[rlonstein]

> Further, any other high-tech food solution (electric boxes that grow lettuce under lights etc) is more energy-expensive. Can't bean letting Mother Nature do all the work, and just driving by later and picking up the food.

I like the simplicity of that description-- which might be true for grains, where huge tractors and combines can roll through the fields-- but glosses over all the work done on a farm for other products. It also ignores that there are significant risks to letting Mother Nature take her course where as indoor farming can control light cycle and intensity, watering and humidity, CO2 level, temperature, and (probably) greatly increase density while (maybe) minimizing pest control and herbicides.

[JoeAltmaier]

Economies of scale are hard to beat. The whole point of agricultural science for a century is reducing costs per yield. One farmer and 1000 acres are going to beat any room full of indoor-farming boxes and controls, right?

Field applications are really very cheap - a few dollars 'cides per acre total. And yield 10K's of kilos of product.