That's unfortunate that you feel this way. Quite frequently the ones I see succeed aren't the best at their tech either (be it their focused field or general tech). Tech VCs gravitate towards tech people. Surely that is obvious and you shouldn't give up after only consulting them. Let them solve things the only way they know how, and maybe you can find someone else to take a different approach with your ideas. Or maybe not. You shouldn't feel so slighted/jaded by it though. We all feel our ideas, be they ones proven in other scenarios or not, are workable.
> But outside, we got sunshine. And it’s free. Nothing is cheaper than free!
Would simulated and/or pumped-in sunshine cost more than (or even a significan fraction of) the labor?
If not, that seems similar to the sunk-cost fallacy, substituting "free" for "already paid for".
If labor costs, for any comparably-sized farm, dwarf artificial light [1] costs, then it would be a form of "penny wise, pound foolish" to opt for free light if it means incurring the labor cost. This is true, even if each is the biggest single cost in each scenario.
[1] Even that needn't be 100% artificial, since windows and skylights exist, though, again, my ignorance as an outsider may preclude me from realizing something that might be obvious to an insider, like this option not moving the needle on cost.
On one hand, there is a regular farm with farm labour and natural sun light. A traditional calendar picture farm. A tractor, some workers, rows of crops, red barn etc.
On the other hand, there is an automated indoor farm with artificial lights.
Are these the two scenarios that are being compared?
I agree that indoor farming will likely seem more profitable even though lighting costs money.
But it doesn’t happen that way because of
1. economies of scale.
https://coststudyfiles.ucdavis.edu/uploads/cs_public/52/c9/5... : UC Davis cost studies for lettuce.
https://www.freightfarms.com/income-projection#proformabody-... : freight farms income projection. Look at comment sections to gauge reception
https://www.agrilyst.com/stateofindoorfarming2017/ : agrilyst compilation of indoor economics. No one is named.
https://www.scribd.com/document/318543132/10A-Dr-T-Kozai-Pla... : Japanese Prof.Kozai sharing their insights. Very helpful.
2. While indoor farming is being tinkered around with..someone still has to keep supplying lettuce to the Walmarts and Whole Foods and Safeway’s and Kroger’s and restaurants and consumers.
3. Right now, the advantage of outdoor lettuce farming is legacy. California lettuce companies have been doing it for so long that they have perfected it to an art form.
But regulations are strangling and water is disappearing. Soon labour too. And it’s getging expensive.
They do the best they can. They give medical, 15-27/hour including benefits, breaks, overtime and some even provide housing. But it’s not going to be sustainable because the public still wants cheap food.
Even if indoor systems are automated, the jury is still out there if it would be profitable. Also..indoor plant specialists would want 60-120k. The Joses and Eduardos and Marias employed in the field demand much less.
Make of this what you may...I am just throwing light on current ground reality. I have NO solutions or recommendations. These are bigger problems.
I do know that food security is important. Local food supply is crucial for this. Food should be reasonably priced for everyone. Farming should be financially viable and sustainable for young farmers to keep doing what they do best.
My solution is small farm robotics. Outdoors. Because I am not an indoor farmer. I only read about it. Perhaps there are other ways to deal with it but I am not equipped to comment more. I understand large scale production but I haven’t worked in it. Everyone is an employee in a corporate farm. I am a farm owner and a farm worker in my farm. So it’s worlds apart.
I wouldn't know, other than assuming that the subject of the article is the model for the indoor farm.
> I agree that indoor farming will likely seem more profitable even though lighting costs money.
That does answer my question, and it essentially answers (at least part of) why VCs would find it interesting.
> 1. economies of scale.
IIUC, the subject of the article is attempting to tackle a niche (of their own creation?) of urban farming, which is, presumably, at smaller scale.
But is it a business worth purusing for humanity. Have you ever tasted hydroponics lettuce ? It's so inferior in taste and the sensations it gives in your mouth. It may have all nutrients, but if nutrients is the point, then let's eat soylent green.
Here's a major "organic" tomato operation in California.[2] It's indoors. The growing medium is coconut husks with computer controlled drip irrigation. It's more similar to a hydroponic operation than to an outdoor farm.
[1] https://www.npr.org/sections/thesalt/2017/11/02/561462293/hy... [2] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4ayKz9-FbhA
But yes, being able to produce fresh food better, faster and in more controlled way is definitely worth pursuing for humanity.
there's earth, rain and sun and millions of years or R&D already done and proven successful. I really wonder what kind of research youo want...
What you may want is : tasty food for everyone on earth. But that's not science, that's much more politics.
