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[Duuvian]

That is true, but also indoor gardening is less labor intensive due to a lack of competition with weed plants (and hopefully pests because those can be difficult to be rid of so it's better not to bring outdoor plants inside with indoor plants). Basically on the low end it's limited to watering and making sure the lights are still working and things are going swell according to plan when not using a window for sun (I do that through fall and winter to keep warm weather plants which are going outside in buckets in the spring), and some kind of low-end water pump and timer isn't very expensive and that makes not forgetting to water a lot easier. For example a pump for a fishtank and a bucket might work on top of floor protection as long as the water doesn't accumulate, stagnate or get everywhere. You are right about yields though, it takes more land than one might think to grow a lot of crops. The small room scale I mentioned would be supplementary like spices or fresh vegetables or a giant aloe plant like I had once. Now those are easy to grow. I didn't know they got that big. It kept outgrowing the things I planted it in. The fleshy leaves were as wide as my hand at the base of it. I fertilized it with rabbit shit tea, and a little bit of brown sugar water sometimes.

Is it a good idea and would it impact supply and demand if widely adopted? Sure, or at least I think so. There would probably be implications to consider and balance as well. It won't be more than supplementary though in a small room compared to food requirements. I've seen some nice setups in magazines that look like it could produce a lot of tomatoes in a small room, so maybe it would reduce the person's demand for tomatoes at the market to probably close to nothing or even to give or sell some away. That's probably a lot more everything to setup than my buckets scheme.

A thing that may be of benefit might be a county level pool of equipment that could tear up a yard and throw some relatively low effort crop down for people who would be alright with that. Raspberries for example, at least around here, are fucking everywhere. They just go in whatever unmowed clearing they please. I think the grass fears it. It makes huge impassible clumps of spiky vines just covered with these damn berries the birds love and shit everywhere. I would need something like a hockey goalie outfit to walk through them and I'd probably just get stuck and have to eat raspberries.

[McTraveller]

The danger of this second Trump Presidency was never about Trump. It's about the people he empowers, and the harm they are much more likely to follow through with.

I wish more people were saying this. This has always been the problem with Trump.

[Truean]

Please do not quote

Now, widescale home indoor farming isn't practical. Humanity needs to change that. Many reasons: economics, hunger, climate, etc.
"Possible?" Yes, economical/practical? Not now. Technically hydroponics exist, but aren't affordable/available, and operable by most.

Goals/impediments to actually making it real/feeding people with indoor/at home vertical or hydroponic farming:
Materials: Easy recycling plastic would help (water/milk gallon jugs or 3D printing), failing that, something cheap/affordable. Unsure what.
Space/Land: Vertical gardening, but this relies upon materials and engineering/operations knowledge, that ... most don't have.
Climate: Location. Soil quality/artificial plant nutrient supplementation. Temperature, seasons if outdoor. Daylight if through windows...
Electricity/Light: Natural sunlight would require design (greenhouse, architecture). Better solar panels/wind would help. Otherwise....
Labor/Time: See above; lack of skills. Time may potentially be offset by resources, but depends on lots of things. Many unknowns.
Risk: A certain number of plants may simply not take. Bad harvests happen. Not insurmountable, or inconsiderable. Just be aware.
Pests: See "Risk." Sealing everything up reduces this greatly, possibly to 0, but that costs money. What do you do if they show up?
Water: Different methods require different amounts of water. Depending on water availability, may be more or less of an issue.
Social: Even if you get past the economic, material, electric, climate, labor, risk, etc. concerns. Would people want to do it?

Logically, it seems obvious, at first. There are hungry people. Grow more food, or do something. Alternative is malnutrition?
Realistically, we don't have the widespread tech. It shouldn't be impossible but there is a lot standing in the way.

How the hell is Musk or anyone going to Mars if we can't realistically grow indoors on earth? Earth's atmosphere/air works. Mars...?
Maybe somebody has a plan, and I hope so, but I'm not seeing it so far and nobody's showing it.

Proof of concept (not necessarily practical and unfortunately not presently practical really, but ...)  :
] Container garden shelf with grow light.

A more "high tech" Smartphone enabled route

https://torontolife.com/shopping/six-indoor-hydroponic-gardens-for-growing-your-own-fruits-and-veggies/

Technically possible and at scale but the enormous price tag puts this right out of reach.

If you really want to see scale possibilities but that's commercial and technically possible but incredibly expensive.

Basically, I think humanity needs this and I hope we develop it, but we haven't yet. Not affordable or practical. Should it be: yes. Is it: no, not now.

Ideally: There could be a wall of hydroponic vegetables growing in PVC pipes mounted on interior home walls (or fancier setups) with windows letting sun in. Rainwater, and food/plant scraps (or even better aquaponics for fish too) for fertilizer/plan nutrients.  Solar or renewable energy would run pumps/artificial grow lights. The idea would be a home that sustained its occupants by providing food, electricity, etc.

