Hacker News new | ask | show | jobs
by cloudbonsai 445 days ago
To add some perspective, the most expensive component of modern farming is fetilizers. Things such as Nitrogen, Phosphate and Potash.

America depends on other countries to supply some part of these materials (like Potash from Canada).

I'm not sure the assertion "food is entirely local" is entirely sound, when we consider the supply chain.
2 comments
hollerith 445 days ago
Most of our potash comes from Canada, but surely the US is self-sufficient in nitrogen fertilizer (since it is made from natural gas, which is really cheap in the US) and ISTR it's being close to being self-sufficient in phosphate, too.
link
cloudbonsai 445 days ago
Maybe. But as an OSS developer, I find it cozy that even domestic food production has a certain global component. I like the image of a global community helping each other, just as we do in software projects.

I mean, if American companies had rejected Linux/Ruby/Lua because "they are foreign goods, born in Finland/Japan/Brazil", were it better?

link
hollerith 445 days ago
Do US farms spend more on fertilizer than they do on fuel for tractors and other machines?
link