A lot of food that we eat today evolved really fast after we started to care about their taste and only select the ones with the properties we want. We're talking about maximum 10k years of fast evolution for human taste, not millions of years.
But it isn't better. And why is making worse food faster worth pursuing for humanity? All the available evidence seems to suggest that a rural agrarian lifestyle provides more happiness and fulfillment. It would seem that we should be pursuing how to move people into the country to grow their own food, not how to support the highest possible population of humans at the expense of those humans and everything else on the planet.
Given the history of agriculture and the tendency to select for large watery produce, it seems like what you've experienced is the result of a profit optimization rather than an anecdotal example of hydroponics limitation in regards to producing quality vegetables.
Similarly, there's a bunch of robot startups that aren't really _about_ the thing they're trying to do right now, so much as they want to make general purpose robots that can handle all sorts of tasks.
In this case they landed on farming, but there have been other seemingly dumb robot applications. For example: check out this massively expensive robot arm (that could easily kill a worker) that has been used instead of just putting the conveyor belt directly into the conveyor belt oven.
That company isn't interested in Pizzas or restaurants per se (if they were they'd make something more like a frozen pizza factory) they're just using it as a proving ground.
There is real innovation happening in the farming space but it looks like the video you posted or these automatic milking robots or something else that really helps out.
https://www.nytimes.com/2014/04/23/nyregion/with-farm-roboti...
What’s to stop someone else from getting an industrial robot arm and making it do the same thing?
(Side note: building a pizza-making robot is one small dream of mine.)
Your website offers food from a "little farm". Wouldn't tech companies prefer to partner with experienced large scale commercial growers? In addition, you seem to take things (that aren't even criticisms) overly emotionally/personally, which would probably not be ideal in a cofounder.
My website is a placeholder. I don’t have time to update things on social media amidst farmwork. I might during winter when cover crops are in.
Large scale commercial growers can be partners, but are you saying small scale farmers don’t deserve the benefits of robotic technology and stuff that would help us make more profit without repetitive manual labour? This is exactly the sentiment that I sensed with tech people in Silicon Valley. That there is no value to saving heirloom varieties or using conservation techniques to protect soil and environment. Our small scale gives us room to grow varieties and food of the different people from all over. Fertilizers leach. Tillage destroys soil structure. Massive soil disruption gets rid of soil microbiome. Large scale commercial producers are important but local food is important too. That’s my opinion anyways.
You are way off Mark when you say I take things overly emotional /personal. But I am not going to challenge you. It’s your opinion and you are entitled to it. Have a nice day.
P.S: they are not ‘cabbages’
Could you link your website?
Sometimes all you need is a blind garden gnome as a helper. If I can tell the gnome to walk 3 steps, stop, use a two inch circle hoe once up and once down, it doesn’t matter if he is blind IF I set up planting and spacing before hand that is suitable for the blind garden gnome. Yes, it’s awesome to have a rover with lidar and sensors and vision system and AI for phenotyping and uploading the ID of every weed in the field to the cloud. But do we need it?
And I thought about it long and hard as to why all this is even there in the design. It became apparent very quickly. Data. They are collecting data with all the IoT devices piggy backing on the machine.
They tell us that we need this data. They tell us that this data will bring us more profits. They tell us that we have to pay for this data collection.
But my field data that is 2-3 times more valuable than the kale I sell(and that I pay for because most of these are subscription services) belongs to me. But the IoT devices and the farm bots that collect it are not even ours. The farmers don’t own it, they don’t have right to repair and they can’t extarct data. And trust me, there is A LOT of data that can be collected from our fields that we don’t even need. But we own it. And I want to commoditise it for the farmer. Why should we buy retail and sell wholesale and take all the risk, but not reap the benefits?
That’s why John Deere wants to deny farmers right to repair citing DMCA. That’s why hardware tech is going to commodity crops that are traded in the exchange. That’s where the real ROI is for VCs. I am not an idiot. I get it, but why should part of profits from my activity not come back to me?
With produce and non commodity crops, the value is trying to capture the ROI through blockchain and data from that. But again farmers are at the bottom of the supply chain and value is spread to all the people in between and we get none of it because we are the first ring in the supply chain. It never flows back. If I sell Romain wholesale, I can get 39cents from buyer. It sells for 1.59-2.50 a head as it adds up on the supply chain, but that 0.5-one cent I pay per romaine for technology to extract data is included as costs for the 39c I receive, but it becomes 5-10 cents up the value chain and it plumps up everytime it goes up.
