[sebleon]

This comment is spot on. There's good reason to believe that the low-hanging fruits in improving agriculture are non-tech changes in farming. For example, a province in India was able to improve rice yields by 45% by transplanting seedlings earlier in a grid pattern [1].

I doubt that eliminating human labor costs would move the needle, automating farms seems like a low ROI move.

If you follow the money, it's easy to see why the US has focused its research on high-tech petrochemical fertilizer farming and GMOs. You can sell proprietary fertilizers, herbicides, insecticides, and seeds, but it's much harder to monetize new farming techniques.

[1] https://www.theguardian.com/global-development/2013/feb/16/i...

[lambdadmitry]

> If you follow the money, it's easy to see why the US has focused its research on high-tech petrochemical fertilizer farming and GMOs. You can sell proprietary fertilizers, herbicides, insecticides, and seeds, but it's much harder to monetize new farming techniques.

I believe this means that you are not aware of the work of Norman Borlaug [1] [2]. Basically the very fact that we don't have famines now in places like India, Pakistan and Mexico is due to his and his group's work on intensive agriculture, which was mostly about farming techniques, government practices and setting up local fertilizer productions.

Moreover, it seems that you somehow look down to fertilizers. There is nothing wrong or inherently "non-green" in fixing nitrogen into nitrate fertilizers, you can easily do this with solar energy.

[1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Norman_Borlaug

[2]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Green_Revolution

[sebleon]

Right, I've heard the Western narrative on Norman Borlaug and the "Green Revolution".

I'd highly encourage you to read through the work of Vandana Shiva. [1] She'll provide a well-researched, critical view as an actual stakeholder in India's food system.

I look down upon petro-chemical fertilizers because of their disastrous effects on the environment and food security. Happy to elaborate, but Dr. Shiva work does it better.

[1] http://vandanashiva.com/?p=291

[lambdadmitry]

You keep throwing the phrase "petro-chemical fertilizers" around but I can't see how it can make sense except for denigrating the concept and spreading FUD (which is counterproductive). Ammonia is just NH3 and there is nothing "petro" (i.e. hydrocarbons) in it, that hydrogen can be obtained anywhere and the nitrogen is literally around you.

Can you please elaborate on how fixing nitrogen on industrial scale is "disastrous"? What difference do you see between bio-available nitrogen that originated in root nodules and chemical reactor?

[sebleon]

> You keep throwing the phrase "petro-chemical fertilizers"...

Given that most fertilizers are composed of chemicals derived from petroleum, it's accurate. I don't use the term "conventional farming" because these techniques are extremely modern.

> Can you please elaborate on how fixing nitrogen on industrial scale is "disastrous"

To be clear, fixing nitrogen is fine, bacteria do this already naturally. The problem with fertilizers used at the industrial scale is that they end up ruining local water supplies + killing local ecosystem of bacteria and insects [1]. After a few years of using industrial fertilizers, famers end up ruining their soil and end up being dependent on fertilizer suppliers for future crops.

[1] https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/how-fertilizers-h...

[lambdadmitry]

> most fertilizers are composed of chemicals derived from petroleum

Can you please elaborate further? Yep, in a lot of cases hydrogen for ammonia comes from natural gas. Nope, it doesn't have to be, in fact you can easily get it from water. What other "chemicals" do you have in mind?

> because these techniques are extremely modern

They are, but the concept of "not dying of famine" is also pretty modern if you consider an overall population.

> The problem with fertilizers… killing local ecosystem of bacteria and insects

I believe you confuse fertilizers with pesticides.

[chadgeidel]

The nitrogen in the fertilizer is creating dead zones: https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/fertilizer-runoff...

A quick googling will show many scholarly papers and articles describing this.

[chadgeidel]

I just listened to a podcast (50 things that made the modern economy http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p04f77rg) about the Haber-Bosch process https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Haber_process

According to the podcast and the wiki page, the current source of hydrogen for ammonia is natural gas. Additionally the process is energy-intensive, using high temperature and pressure.

These things don't necessarily make it mandatory that it's petro-chemical, but due to the way we currently run it it is.

[lambdadmitry]

And the current source of electricity that runs HN is most probably fossil fuels. Does it make HN "petro-website"? It's clearly a derogatory term that serves no constructive purpose. I believe we should strive for zero-emission hydrogen production (which is clearly possible given that hydrogen can be easily used to utilize excessive production from "green" sources) instead of pushing luddite worldview.

[chadgeidel]

The key point of my post was "the current source of hydrogen for ammonia is natural gas" It can be made from other sources, but it is not. Hence petro-chemical. Like plastic or nylon.

[hueving]

>I doubt that eliminating human labor costs would move the needle, automating farms seems like a low ROI move

If that were true, the farms in California wouldn't be filled with illegal immigrants.

[sebleon]

Ah, looks like you're right:

USDA: "Wages, salaries, and contract labor expenses represent roughly 17 percent of total variable farm costs, and as much as 40 percent of costs in labor intensive crops such as fruits, vegetables, and nursery products." [1]

[1] https://www.ers.usda.gov/topics/farm-economy/farm-labor/back...