farm experience that simply don't
think this product ads up. Its like posting an article about a $50k Linux
distro aimed at coffee shops.

~~~
kelvin0
I understand this, and maybe it's an opportunity for you to find out more
about them considering your expertise.

Following your fact finding quest you could then post a detailed blog about
your analysis for other HN'ers to read. I would be glad to read such a review
with facts and figures explaining objectively what is wrong (or right!) about
the proposed product.

Keep us posted!

~~~
oppositelock
One side of my family comes from a farming background, and I've been around
working farms half my life, the impoverished near-subsistence type.

This product wouldn't be all that useful. The hard part of running a farm is
knowing the local growing conditions, crops which work in these conditions,
and then, the harrowing amount of work involved in getting the thing
productive.

Drip irrigation is cool once set up, but it's not durable and you need to
replace it frequently as it gets damaged, breaks down due to weather, some
animal chews it, whatever. Their solar driven pump is indeed a labor saving
device, but it's a low power low volume pump useful for drip irrigation. I can
guarantee you that nobody's going to be supplying affordable drip irrigation
gear in a poor area. However, given a well, a powerful irrigation pump would
be a huge help, particularly if it can move enough volume to fill traditional
irrigation ditches for the times drip tubing is unattainable.

The IoT metrics stuff isn't very useful. The sort of person who farms in the
places targeted by this isn't very tech savvy, and what's more important than
temperature and water delivery statistics is walking the field and inspecting
for weeds and pests.

The shipping container could make a usable shed, but so would a traditional
shed, usually made from scrounged, cheap, local materials.

If you want to help poor farmers, I would suggest the following \- A powerful
irrigation pump, after helping to drill a well, solar driven is cool. \- A
small ride-on type tractor built to be dead simple to fix and reliable with
plowing, seeding, and harvesting attachments. This is the major work of
running a farm. Bonus points if this thing doesn't require gasoline, but that
would be prohibitively expensive in terms of solar and batteries, since duty
cycle would be very high. \- Some kind of good, watertight and pest resistant
grain storage containers, enough to store a few tons. \- A bunch of lessons in
the local language teaching people how to maximize food production from
minimal resources in a given part of the world. What crops, how to plant,
weed, and harvest them, how to store the harvest. \- A bunch of fertilizer and
pesticide. This will run out one day, so perhaps lessons on how to farm
without it, but that drops production to like 1/4 of what's possible for a
given unit of land. Modern high density farming requires a permanent supply of
modern chemicals.

Now, A farm in a box is a cool idea, and the market may be affluent hobbyists,
but this won't fix food shortage problems because the gear in it isn't
particularly useful to a small farm, but also because food shortage problems
are primarily political.

------
Abishek_Muthian
Water.

------
agentgt
I think I like the farmbot.io idea a little bit better as it seems far more
practical. After all I'm not looking to grow all my food but mainly the dirty
dozen vegetables/fruits (as well as seasonal ones I like).

One of the main reasons I want to grow food though is some vegetables are not
carried by my local grocery stores (I have to go to a farmer market or
expensive grocery store). For example many grocery stores do not sell Japanese
yams, Yuca, various peppers, or plantains (I suppose plantains would be
difficult to grow).

I also would like to do it all inside as well (because I live in New England
and have more inside space than outside and various other reasons). Basically
a refrigerator size farming appliance that you plugin with plumbing and
electricity.

~~~
orasis
Unless they put the farmbot on wheels, you're talking about too small of a
square footage to generate any interesting yields. You'll spend WAY more time
maintaining the bot than you would just planting and mulching.

The farmbot development is important, but won't be commercially viable with
the current fixed rail system.

~~~
agentgt
Well that is what I'm wondering. One of the big issues is real estate. I
wonder if it would be more viable instead of just going 2D to make a more 3D
system (ie stack plants ala hydroponics).

Obviously the sun is way more efficient and preferred but if you live in an
area where the sun isn't exactly available that much of the year it might be
worth it for some automated easy to use large indoor like closet system or
cabinet particularly in more urban areas.

~~~
orasis
As much as it's fun to think about, food doesn't need to be grown in urban
areas with expensive real estate.

Green houses and hydroponics are great, but they can just as well be done on
cheap land.

The biggest difficulty in food production isn't land, water, and sunlight -
its management at scale.

This is why the vast majority of everyone's calories comes from large tractor
managed commodity crops.

As a metaphor, the easy part of IT is ordering the servers, switches, etc. The
setup takes some labor, but the real difficulty is the ongoing management.