But people who work in supply chain tech and robotics and drones have access to SV and VCs. Farmers don’t. Large commercial farms that operate with offices and lobbying muscle and are members of organizations that represent them have access to SV and VCs, but small farmers who work the farms they own can..in no way..access these people who are investors.
The small acreage farmer is basically nuts. They farm because they have a passion for it. Soil health is more important than pesticides and fertilizer to boost productivity. Many aren’t buoyed by higher profits but its their very nature that gets them out of the game after 4-5 years average because you can’t suppirt yourself with this kind of variable, broke today-chicken dinner tomorrow income. But we have value and we can create value. We need to make money to continue doing what we do...when they say that the average farmer is 58 and young people don’t want to farm..well..why would they if they are not seen and valued?
I didn’t know how this became such a long reply. Thanks for reading.
My website is a placeholder for my farm. Its not a place for tech or farm bot topics there as it’s a place for my customers and farm friends. It’s my username dot com.
Also. I doubt if there is any infrastructure or support in central California. UC Davis might have some ways to collaborate with small farms but in my limited and personal experience, I find that they prefer to work with their own..alumni and school network. I am an immigrant and didn’t obtain my education here. I get it, but I don’t have to like how the system works.
That’s why YC selection process bummed me big time. I have a reasonable network that I built since I started farming four years ago. But it WAS hard and it’s never enough because I don’t ‘belong’ here or the networked university system.
Lest it seems like I am whining, I want to say that I am just being realistic. I also know when to cut loose from a sinking dream. I guess I will keep trying but I am not emotionally or passionately invested anymore. My time is precious and I can’t waste it trying to impress people who see things differently.
I am still a good writer. I will write instead. I am hoping that it will fulfill me. But sometimes..from time to time, I got to roll my eyes when I see wheels that will never roll being reinvented with so much $$$!
With the OP, I don’t have a dog in this fight as it’s Indoor Ag, but I have learned a lot about automation and data collection by understanding indoor systems and philosophy. Iron Ox is like Amazon’s Kiva or Fetch Bots. I don’t get it.
So far, they're not as flexible about weed/plant detection as they could be. But there will probably be a training system where you go out with a cell phone pointed down at the field, swiping left for weeds and right for plants, until the machine learning system is trained.
There's a lot that can be done, and is being done, by hooking up inexpensive vision systems to actuators on agricultural implements. Here's a nice example - a cultivator which is stirring the soil around each plant while not touching the plants.[2]
The main problem with automated vegetable harvesting is not that it can't be done, but that for some crops the infrequently used machinery isn't cost effective compared to hiring large numbers of people for short periods.
[1] https://www.growingproduce.com/vegetables/automated-weeders-... [2] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DhqNmRuBPsw
Manipulation of plants in a clean room is easy, it is also remote from any real world application (outside space or maybe arctic farming). You should at least aim at greenhouses tech.
Also, the market concepts of innovator, early adopter, early majority, late majority, laggard came from potato farmers, showing that some of them are innovators, just like every other group. Target them.
There has to be a ‘farm stack’...because it’s a lot of things. When I see a weed thinning machine start up bought for 300 something million, I am awed that just one simple function that isn’t even that essential with proper management is so expensive. This was Blue River Tech bought by John Deere. And what did John Deere do? They shut down lettuce thinning and took it to cotton which is a commodity crop and is one of the crops that uses pesticide sprays a lot. A good notion but it’s not food.
Which brings everyone back to square one and more $$$ going into something that has already been invented but retired.
And even if companies like John Deere own these tech, they control it tightly. I wonder how many lawyers are in their payroll. Farmers in California just lost the right to repair tractors with software in them. DMCA (https://www.forbes.com/sites/jasonbloomberg/2017/04/30/john-... )
Can you imagine if one of those giant autonomous machines breaks down? Having smaller bots that swarm and take care of small acreages is less risky. Mitigated crop loss. It serves both small farmers and large farmers. Most ‘large farms’ are really corporate farms that outsource growing instructions and protocols to smaller farms and buys their produce. They contract farmers to grow what goes under their label after packing. Packers are not often growers. Distributors are not always packers. And then there are brokers, wholesalers and retailers. The supply chain is long!! The lettuce is at least a week old before you can buy it! Small local farm operators can get food via a smaller supply chain. I also want farming to be climate change proof and ‘future proof’. It’s easier to pivot smaller systems than larger massive ones.
I am making quick points but there is a lot of nuance depending on location, geography and kind of crops grown. This is why Agtech needs farmers and growers as partners. We know all the gory details and gnarly bits about our specialities.