Reality: We are nowhere near this practically at scale in an economical fashion. We need to be. We probably could be if we invested the R&D to actually do it, but .... We aren't.

As food prices rise, the demand (willingness and ability to pay) for this will too. They're not making more land.... There are a lot more people. There's a growing market, but it's mostly at hobby scale for home use, unless you count the commercial sector which is still quite small overall. In a better world than the one we live in, it could almost be an installed utility like a furnace or a hot water heater that produces food and plants instead of heat. Associated repair/maintenance professionals (HVAC/heating repair) could exist if the cost could be made practical. If someone makes this actually affordable then they could be a billionaire.

Sadly, it's now mostly a dream.

Does that mean it's impossible and that supplementation can't be done? No.
There are some alternatives on small scale
Again, we aren't where we would need to be for even this to be widespread, practical, adopted/implemented. And even with several containers like this, you're likely looking at dietary supplementation rather than full sufficiency right now. That needs to change, but until then, you could easily argue something would be better than nothing. Somebody out there needs to figure this out, because if somebody can sell Americans a system that would produce food indoors economically comparable to what the grocery store charges (increasingly expensive it seems), then that person would become insanely rich.

Similar vein Agrovoltaics https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Agrivoltaics Uses land, grows crops under solar panels. Let's give something nice to the rural people who can grow food AND power on their land. The power generated would be a cash crop. Someone come up with a modular unit where you put something like this on a 10ft by 10ft section of your lawn.... or whatever. Make a modular greenhouse like plastic sheet (recycled plastic if possible but whatever) that would cover this 10 x 10 unit to keep the birds from eating what you plant. That and/or make a smaller version that can be moved on wheels to move it into or out of the sun. There's another billion dollar idea.

Honestly, is there a youtube channel where somebody has documented trying this and making it really work? There's a content creation angle for somebody. Where's the guy or girl who is a youtube star for making dinner happen from this? I bet you people would watch if it existed.

Could the government do something about this: Yes. Will it...? I'm guessing no.
There could be more R&D dollars and effort put into these technologies. But.... "Spending is bad." It's investing but ok....
Could the economic aspects be dealt with if the technology was dealt with: Yes. Will it.... That's harder.
Ancient Athens once gave interest free loans to establish olive groves and other enterprises (businesses).
Seems like the major beneficiaries of this kind of government thing today  are billionaires, so even if you're a normal business: No luck for you.
And if you're the average person.... It would be possible for large scale investment from government at no or low interest loans. But they won't.
Imagine we have someone put in a little home setup like this able to feed themselves and produce power. Veterans perhaps? 
Pros/Benefits (assuming tech existed practically): Self sufficiency/saving on social support costs, environmentalism, asset creation.
Cons/Detriments (assuming tech existed practically: Upfront investment cost, politically unpopular that "Someone else" get anything.
My worthless personal take, it would be worth it. For now, it's not a reality. Could it be? Yes. Will it be...? Unlikely, absent large scale change.

Please do not quote

[Robot Parade Leader]

Hey, I'd like that if it ever happens and I hope it does. I'm all about feeding people. Who knew that'd be a "radical political belief."
It's one of the closest things to a solution I've seen and I'm just glad you took the time to really address it.
I'd rather be told why it can't work than just that it can't. I don't know how to get past those problems.

I don't know, either that or maybe subsidizing farmers to grow food people can eat at a larger scale?
You'd think all the farmers and rural people would be all for getting paid for their crops to feed people.
That somehow seems impossible too. Everything does and we're just being told cut back everything.

Well this is Bernie's take on it:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CQyE9uqcHj8

I have no idea anymore.

[Egan_BW]

I'm all about feeding people. Who knew that'd be a "radical political belief."

Always has been.

[McTraveller]

Farmers already get subsidized to grow (or not grow) various crops.  We have more than enough food to feed the hungry, we (being both the collective population and our representative government) just don't have the will to distribute it.

That only addresses the issues of people that would/could eat it if they had it. I don't know how you'd solve the problem of parents trading away food for drugs or sex, or for those without the mental capacity to eat even if you had food in front of them. So you'd have to pay for health care workers to spoon feed people, monitor distribution, etc.

Either that or encourage people to care for their neighbors perhaps. Maybe if you got tax credits for feeding your neighbors' kids? Better mental health care?

This problem is especially annoying because food insecurity is the symptom, it's not the disease.


EDIT:  Rest In Peace, President Carter.  That's a statesman you can respect, even if you don't agree with all the policies.

[Frumple]

Not the best administrator, not the worst... probably the most moral president we've ever had, though. Might be the only one I could see not going to hell if hell exists, ha. Rest in peace, Carter.

[Maximum Spin]

Farmers already get subsidized to grow (or not grow) various crops.  We have more than enough food to feed the hungry, we (being both the collective population and our representative government) just don't have the will to distribute it.

