What's the future of agriculture? I mean the next fifty

Doesn't rice require a massive amount of water to grow, compared to other crops?

I'd think that something like yams/sweet potatoes would be the best choice. They have a lot of bang for the buck, nutritionally speaking and can grow in many more places.

>>971781
Yes. China and India manage, and if they can, I find it difficult to imagine other areas having problems - except the deserts, of course.

Sweet potatoes have too much vitamin A. Eat it twice a day in a normal serving, and you'll get Hypervitaminosis A, which is not pretty.
The body doesn't excrete excess A the way it does excess C. It just hangs around and causes trouble.

Ordinary potatoes would be better. Still,

>>971870
(And I mean twice a day as a staple food, not two times total.)

>>971748

Potatoes can be stored for 6-12 months without the use of electricity, is self-sowing and very very hardy and can grow in the large swathes of land that will open up in Canada and Russia because of the melting permafrost.

It has also a higher content of vitamins and minerals compared to rice or wheat.

But I think the future will have to go back to 3 or 4 shift between nitrogen fixating plants and others, both to improve soil quality, to lessen the use of dwindling amounts of fertilizer and because human stomachs deserve more than one kind of crop going into them, no matter how genetically engineered it might be

Chemical laws are being passed everywhere. The EPA is kicking up their efforts to stop pesticide related illnesses and deaths in the US. If you're thinking about investing in agriculture related products, this is where you need to start.

>>971748
mega-conglomorates with super efficient production producing the most efficient agricultural goods. some fruits and veggies that aren't popular today will be popular in 50 years. less meat per capita because it's inefficient and not healthy.

automation and GMOs, I guess

i think it will turn into people planting their own gardens at home, growing their own food, you know? It could solve a lot of problems

>>971748
I've started eating rice and that shit is great

>>971895
Fuck potatoes

rice with just soy sauce is a surprisingly good meal

not something I'd want to eat every day for the rest of my life, but I'd welcome an increase in rice

The Netherlands is the second agricultural exporter in the world and one of the most densily populated countries in the world.
They produce like 80% of the agricultural stuff they export.

They are the living proof farming in other countries is still in it's infancy.

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>>971748
orbital space farms

and pic related

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>>975032
I've been working on the recirculating feedtubes for zero g aeroponics for about 3 years now. This shit is 30 years away, tops. There are some serious infrastructural obstacles to overcome. Not saying we couldn't do it with today's tech, it's just that the need isn't there. We have such a comprehensively amazing supply chain earthside that there's no reason to throw another source in just yet. Aquaculture and self-sufficient open-water fish farms are the next major adoptive hurdles before anything close to this needs to happen.

>>975045
I totally forgot about the ocean

>>975045
30 years away, minimum*

more realistically this is 50 years away.

Also, there's a lot of really cool stuff going on with open-ocean farming. Aquaponics is so cool, I wouldn't be surprised if someone cracks the nut of having a comprehensive, scalable system with high yields in the next 10 years.

>>975049
>I wouldn't be surprised if someone cracks the nut of having a comprehensive, scalable system with high yields in the next 10 years.

weed farmers have been doing this for the last 30.

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>>975052
and I've been doing it for 5. How do you think I got started? There's a huge difference between personal/small scale hydro, aero, aqua, or otherwise; and industrial level food production. If it were easy it would already have been done. Shit man, the farming system is so backwards I never ceased to be amazed at it. Take california farming, for example. Even simple things like rolling out a hose with holes in it to water your plants is 'too complex' and 'requires too much up front costs.' Instead we just sit around wasting the majority of our water through sprinklers and subsequent atmospheric waste. Does that sound like an easy industry to change? It's not just figuring the ins and outs of nutrient uptake and watering schedules, that shit got figured out a decade ago. I'm talking the nitty gritty implementation nut. The hard things.

Water needs to get a lot more expensive before farming starts modernizing. Shit could be a lot easier and hassle-free than what it is, but because of institutional inertia, lobbying, and outright intransigence on a massive scale it will still be awhile before modern farming methods are widely adopted.

See the picture? Shit diagram because it misses a lot, but still: most people don't know the vocabulary, let alone how to implement. It's all "develop a predictive model with regression" and "big data" and buzzwords, man. No one knows what the fuck they're talking about. And the few who do are completely incapable of making themselves understood. It's the same with every industry.