Take pests like bugs. It differs not just from crop to crop but also differs with soil type, geography, season and sometimes we don’t even know why or how. It’s not possible to standardize this intelligence. So a weeding machine meant for the lettuce fields of Salinas, CA may not work elsewhere. It will become unbearably expensive to work out a system for a common farm marketplace. But it’s easy when we have a general purpose platform and process with minor changes depending on circumstance that can be cloud based and open source based on local farmers input. For this it has to be small and cheap.
And most importantly farmers need to trust tech. VCs have chosen to create for a few massive consolidated large scale farms(not selling to them,btw but leasing) instead of making it possible for everyone to farm.
It’s like the smart phone. If Apple made a $30000 gold plated phone, few might buy it but when they make cheaper ones with plastic cases, everyone can have one. And Apple makes $ from services and apps and what not. Plus they will be repeat buyers.
I struggle to explain this to finance folk and tech folk who now think they are bosom buddies with the VC folk now that they got a couple rounds of funding. There are real pain points that are not being addressed. In the field, I can already see future pain points. 30 years from now..if there is no fossil fuel..if climate change occurs..if soil changes..if water disappears..whatever. But no one who can make it happen is listening.
The word Technology means 'the skill of crafting', but its become hijacked to mean anything with a microchip
That so few people can feed so many using such a small amount of land is a massive tech innovation
2. There is already a lot of technology in what you eat. Mechanization in factory style farms, cold supply chain, blockchain for lettuce at Walmart..the stock system..the inventory..everything. Not to mention that your food chain is owned by agri fertilizers and pesticide companies..and gmo seed. Bayer owns Monsanto now. The company that used slave labor in nazi concentration camps bought out the company that made agent orange. And that’s who is making your food and medicine.
3. I am also frustrated that farming methods aka hard work meant to feed a lot less people is now expected to feed close to 10 billion by 2050. On less land.
Who would have thought, it's actually real: https://www.ibm.com/blockchain/solutions/food-trust. It seems to be based on Hyperledger Fabric, which apparently does not require proof-of-work. That's amazing, and thanks for mentioning it. This is the first non-disastrous blockchain project in active use that I've ever heard of.
It’s overkill for lettuce sold to Walmart, but I can see why Walmart wants to try it. I am curious to see how we can implement and use blockchain appropriately in the supply and value chain of food. Walmart mandating lettuce blockchain and patterning with IBM is a good start, but honestly at this level, it can also be done with just well managed database systems. But I am all for it! I am excited to see where this will lead.
I also can...intuitively only because I can’t articulate it or prove it.. see this as ‘laying down of the road’ before the town is built. Exciting.
I'd much rather we eliminate the need for jobs so people don't need to work anymore. Working sucks. I think I work at a great place. I still wouldn't do it if I didn't get paid.
Piano, music composition, hanging out with friends/family, and social work.
Basically the things in my life that I think actually matter to me.
There’s not enough political will though.
How "representative" of our country (assuming you're in the U.S. apologies if you're not) are our politicians?
How many are "wealthy" vs. the general population etc.?
It's a huge cost center, and the amount of labor required to operate a farm is considerably less than what it has been in the past. It seems like the major bottleneck is harvesting, packaging and shipping the majority of your product to market, it's a natural place to look for gains.
The moneymakers are the landholders anyways.
> Then you don't know how to solve the shortcut in jobs.
Most harvesting work is done on a "piece work" system. These aren't jobs that have any future in them because there are absolutely no skills required and no reason for an employer to develop them and they're highly seasonal.
> Couldn't we just slow down tech a little bit and let people do some good old hard work to keep getting their cut?
There may be cases where this is true, but when the labor is literally "just pulling food out of the ground and putting it in a box" I don't think the use of technology is an inherent problem.
Right now, VC money should go to other things like AI, supply chain integrated into production, blockchain etc.
And they must have farmers as partners. Farmers completely distrust tech because we are not included. I gave up trying. It’s like we speak different languages but when tech is trying to create produce for MY domain,isn’t my participation and input necessary?
I am particularly bummed because I applied to YC twice and it always comes back to finding a tech partner. My tech is farming. I know stuff your roboticist or engineer can’t dream of because we live that nightmare of crop failure or machines failing all the time.
At this point, I think I am going to write stories like sci fi or fantasy and maybe someone will realize my vision(or not..who knows..maybe it’s not the right fit, but I will never know) after I am gone. I really enjoy coming up with theoretical solutions because at this point, that’s all I can do.
I would have discouraged Iron Ox from that idea. Who transplants one at a time when technology exists to do thousands at a time? Why? I can’t even wrap my mind around this.