[antocv]

Hey man no way, you have been living my dream!

First I wanted to just grow berries, then I realized, pesticides and so on, so add another plant to fight that attacker instead of pesticide, then add another plant to protect that plant by being attractive for those other bugs which kill the bad bugs. Then I realized, this would eventually be a forrest with just more berries and edible fruits than normal. Thats where the problem appeared, reaping it would be hard to scale, indeed even planting such a forest would be hard to scale with current mechanical means.

I have a few designs for robot-like planting and pickery, yet all I currently have in realization is 2sqm dirt with potatos, carrots, strawberries and another pot of blueberries. :-/

Then another depressing realization, even if I made this on 100ha of land and produced a lot of nice fruits, berries, roots, the pay-off in money would probably not be worth it.

[fataliss]

The good and the bad news is that eventually, when the rest of the land goes infertile from overuse, your method will be worth the money :)

[bgroat]

I'm actually harvesting water through condensation machines and storing them in a man-made underwater resevoir now.

Soon I'll be pumping it into the house for plumbing, etc.

My reasoning is, in 20 years I'll have a cool project to talk about, or I'll be sitting on a fortune in freshwater.

[Amygaz]

You don't do sustainable farming for the money. It can certainly pay the bills and some. Plus subsidies and incentives can help.

If you want to make money you start a vertical farming AgTech, which will not be profitable, but will attract the trendy funding. Pay yourself well while it last.

[valboa]

Smart Farming is the way! You need to concentrate in flavor and quality. Yield is a race to the bottom.

[DataGata]

Why wouldn't the pay-off in money not be worth it? You can charge a "responsibility premium" to local hipster stores.

[antocv]

Hipsters and eco-paying-premium people dont have money, not even close to the money provided to vertical ag tech farms.

Capital intensive to develop the automatic reaping bots, which will also cost more to operate compared to current "pour diesel into tractor and pull the earth up and shake it to extract so many potatoes". Destruction just costs less.