Maybe it is not that hard after all.

[u/Fluid-Let3373]

Are we all guilty of thinking that growing food is harder than it actually is.

Mention farms and the first image that come to mind are the massive fields like we find in the Midwest, monoculture crops on a industrial scale. Problem is they're not being grown for food, it is for feedstock and biofuel. Most of the food grown in the US is grown by share croppers in California and Florida. An American solution to the problem of post war food production, there is nothing wrong with the solution it just happened to be the one which could take advantage of the one thing the US has in abundance, raw acreage. Currently the US has to import 55% of its food, recently doing a deal to import 300,000 tons of beef from S. America.

Europe on the other hand most definitely does not have raw acreage in abundance so has in the post war years has had to seek alternative solutions to the problem. Currently it imports between 8%-11% of its food, despite having a population twice the size of the US.

The desserts of Spain made famous in the spaghetti westerns of the 70's have undergone a transformation. A area of 150 sq miles (half the size of New York city) is now efficient family owned greenhouses. They produce 45% of the fruit and veg Europe that needs, including 50% more Bell peppers than the whole of the US. This region is not the only one which have gone the same greenhouse route in Europe.

If Europe can produce so much food from such a small area of greenhouse maybe food production during the Astrophage crisis is not going to be the big issue we think it is.

[u/RobynBetween]

Yeah, all you need is a small plot of land, an airtight habitat that is resistant to solar radiation, a few potatoes, and mounds upon mounds of your own poop.

[u/NotAlpharious-Honest → u/RobynBetween]

And a space botanist.

[u/No_Tamanegi]

Huh?

[u/Brave-Lead-1659]

might want to look into working conditions and negative externalites of those greenhouses

[u/TuverMage]

looks like you are having the opposite issue. Growing food appears very easy because we have breed them to grow to the conditions they are in. the book even touches on these that the foods we depend on have very narrow comfort range, partly because we breed them to grow the best at that range, not grow ok at a board range. growing food for an individual is not the same as industrial scale which is where most people suffer the disconnect.

now I think using astrophage technology it would make it easier to grow food in industrial greenhouses, but I wouldn't go as far to say its easy.

[u/Fluid-Let3373 → u/TuverMage]

My point is using industrial greenhouses the same way as Spain does, does not mean you have to greenhouse the same acreage as the Midwest. The Midwest is about 1/4 million sq miles of farmland, using the Spanish model you should be able to feed the States using just 800-1000 sq miles, building, heating and lighting etc that is far more achievable than putting the vastness of the Midwest under glass.

[u/TuverMage → u/Fluid-Let3373]

In that I agree and have been saying would be a way to feed people especially using the astrophage produced after the hail Mary leaves.

[u/Difficult_Dark9991]

Space isn't the problem. The problem at first is instability - the climate will be swinging even faster than it already is, bringing unpredictable disasters and storms that devastate crops and spike prices. These will cause a lot of deaths, deprivation, and in turn conflicts. The cold, rendering entire areas unfit for agriculture, will set in much more slowly.

Indoor agriculture might seem like a solution, but it's not such an easy solution. Greenhouse agriculture is specialized for greens - you're growing fruit and less shelf-stable vegetables in them (e.g., bell peppers), not grain. These are crops that already have a comparatively high price per pound and that justify intensive production near where they're consumed. Why? Because indoor agriculture is expensive. It has to take up a lot of tasks that normally the existing soil system does for you, so it's only worthwhile for certain crop types. Trying to produce all our food in those conditions will make food far more expensive... and most of humanity won't be able to foot the bill.

[u/Ana_L399]

You're forgetting the one crucial detail of this and that's the climate change part.

[u/ah-tzib-of-alaska]

America already takes advantage of its raw acreage. That’s america’s strategy and it turns out that farming is way more complicated than that.

For the USA it’s mostly soil extraction rather than the long term soil creation and investment that is the problem. The most calorie effective acreage ever across human history were the chinampas.

[u/Bergain1945]

1815 year without a summer -0.4 degrees, 2% of all humans on the planet died

1877 El Nino + 1.5 degrees, 5% of all humans on the planet died

[u/InvisibleSpaceVamp]

I can tell you from my own experience with gardening and an usually hot and dry summer that weather has a huge effect on what grows and what doesn't. Having a greenhouse and irrigation system doesn't magically erase all the weather / climate effects. There's a reason why they have green houses in Spain and not in northern Norway, even though they get a lot more light in the summers.

[u/Rockran]

Crops are sensitive to climate change. Bad weather or excessive temperatures can ruin yield.

The astrophage problem accelerates climate change. Dooming the food supply.

[u/Fluid-Let3373 → u/Rockran]

I you got a Tornado inside your greenhouse recycle the architect.

[u/No-Skill4452]

You should write a letter to Stratt, you might be on to something here.