~~~
vidarh
> food doesn't need to be grown in urban areas with expensive real estate.

It doesn't _need to_. But there's an increasing push towards looking for ways
to cut the environmental effects of farming, and there transport is part of
the challenge. There's also an increasing push for cutting time to market,
despite traditional farms being further and further away from most consumers.

Hydroponics in urban areas is likely to converge on the mass market from two
directions: Environmentalists looking for options that cut land use and
transport, and up-market foodies willing to pay extra for products that are
"straight from the farm two doors down" in the middle of a city.

Whether it eventually will get cost effective enough to supplant normal farms
is another matter.

~~~
orasis
I so sympathize with this view. I used to hold it.

After experimenting with the hydroponics, vertical growing, etc. I've come to
realize the best way to cut the environmental effects of farming is to make
traditional boring broad acre farming restorative and regenerative. Moving
farms into cities simply won't produce enough calories profitably enough to
make any meaningful positive environmental impact.

Amazingly enough, there are a large number of well-educated farmers out there
that are moving to no-till, alley cropping, key line design for water
retention, and perennial crops.

One of the best voices for this new generation of farmers is Mark Shepard:

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Nnoeb1x-XVA](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Nnoeb1x-XVA)

~~~
vidarh
_yet_

Maybe it never will, but we won't know without trying.

> I've come to realize the best way to cut the environmental effects of
> farming is to make traditional boring broad acre farming restorative and
> regenerative.

But none of that can fully counter the massive land use, nor does it address
the increasing effects of transport necessary to handle increasingly urban
populations and increasing expectations of short delivery times.

------
roel_v
Pretty light on details, even the website of this company itself. The claim of
being able to feed 150 people off 2 acres (about 1 hectare, for those of us
who like to think in units that make sense) is a pretty wild one. Maybe you
could grow potatoes with [150 x 1700 x 365] calories in them in a climate
where you can grow year round, but that's surely not what they're insinuating
in their marketing pictures.

~~~
ComputerGuru
I would say corn, then potato. But you're right, the startup isn't being all
that forthcoming with details and it's likely their claims are (greatly)
exaggerated, or perhaps, from a purely "well, technically..." point-of-view.

There's an excellent article that champions the calories-per-acre metric by
WP: [https://www.washingtonpost.com/lifestyle/food/in-defense-
of-...](https://www.washingtonpost.com/lifestyle/food/in-defense-of-corn-the-
worlds-most-important-food-
crop/2015/07/12/78d86530-25a8-11e5-b77f-eb13a215f593_story.html)

 _In the calorie department, corn is king [..] corn averages roughly 15
million calories per acre [..] wheat comes in at about 4 million calories per
acre, soy at 6 million. Rice is also very high-yielding, at 11 million, and
potatoes are one of the few crops that can rival corn: They also yield about
15 million [..] Broccoli yields about 2.5 million calories per acre, and
spinach is under 2 million_

~~~
chrissnell
If I was designing a two-acre farm to feed my family, I wouldn't devote much
space to corn. Corn is a very useful crop but mostly once it's processed and
you need a lot of it.

Here's what I think I'd grow:

Potatoes - Incredibly easy to grow. Produces a ton of food. Can be grown in
trash cans on otherwise unusable land. Very versatile and useful in so many
cuisines. If I had to place my bets on one staple crop, it's potatoes.

Green beans (Blue Lake variety or similar) - Also very easy to grow. You
trellis them and they don't take up a lot of ground space. Incredibly
bountiful crop--you'll have trash bags full from 50 sq ft of beans. Puts
nutrients back in the soil--very good crop to rotate.

Kale - Nutritious, versatile crop. Easy to grow.

Tomatoes - Nutritious and so easy to grow. Can be grown vertically in raised
pots for more space efficiency.

Tomatillos - Tasty, good for sauces. These grow as voraciously as the green
beans.

Pumpkins, squashes, etc. - These are wandering vines so you can plant them in
good soil on the edge of unusable land and let them grow out over the areas
that you couldn't plant in.

Various lettuces - Not easy to grow--they're susceptible to pests and they
bolt as soon as the weather gets too warm--but they grow fast and if your
family likes salad, you'll eat a lot of them.

~~~
pavel_lishin
Seconding this. My dad's been trying to grow a bit of corn on our land in
Texas for years, probably decades at this point. All we have to show for it is
a once-a-year small ear of corn on Thanksgiving.

The potatoes, on the other hand, he grows by the bucket in piles of hay thrown
into old, bald tires. I suspect the damned things will grow in anything that's
been near a nutrient.

