Solving the big problems requires bold plans.
The Problem:
The first 10,000 years of agriculture are reactionary. Outdoor agriculture is driven by the sun, weather, bugs and now climate change. System improvements do not address the greater knowledge that there are no controls. No dials to turn creates crop insurance and interesting government policy. Certain crops can only be grown in certain places at certain times. It’s rather hard to turn on more sun or less sun, right? Climate change is rapidly changing what can be grown where.
In the last 40 years, northern European greenhouses and greenhouse operations globally have brought some measure of control over external events and have advanced the art of perishable crop production indoors in harsh climates with great success.
In the last 15 years, the ultimate reactionary manifestation has yielded indoor farms that have adapted greenhouse systems and best practices to function indoors. These systems offer greater control have turned a few more knobs with advances in LED lighting, light recipes and sensors and other controls. These systems have driven tech advancement and made great strides in making this form of agriculture commercially viable. However, the foundations of entrenched systems are some form of greenhouse DWC, ebb and flow, emitter and so forth. These systems have been adapted for indoor farming. These systems were never designed for this task. Additionally, these systems are 50 years old and obsolete. Aeroponic systems have been the promise, but have been hard to scale. All of these variations are heavily Gantt leveraged systems and offer one class of crop such as greens. These systems are stationary. Workers or machines must go to the crops to service. The derivatives of these systems are highly specialized and require heavy automation just to get to the starting line. These systems do offer control of the macro grow but are reactionary systems requiring excess inputs and where pests, pathogens, and inefficiency reign.
There are too many knobs to turn with existing systems and thus Gantt became the system. To manage the complexity, even more complexity has been added and machine learning is go to strategy.
New paths are needed.
Fortunately, the inferior starting points of these systems have driven the development of the tech peripherals around the grow. The lights, the data, the sensors, machine learning etc. These technologies are now mature, standardized commodities available to all. The resulting best practices are advanced.
The Solution:
What does Ag 2.0 look like? A planned proactive agricultural system for our future is required. The world is quite literally hungry for a new solution. A new foundation is required for terrestrial sustainability and reaching the stars.
A physical linear I/O operating system that removes all the knobs requires less inputs and generates a whole lot more output while substantially reducing system complexity. This is the key to bringing outdoor ag in. Placing modern peripherals on a new system architecture with today’s best practices gives us exciting new answers.
The AutoCrop System Architecture OS 1.0 is the path forward. Our linear I/O machines remove all of the knobs and allow a desired variable to be re introduced to the grow. This is the opposite of existing Ag. Our system architecture grows multiple crop classes. The crops come to us. A bit of Henry Ford replicable processes of quantity and quality. Our MegaFarm High Volume Continuous Production Lines operate 60.24.7.365. Offering output by the week, day, hour. Even by the minute.
Time and Technology:
The right place at the right time is everything.
At this juncture of time and technology many exciting advancements are occurring across the globe across multiple sectors and social values. The generational opportunity of legalized cannabis. This is akin to Joseph Kennedy going to Europe at the end of prohibition and securing contracts for liquor imports.
We have the tools.
Plant Meats, Clean Tech, Ag Tech, Food Tech, Bio Tech:
Our world is rapidly transitioning to Ag for an urbanized world and alternative proteins, today. Plant meats can be grown indoors on our MegaFarms. The Beyond Meats™, Impossible Foods™, and a thousand other startups are supply constrained. These protein resources can be vertically integrated with existing value added manufacturing facilities.
We have the tools.
Traceability:
The risks of pathogens such as E. coli, Covid etc. are well known. Agriculture has always lacked accountability.
We have the tools.
Our I/O high volume continuous production line system architecture is enclosed. Ingress and egress is data logged. From seed to harvest the entire cycle is recorded.
Each of these developments are generational. Each of these opportunities are converging at this point in time.
This is the gold rush. These are the boom times. The money is necessarily flowing.
Our time is now.