I license land from the water Dept now..it’s urban edge farming. It comes with its own set of challenges including lack of benefits of scale.
This is actually giving me an opportunity to think and figure out how create farm systems in urban settings. Rural areas are degraded and without support ..in some ways..like with law enforcement, basic infrastructure, connectivity, environmental protection etc.
I think the future is melding self sufficient urban centers with modernized rural food hubs. It’s the only way. On one hand, we have housing crisis and on the other hand, rural areas that are like the Wild West.
I like to imagine them as new cities of the future and just write down what comes to mind. I suspect much will change in our lifetimes..who knows?...but imagining how it can be better saves my sanity and keeps me from losing my temper in bad ways.
Where I farm..because it’s land associated with federal funds has security and a zillion resources that protect it. It’s also in an urban area. It can be improved. We can urbanize around rural hubs. We can introduce food producing hubs in urban settings.. Altho it might be smaller in scale...it will reduce supply chain and value chain when part of food production is local.
I understand farmers better now...but I had to walk in their shoes(But had to lose my shirt, as it were..)
This is so fascinating to me. Have you seen Christopher Alexander's "Pattern Language"? (Especially the "interlocking fingers of city and country" pattern?)
When I lived in Boonville we had an organic garden that generated a surplus, but there didn't seem to be a practical way to sell it to anyone, even with the Internet.
Also, are you into Permaculture or other forms of regenerative agriculture?
I really respect you for getting out there and doing it.
I am taking a break now and only growing/selling from my perennial plantings and fruit from the orchard. The apiary/honey sales is also very healthy. I can see how permaculture is likely more suitable for me. The idea of solo small acreage farming really appeals to me. Because. Labour. People.
I am considering buying a nut orchard or citrus acreage and leave it to farm management. This way I am still a ‘farmer’ while kind of outsourcing the labour. It will give me some breathing space to figure out what to do next.
The future is automation. Far future. I haven’t been able to find any American Agtech for small acreage farmers like me. We don’t develop any appropriate tech for small farms(sub 100 acres.
I hosted a demo for a visiting Ag robotics company. It was embarrassing. Rural america ..at least here in CA..is appalling in its lack of infrastructure. Connectivity, power..even the rtk base station clusters weren’t always available. One of the fuses fizzled and there was literally no one who had a 80A fuse. There was no radio frequency channel that was free for Ag use. All this was fascinating to me. I hand weed and have a compact tractor. What do I know? At that moment, robots in the field seemed like it was impossible in America.
How are we going to get robots in our fields when there are two different Americas? And this is in a state with 45 billion dollars in Ag income. so much environmental degradation, poor infrastructure and California really isn’t throwing money where it needs to stick.
Farmers are a powerful lobby. The big ones. There is no money in farming for others. They say farmers make money once twice. That ‘one good year’ and when they retire and sell the farm land. Example: a small rancher I know told me that he makes more money from mitigation service fees with the govt than what he makes from his 400 strong herd in his 800 acre ranch. Why? Because there is a tiny little salamander that is endangered in California. It has protected status..which is great! the land cannot be used for anything except maybe grazing or as horse property if the tiger salamander decides to make your property it’s home. But the govt also runs a mitigation program where they pay land owners to pick these salamanders and move it to their land. The now cleared property where the salamander used to live is ready to be built upon ..homes and condos.
The state makes many times over in property taxes when these lots are used for real estate. And the last I heard, developers pass it on to the new buyers at something like $5.00/sq.ft. The best way to avail $$ is to make a random critter a candidate for endangered status. I would like to think that I am a conservationist. I don’t see the logic in taking an endangered creature and transplanting it in an environment that it’s not it’s native habitat. What is wrong with this picture? Is the problem created so that the solution is offered? And it just so happens that the solution brings in millions in jobs, homes, taxes and recurring property taxes. What are they doing? I don’t understand. Colour me jaded.
I guess my point is that there is money only if land is used to build homes. The large farms that are corporations that grow pistachios or almonds or alfafa that bring in forex as they are exports are protected..commodity crops listed on stock market are valuable. Farming corporations with powerful bargaining lobbies for water allocation and tax breaks and monies from state budget get preference. The California residents rationed water so almonds could be exported. We paid more for water and even more for watershed protection and taxes and studies for subsidence where ground water and aquifers were emptied by farmers who had grandfathered rights. We sent alfafa to China during the worst years of California drought. It makes one’s jaw drop.
Small farms growing local food don’t get subsidies..don’t get support or have someone lobbying for them...’hobby farmers’ and small acreage farmers growing in marginal land or inherited land with barely there infrastructure and service will never make money.
Local food is important. Food security should be a big deal. Farming should include food for communities and not just exports and trade. Right now, it’s cheaper to export food from Mexico or South America. How much longer?
Before we can automate farming or become sustainable or be able to convert food production..an essential activity..into a profit making venture, there ought to be infrastructure improvements and we need the state to treat productive local small businesses better than they treat criminals who get better services than small/family/market farmers. Tax payers shouldn’t be burdened with raising taxes without any return on their annual tithing. Example: I paid $300/acre for the adobe fire in Napa/Sonoma Area in my property tax return. I am happy to do that. But PG&E hasn’t taken any responsibility and we had fires again this year. What does it all mean? What is the state’s role in fixing the foundational rot in CA? I don’t know. No one does.
We have the best soils in the country. The world even..our weather in CA is truly golden. 8 months..not a drop of rain. It’s a dream to farm in CA. Silicon Valley is in our backyard. There is literally nothing we can’t grow in California. What a beautiful place and I have lived all over the USA.(and two other continents) It should be a dream...but it’s a nightmare.