~~~
kuschku
Yup. Something that I can recommend if you have children: just buy a large
flower pot (15" diameter), put it on your balcony, and stick 2 potatoes in it.

Your children will see potatoes grow live, and you can eat them with them. Fun
thing to do, very easy, and works so well.

For soil, just some normal soil you can dig out anywhere is enough, but you
can also buy pre-fertilized soil if you wish (as said, the potatoes would even
grow in garbage cans)

------
mi100hael
_> All of those things affect the ultimate price of the box, and that’s why we
have a range from about $50,000 to $60,000. If you were to a la carte all the
different components that we put into this kit, it would end up costing you
more than what we’re charging._

I _seriously_ doubt that. $50k for what appears to basically be 2 acres of
irrigation equipment and a solar-powered raspberry pi is absurd.

It also looks like they've so far deployed exactly 1 of these setups in the
real world and haven't even really started producing units for sale. Right now
this venture is a complete pipe dream and feels awfully out of touch.

~~~
narrator
In my experience, Raspberry Pis are nice hobbyist toys but tend to corrupt
data on their SD cards at random and generally are unreliable. For 50k you
could at least send them a somewhat rugged fanless PC with a SSD raid for
added reliability.

~~~
peteforde
Off-topic, but I've become something of an unintentional expert on making Pis
reliable.

First, consider using f2fs instead of ext4 with a nice big card (and get a
good one).

Next, attempt to disable all of the unnecessary logging and writes to the SD.
Either send them to a server, write them to a ramdisk or even consider
mounting the partition in read-only mode. This will _drastically_ increase
your duty cycle.

Finally, follow proper system shutdown procedures.

Do all of that (bonus points for putting heatsinks on your chips) and the Pi
becomes rock-solid or something like it. Hint: it's not the Pi that fails,
it's the SD card.

~~~
DiabloD3
I will also comment on the SD card quality issue: STOP BUYING SHITTY LOW GRADE
SD CARDS AND EXPECT TO BE ABLE TO WRITE TO THEM FREQUENTLY.

Just stop. There is a reason why companies like GoPro (which abusively write
cards to death) bless only certain products (the top of their list being
modern generations of Sandisk Extreme and Extreme Plus, Samsung Pro and Pro
Plus, and Lexar Pro).

In this case, they also make industrial SDs that survive unusually high and
low temperatures, which given the nature of this specific context, is worth
looking into (although expensive and of low capacity).

~~~
toomanybeersies
I was just recently talking to someone who was very upset that their super
cheap 32 GB card wasn't 32 GB and overwrote everything on the card when it ran
out of actual space, wiping a whole heap of awesome GoPro footage and photos.

I've had a couple of cards like that before, but after reading an article
about fake SD cards a while ago, I test every new SD card and flash drive I
get to make sure it's to advertised capacity so I haven't been stung.

------
daveguy
It seems odd to me that this is a for-profit company.

~~~
orasis
Profits are the things that allow valuable products to scale.

Its odd to me that Venezuela thought that getting rid of profits for producers
would help society.

~~~
daveguy
Non-profit doesn't mean the company can't make a profit on what it sells or
even pay employees a fair salary. It does mean that profits go back into the
company, rather than having profits siphoned off by investors and
shareholders. Non-profit _is_ pro-reinvestment and therefore pro-scaleup.

~~~
forgetsusername
> _It does mean that profits go back into the company, rather than having
> profits siphoned off by investors and shareholders._

Why is money going back into the company "good", but investors get the
negative connotation of "siphoning" money? What is with the disdain for the
people who _own_ the company making money from it?

~~~
kuschku
> Why is money going back into the company "good", but investors get the
> negative connotation of "siphoning" money?

Because that is exactly what's happening?

If the company produces just enough to break even, the money is distributed
fairly.

But if more money is earnt, this entire surplus goes to the investors (or, in
recent years, also to management).

This means that while the wages of the workers stagnate with increasing
productivity, the profits of the investors go up. The worker is producing an
additional vakue, but all of that goes to the capitalist.

— paraphrased from Das Kapital, by Karl Marx.

------
CodeSheikh
$60,000 seems like a lot of amount for starving and underdeveloped areas.

