Chinese Economics Thread
- Thread starter Norfolk
- Start date
Recent large export due to disasters and stuff.
Self reliance will have to be done on the back of tech
Honestly those vertical farming buildings might not be such a bad idea. It should result in stable perpetual production.
Vertical farming is definitely the future... but the most important thing is finding a commercially viable way to vertical farm grains... especially rice and wheat
Will take lots of innovation but I think it will be done eventually.
If only we didn't have to spend so much money to defend ourselves from imperialists and terrorists.
Unfortunately vertical farming is mostly used for vegetables and fruits. Those command higher prices and need to be fresh. So placing the farm closer to the final customer in the city makes more sense. Right now vertical farms still have their expenses and even with LED lighting it isn't viable for some (cheaper) crops. I think for grains what's more likely to happen is denser cultivation and crops which can be harvested more often. Another possibility is crops which can grow on marginal land which wasn't possible to use for growing beforehand. China is already working on things like that. Even in places like Brazil, for example, it didn't use to be a soybean producer until a couple years back when new techniques made previously unusable land open for production. It required soil amelioration and developing specific crops to made it happen which took many years. Before that the world trade market on soy was dominated by the US.
I can imagine a bioreactor based process where you only grow the edible parts of the grains in a large suspension. Perhaps one reactor can replace an acre or something. Then you have a 50 story building of these reactors, the results can be very nice
.Well, I was reading once a couple of years back about ways to synthesize sugar. It is actually possible to do it in the lab. It was first synthesized in 1953. Problem is currently the process is too inefficient and slow so it's extracted from plants instead.
The sugar molecule itself isn't that complicated. It's just carbon, hydrogen, and oxygen. I think eventually we'll see the commercialization of synthetic ways to produce simple sugars.
Another thing a lot of people have worked for several decades is growing algae in bulk and using those to produce vegetable oil. Algae can be grown in ponds at much greater density than conventional crops. They can even grow in salt water. The main issues are how to extract the oil cheaply enough and how to ensure maximum productivity without the algae dying off to disease or contamination.
The sugar molecule itself isn't that complicated. It's just carbon, hydrogen, and oxygen. I think eventually we'll see the commercialization of synthetic ways to produce simple sugars.
Another thing a lot of people have worked for several decades is growing algae in bulk and using those to produce vegetable oil. Algae can be grown in ponds at much greater density than conventional crops. They can even grow in salt water. The main issues are how to extract the oil cheaply enough and how to ensure maximum productivity without the algae dying off to disease or contamination.
Last edited:
Tbh... land or how close it is to the customer isn’t a big issue with potential new methods of grain farming using methods such as hydroponics... for example there are some efforts in Japan, I believe Indonesia (very small scale only) and the Middle East (have seen mentions but not anything too concrete)...
I think the first step isn’t thinking about something grand like aerofarms or similar projects... using hydroponics/aquaponics to control water use and environment management should be the priority, forget using LED for the moment, green house with sun light would work just fine... then would be automation of seeding, placement of crops into system and harvesting would already go a long way... We can figure the rest out later, for example, there was some proposal of using fibre-optics to channel light instead of directly using LEDs, and other such ideas to lower cost of a potential system...
The problem is the ROI of these types of projects as grains takes more time and the return per harvest makes it an unattractive enterprise... and I think the Chinese gov should take a bigger step in this... have some areas that might not be ideal for those grains and try different methods in a controlled environment... so that food supply especially rice is not at the mercy of the Yangtze River, like it is now...
For reference aerofarms
Well hot damn, I will gladly ditch the PS5 if this console is in any way equal to the PS and Xbox.