

Tech investors plowing money into future farms - rl3
http://seattletimes.com/html/businesstechnology/2025258312_agtechfuturexml.html

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codingdave
I am a software engineer, and a I live on a small hobby farm where we trying
to sustainably raise our own food.

My concern with the startup world getting into agriculture is that unless
small-scale agriculture becomes pervasive, then we are also dependent on the
transportation infrastructure to ship food around the world. Suddenly we live
in a more complex system with more moving parts (literally). It has more
potential for failure.

I disagree 100% with the people who say that only large scale operations have
the potential to feed the world. It just isn't true, as any of us who produce
tons of food on small plots of land can show you.

But getting millions or billions of people to start growing food instead of
lawns. That is a challenge.

I hope there are some startups thinking about efficient small-scale
operations. I just haven't heard of/from them.

~~~
WalterBright
> growing food instead of lawns.

I've occasionally attempted to grow vegetables in my yard. They won't even
sprout.

My apple tree is over 10 years old and still is little more than a stick with
a few leaves.

~~~
codingdave
Learning to produce food takes more time and energy than people realize. Every
piece of land has a different mix of nutrients in the soil, water, sun, wind,
insects, you name it. It takes most new folks a few years of work just to
figure out how to use their own soil properly, and you often need to build up
the proper nutrients to make it work, via composting, growing some cover crops
to replenish nitrogen, or good old animal poo.

As far as fruit trees go, how they were planted has a lot to do with their
success, as a poor root system will create a poor tree. Likewise, a few years
of bad trimming will create a tree that spends more energy on wood production
and not fruit production.

Frankly, I could type a lot of random stuff that needs to be thought about,
but the truth is that growing food takes research, learning, and practice. We
have spent years learning about gardening and homesteading, finding the right
land and home for ourselves, and working it to start producing for our family.
Years. And we still feel like raw beginners. It is not as simple as just
throwing a few seeds in a garden box and watering them, although that is a
good start.

To bring this back to startups, one very helpful product may simply be a
training program to help people through the learning process and guide them on
how to figure things out for their own land.

~~~
IndianAstronaut
Does hydroponics simplify this process?

~~~
bsder
No. Hydroponics is generally _worse_ for beginners.

Having something planted in an outside soil plot generally means that you have
more leeway for making mistakes. You can be a little over or underwatered and
things won't die. You can miss the nutrient mix a bit, and things will still
grow even if they aren't optimal. You generally don't have to worry about
micronutrients and the like until you've been growing in the same plot for
some number of years.

Hydroponics tends to be higher maintenance. You may have to water every day.
You may have to feed and fertilize more often. You probably have to be more
vigilant about pests and disease since you probably don't get help from the
local environment.

~~~
jsprogrammer
Hydroponics would seem to be more amenable to automation though. So much of it
(including the plants) can be standardized and monitored.

While it probably doesn't make sense for everyone to have their own, manually
maintained hydroponic garden, it might make sense to have large-scale, but
local, highly automated gardens that produce food for the surrounding
community.

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soup10
Seems like an easily overlooked and underestimated sector of the world. Most
software and tech development happens in cities and away from rural areas and
farm-towns. And agriculture doesn't exactly have a reputation for easy
profits. There's probably a lot of opportunity for tech and software
developers that understand the needs and challenges of the industry.

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EdSharkey
I predict within 30 years, it will be popular to own a backyard swarm of small
robots that will tend a garden during the growing season. Pesticides will not
be needed because the robots will hunt the bugs. Big backyards will become an
important feature when buying a house. It will be cheaper AND more convenient
than going to the store to buy your produce. Big ag and silicon valley will be
bummed because the best home farming software will be open source and free.

~~~
Cyther606
Let's hope those robots can fend off transgenic outcrossing. Anything that
could conceivably disrupt Monsanto's monopolistic greed over food would be a
boon for local and organic farmers [1].

[1]: The World According to Monsanto, a _must watch_ documentary
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N6_DbVdVo-k](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N6_DbVdVo-k)

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terravion
The article says farming is the oldest industry. I thought that moniker
belonged to ...another profession.

In all seriousness, it is great to see venture capital attention to
agriculture. Agriculture is the original tech industry that disrupted the way
people lived. There was food before there was agriculture and it is much more
open to tech adoption than most urbanites realize.

~~~
jqm
Indeed. Aside from the other profession you might have in mind, people were
certainly hunting and fishing and gathering and making pots and baskets and
boats and war a long long time before they started farming.

Farming is an old profession, but not even close to the oldest.

~~~
chrisbennet
It said farming is the oldest _industry_. Maybe that is more true?