I went to their funding page and read more about what's inside the "box"
[https://republic.co/farm-from-a-box](https://republic.co/farm-from-a-box)

1: micro-drip irrigation system

2: 3kW solar power

3: Pumping System

4: IOT setup

5: Energy management

6: Basic farm tools

As of 2016, average cost of solar power is approximately $3.00 per watt so ~
$9K. I have installed a decent sized drip water irrigation system in my
backyard purchased with stuff off of Amazon for a total of $200 max. IOT is
unnecessary here. I mean would "poor" people require to purchase Iphones and
Macbooks too to see data collected from the IOT setup? A manual water pump
like this ([http://www.top-pumps.com/pro/20090613195613.jpg](http://www.top-
pumps.com/pro/20090613195613.jpg) )or even an electric one does not go north
of $1k-1.5k. Most solar panels and reserve battery system come with a built-in
energy management feature. This box does not even contain a variety of seeds,
soil, fertilizer and other mandatory things required for proper farming. Think
outside the box.

~~~
roymurdock
I worked on a project to create affordable, electric vegetable graters for
rural farmers in Ghana [1]. For comparison, the price point of our grater was
$150USD and was still seen as too expensive by a substantial portion of our
customers, some of whom opted to purchase the graters on an installment basis
(3 x $50 every 6 months as our group traveled to Ghana bi-annually).

The main problems our rural customers faced were much more basic in nature and
cannot be solved by a $60k farming kit: uncontrollable and sometimes
devastating wet/dry seasonal cycles that could decimate an entire crop, making
financial planning very difficult. Subsequently many of our customers lived
day-to-day off whatever they sold their produce for at the market, making
securing loans/financing to invest in capital (more land, equipment,
livestock) impossible.

At one of the farms we visited, I noticed a half-built brick house next to the
main family house. The farm owner explained that they were building a second
home, but that they had to do it literally "brick-by-brick", purchasing a few
bricks with extra income when they could afford to buy them. He explained this
investment in bricks was their form of saving for the future: the small
amounts of extra money would get spent otherwise on food or other necessities
rather than put into a bank account or stashed under a mattress.

Other basic problems included a relatively high marginal cost of transporting
goods to market and little access to market price data. No agricultural
education info. Communal access to heavy farming machinery (graters, plows,
etc.) with no accountability for these devices (they end up breaking and
nobody wants to pay to fix them). Unreliable electric grid, and no chance the
cellular service would be reliable/affordable enough to get an IoT system up
and running on a small farm, even if the farmers did have time left over after
planting, harvesting, and processing their crops, and looking after their
families. Everything is harder and more manual when you lack scale, and you
can't order a replacement solar panel/battery/raspberry pi off amazon.

Since the goal of our project was to get the grater into the hands of as many
cassava-grating women as possible, at marginally-above-cost, we decided to
sell into restaurants and explore other cash-rich markets to cross-subsidize
sales to small acreage farmers. We also wanted to sell direct, or close-to-
direct (at least in the beginning) to build a relationship with our customers,
get to know them, get feedback on the products, and spread news of the product
thru word of mouth.

That said, maybe we should have looked to sell our graters to governments/NGOs
so we could have scaled up faster.

[1] [http://www.olin.edu/academics/experience/engineering-
capston...](http://www.olin.edu/academics/experience/engineering-capstone/ade-
ghana/)

