[mastermage]

An idea that sprang to mind and please point me out at which points its unrealistic and why because I am talking completely out of my ass here. If we want to reduce mono culture but we still need to somehow figure out how to provide humanity. Could large scale vertical farms, in Green Houses reduce the footprint of monocultures? By being more productive year round? Or is that just technolgist delusions of mine?

[j4k0bfr]

The thing that always baffles me with vertical farming is sunlight. Assuming most crops are pretty good at turning full spectrum sunlight into useful stuff, why shrink your solar energy per crop?

And assuming you get around this via grow lights, surely the energy and material cost goes up too much for high-volume crops to make economical sense.

[ssl-3]

I think it's hard to generalize whether vertical farms are good or bad; efficient or inefficient. It seems that whether it works or not relies very heavily on the locality.

In my part of Ohio, we have lots of farmland -- and plenty of water that just falls out of the sky. We've got reasonably-long, generally-hot days during our growing season and we get some serious crop production done here while it lasts.

The rest of the year? The days are short. It's dark and cold outside; frozen, even. We can't grow crops outside here in the winter.

But vertical farms (eg, fancy greenhouses) can just keep going. With artificial light and/or supplemental heat, they're still producing even in the depths of winter.

Thus, I can go to the grocery store near my house and buy a locally-grown tomato in February. It's expensive to get this done, but the alternatives include paying someone to drive it up here from thousands of miles away or just going without a tomato until after things have warmed up again and stayed that way for awhile.

[devsda]

Just thinking like if something doesn't grow in winter, is it because of lack of plant's adaptation or is it because their primary vector for seed dispersal hasn't adapted to survive in that weather or may be because it is not safe to consume in that season.

Or simply put, can wild animals eat tomatoes safely(on evolutionary timescale) in winter if they don't normally grow in winter.

[ssl-3]

I'd like to choose Option C:

The tomato is native to places like Peru and Ecuador, and eventually was moved to [what is now known as] Mexico as we kept bringing it further north.

The tomato is Ohio's state fruit[1], but it does not belong in Ohio. The only reason we have tomatoes growing in Ohio is humans; nature has nothing to do with it. They wouldn't be here without people dilly-whacking with things.

(And I'm glad they did so. Tomatoes are delicious.)

[1]: Seems weird but it be that way anyhow. Ohio also has a native state fruit, which is the paw paw.

[b112]

This only makes sense in certain circumstances I think. For example, shipping tomatoes from 5000km away when it's winter in Canada.

I recently did some research, and there are multiple local greenhouses around many large Canadian cities for just this reason. They are competitive in the winter, and sell to local supermarkets. The cost of the greenhouses vs shipping + loss.

And there is a loss in nutrition, when you harvest green and it takes weeks to hit the table, vs something picked yesterday and picked when actually ripe.

Of course, these are large warehouses, not typical greenouses.

So I guess the answer is, it can make sense in certain circumstances. A warmer place where you can grow fruit outside year round, not so much.

[anjel]

Canadian hydroelectric is the catalyst that makes winter hothouse produce cost competitive. Wealthy us elec producers have no incentive to match Canada's low cost of production. Indeed their incentives are rather contrary.

[lebuffon]

In southern Ontario where there are many ( the most?) greenhouses electricity is primarily produced by Nuclear (50..55%) Hydro power is about 24 ..38% of the total.

I think the bigger difference is the Canadian attitude about the "commons" nature of electricity and so profiting excessively on power is frowned upon.

[badc0ffee]

Most of the tomatoes and cucumbers I buy here in Alberta year-round are greenhouse grown in-province. Our electric power here is basically natural gas with a bit of wind and hydro. Although to your point, we're probably one of the cheapest locales in the world for NG.

[forlorn_mammoth]

I appreciate you being upfront about the depth of your knowledge.

Regenerative farming and/or permaculture offer ways to run industrial-scale agriculture without the monoculture. See i.e. https://peercommunityjournal.org/articles/10.24072/pcjournal...

Another innovation I see is the use of "crop tunnels" (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Polytunnel) to greatly extend the growing season in colder climates (another poster mentioned "Ohio"), and/or better control evaporation.

[bell-cot]

Over the years, many firms have poured many $millions into vertical farms.

If you're growing extreme-value crops - marijuana, or maybe exotic salad greens for Michelin-starred restaurants - that can actually work.

Otherwise, you're trying to compete with millions of square miles of naturally sun-lit dirt, and extremely efficient modern agro-tech stacks. Bankruptcy awaits.

> just technologist delusions of mine?

I'd bet you've read several articles about techno-utopians setting up vertical farms, and their grand dreams. Which always hand-wave the "how can this massively expensive setup complete with dirt?" part.

Farming sun-lit dirt does not magically require monoculture, nor poor farming practices. The problems is monoculture's appeal to certain human cultures - especially profit-maximizing "big ag" capitalists - and the agricultural policies enacted by naive politicians.

[m4x]

> you're trying to compete with millions of square miles of naturally sun-lit dirt

You're begging the question with this statement. Indoor growing is used when you don't have access to this kind of resource. There are many locations where access to land or suitable conditions is restricted.

CEA has been used profitably for a long time, and the most valuable crops are mushrooms and leafy greens, not exotic or illegal plants.

[bell-cot]

> ... when you don't have access to ...

These days, "don't have access" is a micro-market. Everywhere else, indoor growing has to compete with the cost & delay of importing. Last I heard, even Antarctic bases are only growing a few fresh veggies - 99% of their food is imported. (Well, plant-based food. They might do a fair bit of fishing.)

> CEA has been used ...

My comment was replying to magemaster's "large scale vertical farms ... just technologist delusions".* Vs. greenhouses - which can be little more than plastic sheeting over light wooden framing over sunlit dirt - yes, those have far saner economics. Mushrooms - which can be grown in dark caves without dirt using prehistoric technology - are also a very different thing.

*To quote Wikipedia - "The modern concept of vertical farming was proposed in 1999 by Dickson Despommier, professor of Public and Environmental Health at Columbia University.[2] Despommier and his students came up with a design of a skyscraper farm that could feed 50,000 people."

[looping__lui]

I’m just saying: stop hating bees with made up arguments