I love California so much. I have toyed with the idea of hemp farming or buying something for far less money in some place like Nevada..but there is an irrational attachment to California soil. This is where I learnt to farm. I can not possibly quit. I am going to wait it out until the dumbasses that run this state get their collective acts together. I will never quit farming. Altho I might feel like giving up..but I am going to do it right with round 2. I am going to figure a system that checks all the boxes..Agtech, sustainability, environmental and resource conservation and automation because..no automation, no profits. I am certain about that. I have crunched the numbers every way and even upside down..for farms at all sizes..automation is the only way farming can be profitable again. But we can’t do anything about it unless we get the infrastructure right and that’s not a private sector endeavor.
I also feel agtech companies that bring in farm robotics or agtech in the field should avoid large corporate farms and focus on automation small acreage farms first. Why? Because each crop is billions of dollars worth..even lettuce is 3 something billion dollar crop in CA. Strawberries are close to that figure too. They are not going to switch to automation and say bye to all their minimum wage cheap labour for a test farm equipment. They have to pass so many hoops and red tape and obstacles before it gets widely adopted. It will take decades to fully transition and it won’t be painless. An example is when tomatoes were harvested mechanically rather than by migrant labour. It gave raise to an entire political uprising. Companies like JD or Case or Monsanto or Sygenta etc have too much at stake. All tech will be swallowed by the big players and be left to die in a dark vault until they feel it’s time to let it out without cannibalising their own product lines.
We can’t afford to wait that long. It’s criminal to not apply technology that is possible and feasible and can be field ready at once. We need farm bots and should stop dicking around with drones and sensors. That’s all decades old tech. We need foundational changes. Small farms are so small compared to big Ag that application of appropriate future tech is not a danger to the bottom line of the big Ag suppliers or the balance sheet or tax coffers.
If there is one thing I would like to request the tech community..it would be that they ought to create appropriate tech for small acreage farms. It’s easy. It’s possible. It’s low hanging fruit but it’s impact would be tremendous. It would create a whole new farm system and initiate a paradigm shift wrt how we grow our food. To the govt, I would say that they treat them as legit businesses. To the public, I would say that they pay more for good food. Quality over quantity. To young farmers, check externalities and don’t farm with romance. It should be taken seriously or small farmers will have no voice. But starting with infrastructure and not rewarding criminals who damage such an essential act like farming via turning a blind eye is a good start. One of the reasons it became difficult for me was because I grow food. Poop and urine and condoms and tampons that I picked up shouldn’t be in a place where I grow food. I have to pay for certifications and if I have a GAP audit, I would fail if there is a tampon under my mulberry tree. The county owes it to me and my tax paying farm to keep undesirable elements engaged in unlawful activity after I file a complaint. It’s not my job to provide sanctuary to trespassers. And that’s the full circle!
Cheers and peace out. I said more than I wanted to...thanks again. I will check them out.
Wow! That was awesome (also frustrating and poignant.) Should be on the front page of HN, IMO.
I can't write a coherent reply right now, but I wanted to mention some things:
I dream of a world where people can step out of their kitchens and pick their produce from their own gardens, but I know that, realistically, you're right about automation. Most people don't want to tend a garden. But I'm an amateur roboticist and gardener and I'm not confident that automation will be at all easy. Even with the recent advances in ML, et. al., it's going to be hard to displace humans (after all, we are adapted to gathering food from plants.) The easy-to-automate farming might turn out to be microbes ( https://massivesci.com/articles/iwi-algae-protein-nannochlor... & http://boostbiomes.com/https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20687797 ), and/or marine farming ( https://www.greenwave.org/ ).
I'm hoping that it might be possible to make dense "food forests" near to population centers and people can come and glean for themselves. I had an idea for a kind of member-supported farm with a restaurant on-premises. Folks drive out (by appointment) for a fancy meal sourced (mostly) from the farm/garden around them, membership would include a certain number of meals. There's a lot of little details (members can purchase surplus produce online and pick it up after their meals, etc.)
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What about some sort of small online distributed Farmer's Market, like Etsy for Veggies, that allows people to pledge to buy produce before it's harvested, or even before it's planted? You would have to allow for e.g. bad weather or bugs/diseases ruining a given crop/area, but it would give small rural farms a stable market, maybe?
I know there are a lot of people who are willing to pay more for healthier, ecologically grown food. Just look at any Whole Foods store, for example. It's a matter of connecting the kitchens and the farms. "Merely" a logistics problem, eh?
This is actually giving me an opportunity to think and figure out how create farm systems in urban settings. Rural areas are degraded and without support ..in some ways..like with law enforcement, basic infrastructure, connectivity, environmental protection etc.
I think the future is melding self sufficient urban centers with modernized rural food hubs. It’s the only way. On one hand, we have housing crisis and on the other hand, rural areas that are like the Wild West.
I like to imagine them as new cities of the future and just write down what comes to mind. I suspect much will change in our lifetimes..who knows?...but imagining how it can be better saves my sanity and keeps me from losing my temper in bad ways.
Where I farm..because it’s land associated with federal funds has security and a zillion resources that protect it. It’s also in an urban area. It can be improved. We can urbanize around rural hubs. We can introduce food producing hubs in urban settings.. Altho it might be smaller in scale...it will reduce supply chain and value chain when part of food production is local.
I understand farmers better now...but I had to walk in their shoes(But had to lose my shirt, as it were..)