~~~
mulmen
Based on what you have said here I feel like technology such as iPhones and
IoT networks is not what these people need. Would it help to provide some kind
of farming manual with instructions on how to build and maintain farm
equipment, how to create a co-op to sell locally, etc? Has it been done? What
about providing a printing press to publish pricing data on a daily/weekly
basis to try and make that information available to more people? These seem
like problems that must have existed in the US in the last 100-150 years, what
did we do?

~~~
roymurdock
To go one level deeper than the unpredictable weather and poor economics of
the small-time farm, I think much of the "problem" of subsistence farming is
cultural/societal and there's not much the rural farmers or the NGOs/charities
can do to help other than one-off projects like the cassava grater that
address specific, painful parts of the process, such as manual grating, but
not the entire subsistence farming process/system as a whole.

We spent some time with the best and the brightest Ghanaian college students
at Ashesi University [1], many of whom were middle/upper class and set on
entering business and politics after graduation. Some discussed practical
solutions to the problem, such as farmer co-ops. But all were fed up with the
corruption and unstable governance of the country - which is actually
extremely stable compared to Nigeria, Cameroon, Chad (Boko Haram). I heard
that word 20 times during the half a day we spent with them - corruption this,
corruption that. I left with the feeling that the current government and
previous generations had let these students down, but that they were
determined not to repeat those mistakes.

We also met the CEO and founder of the University, Patrick Awuah, who studied
at Swarthmore in 1985 on a full scholarship and went on to work at Microsoft
for 8 years as a software engineer and manager. He firmly believes in
instilling ethics and self-reliance through education is the way forward for
the country, and indeed the entire continent: "If you come back in 30 years,
universities will be competing for the best and brightest students. I hope
that universities will also be competing on things such as whose students are
the most ethical. If that happens, it will change the continent."

I used to believe that religion was a crucial and effective way of passing an
ethical code from one generation to the next. But every Ghanaian I met was
either Christian or Muslim, and some even expressed concern for my soul when I
said I wasn't religious. All taxi drivers would say a prayer and touch their
jesus piece hanging from the rear view mirror before every journey (very
disconcerting). I also spent some time in Afghanistan, where during the month
of Ramadan, I and the other expats had to drink water out of sight in the
bathroom at work when we were thirsty so as not to offend practicing muslims,
and the entire country shut down after 2pm every day.

Yet despite hugely religious populations, both of these countries experience
high levels of corruption, which I think isn't worse than the corruption that
occurs in the US, it's just more visible - there's not enough to go around so
favor currying/bribes/tribalism is more apparent than it is in wealthier
nations where we've developed discrete ways of channeling and accumulating
wealth. Corruption in poorer countries is very "in your face" \- bribes to the
police or politicians, kidnapping, torture, murder.

I'm not sure how it happened, but we were able to build better infrastructure
in the US over the past 150 years - both physical (power, water,
transportation, internet) and social (checks and balances, constitution, BOR,
legal system, decently-managed welfare system). There was a lot of prosperity
to go around, after WWII ended the great depression at least.

I suspect it had a lot to do with our financial successes following WWII and
the unprecedented technological progress over the past century that allowed
the majority of people in the US to prosper. I think our strong capitalist
roots also helped, as we moved from an agriculture -> industrial -> services
based economy (not a value judgment), while much of Africa was subjected to
colonization and many of its resources, both material and human capital, were
sent elsewhere. We corporatized and scaled up our agricultural sector, which
has its pros (less back breaking labor, a lot more food) and cons (blander,
genetically-weaker crops, danger of oligopoly). I think Mr. Awuah's comment is
interesting because in 30 years, the best and the brightest Ghanaians may feel
compelled to return home and improve life for their fellow Ghanaians, the same
way he did after studying and working abroad.

In summary I believe more forward-thinking universities like Ashesi and more
leaders like Patrick Awuah need to step forward to help instill a love for
ethics, altruism, and the feeling of eating hard-earned bread after a long day
of work in bright young students. This will address the core of the problem of
the back-breaking labor needed for subsistence farming, but will take a long
time. Until then we can chip away at edge problems, like cassava grating, and
as another commenter pointed out, information access through smart phones.

This is all conjecture though, and I'm not big on either African or US
history, so take my opinion with a grain of salt.

[1] In 2012, the university was ranked by PwC as the seventh most respected
organisation in Ghana, becoming the first university to make the list.
Ashesi's President, Dr. Patrick Awuah, was also ranked the 4th Most Respected
CEO in Ghana. In 2015, Africa.com again named Ashesi among its list of top 10
African Universities (excluding South Africa). (From >
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ashesi_University](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ashesi_University))

~~~
kbenson
> I used to believe that religion was a crucial and effective way of passing
> an ethical code from one generation to the next. But every Ghanaian I met
> was either Christian or Muslim, and some even expressed concern for my soul
> when I said I wasn't religious.

I suspect what you might be seeing is moral licensing. I was first introduced
to this as a discrete concept in Malcolm Gladwell's podcast Revisionist
History (episode 1). Interestingly, he predicted that because of it Hillary
Clinton would suffer quite harsh criticism if she were to be elected (prior to
the election). Listening to it for the first time after the election I
couldn't help but think he was right in general but quite off about how it
would be expressed. We had just elected the first black president, after
all...

------
dghughes
>...and even individuals who want to start a farm.

