The coming food crisis in the United States

https://mastodon.online/@sarahtaber/114242135777645567

by ChuckMcM • 1 year ago

14 7 1 year ago

ChuckMcM3• 1 year ago

I know, this doesn't necessarily seem like HN material, but hear me out. An industry that is ripe for disruption and efficiency restructuring is agriculture. Whether it is robotic farm equipment, indoor 'factory' farms, closed system aqua-ponics, whatever. People need to eat, industrial farming is showing the same signs of stagnation and indifference as industries that have been disrupted in the past by the application of technology. Is this 'tomorrow's big wave? Who knows but it is a lot more real that bigger and bigger language models and it is a lot more impactful long term. So many factors are coming together which are going to make a food crisis in the 'developed' world and there will be some big winners who have applied new ways of getting from seed to table.

brudgers3• 1 year ago

Once it's about "winners," getting free money from the government is a lot more efficient than anything that involves going "from seed to table."

And when food is about "winners," famine is but a losers gonna be losing.

ChuckMcM3• 1 year ago

That was kind of Sarah's point :-). People who 'farm' because they want free money, not because they actually want to feed people, compose a large fraction of the entities holding arable land in the US. As a result, they won't switch to crops for food, crops take a while to switch over, therefore when the subsidies go away and they all start losing money Americans are going to pay extortionate sums for "imported" food. Those who can't pay will be in a world of hurt.

almosthere• 1 year ago

Them kids that grew up in farm families and moved to SF to code may move back and learn the farm trade before dad dies. Hopefully.

Much of the land is being sold off to China.

The coming food crisis in the United States

Related Stories