> What agriculture really needs is an effective way to make and keep decent soil.

Growing up on a farm in Germany, this is just what I would call decent farming and this is not rocket science. The knowledge how to do this is there and imho it does not involve some "tech disruption". Agriculture, at least in Germany, is highly mechanized/technized and in the end it does not matter if you look at conventional/"industrial" or ecological/bio-farming.

You need to take care of nutrients, humus creation, ... . This involves "artificial" fertilizer, regularly taking soil samples, to check what nutrients are there, crop rotation, etc... Sure you can just "raid" the soil and move on after ten years, but good luck finding new area in Germany to farm on ;-) And this is more or less independent of scale of farming.

100%

I grew up going to a museum that had a historical farm every weekend (17th-early 19th century) Spreading liquid cow poop on the field wasn't an option because they didn't have the machinery. So they needed to do animal/crop rotation to keep the costs down (ie not pay for animal food.)

When I wasn't there I was on my parent's allotment. Next to the allotment was a standard arable field. For various reasons It stopped being used and was left to nature.

Two things struck me: 1) it was about 80cm lower than the allotments

2) nothing grew on it. The strip of land that served as a border had to be mown _every week_ to keep it from exploding.

It had basically degraded to sand and stone.

I don't know how different Germany is, but here in the Netherlands, it's hard to find farmers who understand what good soil and the meaning of an ecosystem is. They are, apart from a few, industrialists operating a biotech factory for which they've learned the 'recipe' for growing and selling particular crops or livestock.

>it's hard to find farmers who understand what good soil and the meaning of an ecosystem is.

I am not sure if you are referring to specific types of crops, but Netherlands has consistently been the best in Europe if not the best in the world at agriculture. Using nothing but precisely good soil, science and ecosystem. Outpacing yield make in both Canada and even US with GMO. It also has one of the best Bio/Food Tech startup scene.

And they have been doing it for years , before it get reported on by mainstream media [1]. The only thing that is lacking, comparatively speaking is the management, marketing and sales. Where the US companies tends to excel.

[1] https://www.nationalgeographic.com/magazine/2017/09/holland-...

I somehow never considered you can just test the soil for nutritions, which is utterly stupid as I do just that with my freshwater aquarium.

I think its more analogous to inspecting the biomedia to see what bacteria are growing there. As you know its important not to wash them with tap water, but you never really know whats growning there, unless it goes wrong and your nitrites spike.

You can buy sponges that have nitrate/nitrite removers in them, but they run out, and have to be replaced. Its far better to grow the bacteria to do that for you.

However its like starting a new tank from scratch, it takes at least a month before you can put even 1/4 the fish in. Its much the same with fields.

They are problems though, we haven't used all of the globes arable land but that doesn't mean we are able to or even should. Consider that much of the remaining arable land is forests we really need to keep. Not all of that is suitable to the types of crops we want to grow, and not all of it is available to the countries currently requiring more food.

Arable land is a resource not available to everyone as well, and we shouldn't assume we can just take it from those who have it. The global economy is more complicated than that.

And lastly, climate change is set to shake things up significantly. Record droughts already cause huge economic damage nearly every year, and it is only just beginning. We are going to need more control and stability over our food sources.

Absolutely there is room for development of more traditional farming but I think it would be naive to imagine that it would all just work out fine in a global market utopia. It is worth developing this technology.

> Absolutely there is room for development of more traditional farming

I'm not talking about traditional farming. I'm talking about using "low tech" solutions but monitoring them scientifically.

For example, flooding in the UK is becoming a bigger problem, partly because of more rain, partly because people are allowed to live on flood plains. However a significant change is the way farming has modified land drainage. The soil contains less humus (spongey black/brown stuff, not hummus :)) which means it's much more like sand and doesn't absorb water.

This water runs off, taking the fertiliser, and soil with it. This clogs up and kills rivers, and because there is no capacity to hold water in the land, it all disgorges into streams and rivers at once, causing floods.

Improving soil health costs money, more money than fertiliser in the short term. There are no real incentives to change this. Everyone knows that soil health is degrading, but there isn't agreement on how to proceed.

> Record droughts already cause huge economic damage nearly every year

Farming has a massive impact on droughts. it also has a massive impact on heat absorption. hence my statement on mixed tree/arable.

Its less productive, but moderates water loss and heat gain. It also is a boon to wildlife. it can be made almost as productive if there is some form of intense labour. Assuming that we can mechanise it effectively we can remove the barriers to adoption.

Tax externalities. The concept isn't that foreign. Basically the same as pollution fines, but instead of on a case-by-case basis, with long investigations and usually with involving the courts, just use that IT thing you mention and have people pay according to how badly they mismanage their land.

> There are no real incentives to change this.

Well, yeah, it's not surprising. UK is not really looking far ahead nowadays.

"but you are spending money and carbon on re-creating sunlight."

Depends on location. For example, Iceland has a lot of geothermal heat, but natural climate unsuitable for agriculture.

> yes, but you are spending money and carbon on re-creating sunlight.

Unlike farming in Africa and shipping it around the world? Vertical farming allow to farm specifically where it is needed.

What about freezing it to allow to get it all year long?

> What agriculture really needs is an effective way to make and keep decent soil.

Then go for it, see you in next year YC. If that really what it need then you won't have trouble selling it.

> What agriculture really needs is an effective way to make and keep decent soil. After that its water management, after that is pest management. If you can make an automated, sustainable & cheap way to do that, you'll be actually helping the world.

Isn't this exactly what vertical farms solve in a single move? The automated part is extremely hard to do in a field, wind, rain, UV and sheer sq footage all work against you. We pretty much nailed automated warehouses at this point, vertical farms are just a re-implmentation of that technology for agriculture.

Humanity has spent close to 10 millenia at this point improving and optimising agriculture. I think it fair to say that we've made all of the major breakthroughs for farming in a field at this point, and if we want to see a step change in food production efficiency and reliability (which we need if we intend to feed 8-12 billion mouths) then we need to start looking beyond traditional farms.

We know there won't be enough arable land in the world to feed everyone in world 50-100 years from now using any currently known techniques, and climate change is only making that worse by reducing the amount of arable land available. Being able to build high efficiently (both in terms of land and energy) farming systems is incredibly important.

Being able to move to a system where almost all of the energy input is electricity opens up a whole world of new possibilities. Allowing us to build farms almost anywhere without regard for the local climate, and with our electricity production becoming increasingly carbon neutral it'll allow these farms to have little to no environmental impact on the world.

One your other points:

> Monocultures are spectacularly fragile. You have to be extraordinarily careful about your air system to ensure that you don't suddenly loose your crop to aphids/greenfly/other. Thats also not counting fungus or bacteria.

True but we know how to build controlled environments inside of factories. Just look at microprocessor fabrication. This is a completely solved problem already.

> None of this is good for the environment. It takes a huge amount of resources to setup, keep heated and lit.

Modern building insulation is basically magic. Once you get it hot the first time, the energy to keep it hot is negligible. Additionally you can site these farms near natural geothermal sources etc, you don't need to put them in perfect climates. Same applies for electricity, put them near hydro, wind or even solar farms. Pick a place where the input resources are easily and readily accessible.