As a person who lives in a farming area this seems like putting a computer and
a box of red bull in a box and labeling it "computer programmer kit".

I'm not a farmer but things like crop rotation, regulations, WHIMIS
(pesticides/herbicides), dangers such as the PTO on the tractor and other farm
dangers all needed training. You see at least once per year some farm hand
injured by crushing or falling there are so many dangers.

~~~
jbob2000
>We have a three-part training program that comes with the box. One: Covering
sustainable farming, making sure everyone knows a little bit in terms of crop
rotation, and composting, and intercropping. Two: Covering technology use and
maintenance, making sure that the individuals know how to maintain and
troubleshoot all of the components of the farm. Three: Farming as an
enterprise, making sure that there is a market-based approach to farming.

So it's more like they give you a computer, a box of redbull, and a couple
books on putting together a MEAN stack. I think it's a good start for someone
who wants to get their feet wet.

~~~
chrissnell
That's a lot of investment for someone getting their feet wet. I've been
growing food for my family at home for the last four years and while I don't
have two acres to farm, I can tell you that equipment has been the least of my
problems.

Learning to grow food has been a gradual process for me, learning what works
for my soil and my climate. I can't imagine trying to start with a Conex full
of equipment and two acres to farm, unless you have a local farmer there to
help you along. It's so much easier to start small, a few hundred square feet,
and to get the advice of a local gardening club or garden store when it comes
to choosing what to plant.

~~~
ctdonath
Not everyone has the luxury or desire for a "gradual process", but may have at
least a sensible starting fund and the motivation to make it work. Sometimes
the window of opportunity is small, and diving in fast is important (say,
realize you have to grow your own food and spring is progressing - if you
don't plant ASAP you're not getting to harvest).

I've long considered a similar "in a [shipping container] box" for fast-start
retail establishments. Have access to retail space? have just days/hours to
put up a fast-food shop? won't be perfect, but the box contains what you need
to get a functioning restaurant delivered & running in hours. Likewise I can
appreciate an "in a box" for a farm; get some cheap land and get what you need
to reach harvest before snowfall.

~~~
maxerickson
I think if you have $50,000 you probably aren't really worried about what you
will be eating in 5 months.

~~~
ctdonath
Supply chain and employment aren't guaranteed. Dependents need be fed. For
some of us, self-sufficiency is axiomatic and dropping $50k for a starter box
might seem sensible.

~~~
maxerickson
So the trucks will reliably deliver the $50,000 of valuable agricultural
equipment but not $5000 of pasta?

I understand the idea of becoming self sufficient. It's the idea of spending
$50,000 to make it happen because it suddenly became urgent that I think is
not very realistic.

(of course 10 man-years of pasta is not an exciting nutritional adventure. I'd
argue it's far more pragmatic than hoping you figure out how to farm in 8
weeks...)

~~~
VLM
If you're more than self sufficient you're of inherent value to your self
sufficient rural neighbors and can expect a long happy life.

If you have $5K of easily movable commodity dollars, gold, pasta, in your
basement, you're of value in another way, and you're probably not going to
like that outcome.

~~~
maxerickson
So hard. If we end up in a world where neighbors are shooting neighbors for
pasta I hope someone gets me quick. I guess I'll make at least 1 tasty meal,
even for a big band of brigands.

The post I initially responded to wasn't about self sufficiency, it was about
buying it in a box and making it work in 1 season. I replied about the making
it work in 1 season not being a particularly likely thing. Hence buying an
easily movable commodity probably being a better use of the money, even if you
aren't a cold blooded crack shot.

~~~
VLM
I guess I was looking at it from a long term community perspective rather than
just brutality.

If in the long run you're a net positive to the neighbors you'll be "in" and
life will be very good. Everyone loves the village blacksmith or brewer or
fellow farmer or whatever.

On the other hand if you don't bring something to the table or just have a
shopping bag of temporary loot then life will be much harder without the
community.

~~~
maxerickson
You think the $50,000 kit is relevant in that perspective?

Or is it something like 10 years of practice that is relevant?

------
billpg
"a test plot [in Ethiopia] for Farm From a Box had to be cancelled, due to
ethnic protests there"

There's a sentence that asks more questions than it answers.

~~~
pjc50
Not specifically related to the farm. Ethiopia is a _very_ non-free country,
as is nearby Eritrea. We just don't hear much about it because journalism is
impossible and the government is pro-west.

~~~
lisivka
Can you explain "pro-west"? I suspect it means somebody who says "I like West.
West will help us", not a liberal mind.

Liberal philosophy roughly means freedom and same rights to everyone,
including very bad persons, in exchange to strict execution of written laws.
So to be truly pro-west, person must advocate same right to everyone,
including e.g. gays, and strong independent court for everyone, including e.g.
top leaders and officials, which will adhere to written laws religiously. He
also must fight to death with bribes and bribers.

Are you sure you labeling correct person with "pro-west" label?

PS.

It's looks like offtopic here. Should I delete this message?

~~~
pbhjpbhj
It's a tricky turn of phrase, as a UK English user I'd use "pro-West" to mean
that a government was complicit with Western _governments_ requests. So things
like allowing USA to have an airbase. Pro-West is along way off "sharing
Western liberal ideals" which appears to be how you interpreted it. As the
parent responded many Westerners don't do that.

~~~
lisivka
For you, pro-west means what you are said. For me, if a politic is elected by
us, I will expect that "pro-west" will serve _us_ by standards of West, not
serve West government requests at expense of us. It's relative term. It's why
I'm trying to clarify.

Thank you.

------
nnain
Does it pack a tractor in? Who's gonna till the soil? Very click-baity.

I can pack in all the required farming equipment needed for a 2 acre land in
under $20,000 in India (including a good tractor!). And I get to chose what I
want.

$50,000-$60,000 is a STEEP price tag to suggest to African farmers I assume!
And then there would be a maintenance costs.

These are just two of the field tested equipments that work (with spare parts
available throught the Indian market at least) and are available with many
options - [https://www.mahindratractor.com/](https://www.mahindratractor.com/)
[http://www.jains.com/irrigation/drip%20irrigation%20system.h...](http://www.jains.com/irrigation/drip%20irrigation%20system.htm)

~~~
nnain
Also farms usually have a store room attached to keep the equipment. It's also
cool in there cause it's made in a traditional way - thatched roof, wood, mud,
thick walls etc. So it makes for a nice resting place when it's hot.

Why would anyone want to lose a piece of their farm land to keep a container
and also pay for it!

~~~
jdowner
One reason why you may want a container is because it is a movable structure.
That means that you do not need a building permit. Acquiring a building permit
requires at least a class 5 road. This is the case for New Hampshire. I don't
know how representative it is though. Also this not uncommon when for larger
lots, but I'm not really sure if there are differences from lots as small as 2
acres.

~~~
Johnny555
If that were indeed a hard requirement, it seems like it would prevent a
farmer building any structure within his property that's not adjoining a
public (i.e. Class V) road.

And indeed the planning board can make an exception:

 _A private road, but as with Class VI roads, only if the governing body,
after consulting with the planning board has adopted a policy allowing
building on that particular private road, or portion thereof, and then only if
the owner has recorded a notice in the registry of deeds acknowledging that
the town is not liable for maintenance..._

So I would think that a farmer that wants to build a storage shed on the far
side of his field would be able to get a permit as long as it's accessible by
some private road (even a class VI dirt road)

~~~
jdowner
Right, the governing body can make an exception for a particular private road.
And in that case, you would be able to apply for a building permit. There are
also provisions for exceptions in RSA 674:41 that would cause excessive
hardship or practical difficulties. So it seems that the law has been made so
that a local governing body has the discretion to made a pragmatic decision.
However, this all assumes that the local governing body would indeed grant
such an exception and that the land owner believes it is worth to effort. In
the case of your hypothetical farmer, it is probably worth the effort.
However, if you have a 2 acre lot and want to put a farm in a box on it, you
might be happy to simply avoid dealing with the governing body and just plant
your farm in a box on your lot and get to work.

~~~
nnain
Why are you guys talking about building policies in US, when this project is
supposedly for under-developed countries?

~~~
jdowner
I guess the first reason is that I was providing an answer to question about
why would you want to use a container. My answer comes from personal
experience in New Hampshire. I mention New Hampshire specifically because I do
not know how general that situation for the rest of the US or other countries.
However, it seems reasonable that they may be equivalent restrictions in other
place, thus providing a reason for why a container may be desirable.

Secondly, the project is not being marketed for specifically for under-
developed countries. In the linked article they do mention their experience in
Kenya and that one of their target markets are governments to support
development projects or refugee camps. But they also state that they are
targeting individuals in the US. Also their website makes it clear that under-
developed countries are not the major focus.