That only addresses the issues of people that would/could eat it if they had it. I don't know how you'd solve the problem of parents trading away food for drugs or sex, or for those without the mental capacity to eat even if you had food in front of them. So you'd have to pay for health care workers to spoon feed people, monitor distribution, etc.

Either that or encourage people to care for their neighbors perhaps. Maybe if you got tax credits for feeding your neighbors' kids? Better mental health care?

This problem is especially annoying because food insecurity is the symptom, it's not the disease.

It really is vexing because, after all, the West once had what most sources agree was a highly effective system for distributing food and aid to the poor, whatever else could be said about it. It was dismantled in most countries in the 1500s, for really very understandable reasons in my opinion, but unaccountably never replaced with anything that ever worked.

That said, theirs was a completely different society from ours in just about any metric. Different problems existed and there were different expectations for how they could be managed. It's not as if we could precipitate the dissolved monasteries out of solution and expect them to work. It's certainly not as if nobody in society cares, after all - a lot of people have cared very much and have plowed personal fortunes into their own pet solutions, again and again. The problems have proven resilient.

When it really comes down to it, saying that our society or our government does not have the will to distribute food is a lie. We distribute food like nobody's business. You can get fresh apples in any town in the country any time of the year. Much has been made of the concept of a food desert, where supermarkets with fresh applies might be hard to get to even if they are theoretically available, but it is a scarce neighborhood in the US without a McDonald's or equivalent in practical distance. All the work on food deserts is focused on supermarkets, based on the assumption that fast food is inherently unhealthy - but this isn't really cut and dried. One can surely say that french fries are little more than starch steeped in salt and oil, but beef and chicken are really very nutritious and the ecological and ethical arguments that are advanced against them are less important than the people they feed. In any case the food is being distributed, and a Whopper or Big Mac is likely preferable to nothing. This, then, clearly isn't the heart of the problem. You imply this yourself, you seem to acknowledge that the problem is much more with ability than means, but then what?

It's easy to say things like "better mental health care" but we don't know what that means, what it would look like, how to bring it into being besides just manifesting it The Secret-style by newspaper headline. The only time in history when this more or less worked for the desired effect for purposes of this conversation - making sure people were fed - it was because we had untold numbers locked in asylums (asyla?). This is politically untenable at this point even if we COULD find a simple way to do "asylums, but humane". To really understand this problem one should read about schizophrenics. We actually have quite effective treatments for some, but not all, of the symptoms of schizophrenia, and it's possible for many schizophrenics to lead a life that is at any rate much more normal than the alternative, yet for modestly complex social reasons it is completely impracticable. I mean, it will not happen. There is not even the beginning of an inkling of how it could be made to happen unless the societal constraints are totally changed. And if it could be done, nobody is quite sure how to pay for it - not when the costs are really appreciated.

Everything is like that. There's a certain culture that treats idle speculation on possibilities without any real consideration, what you might call spitballing, as a virtue. Every conceived solution has its deep well of issues, of course. There are enough problems with the idea of "tax credits for feeding your neighbors' kids", say. How would we even verify this? There are innumerable people who would falsely claim the deduction in any possible way they can. How would this impact the neighbors' tax bills or eligibility for means-tested services? How many people who are food-secure even have neighbors who aren't, know about them, and can afford to do this? In principle it can be done now - if you move in together and claim the kids as a dependent. Obviously the practical difficulties multiply, but it's certainly possible for some people who aren't doing it. Even then, is it really a good idea? If your neighbor's kids need to be fed because your neighbor is a drug addict with limited executive function, for example, will you even be able to convince him to let you feed his kids and not use them as a bargaining chip to try to get money instead? Indeed, if the tax credits are generous enough, you'll find people who come to think they may as well use some of the money to supply those drugs in exchange. It is not a question of whether feeding children is the right thing to do in the abstract, but what you are actually incentivizing on the ground.

I don't have any easy answers to offer. Home farming is a non-starter. For any advance in crop yields, it will always be cheaper and vastly more efficient to apply it to another acre of farmland on a commercial farm than to an acre hewn piecemeal from the cramped and expensive living space of a city. Rooftop gardening will always be a rent-raising gimmick; the whole point of a city is that you can house a man, even somewhat comfortably, in infinitely less space than it takes to feed him. You have to understand: what I mean by "always" is only this - that the kind of crisis in which food prices have really risen to the point that these look like attractive options for supplying basic needs is a true famine in which untold millions and tens of millions of people will die, bringing food demand back down to the level at which this is no longer practicable (although, at least, there will be plenty of space for it). As anything other than a food source - as a hobby for the overworked or a creative outlet for those battling addictions, as a way to increase the variety of one's diet, as a healthy source of green space and fresher air, even just to give people the simple joy of watching something grow, then by all means, I'd love to see it - if people want to spend their money, time, and floor space (which is perhaps most of all at a premium in the city) on it. The expense is really significant, in terms of all forms of embodied energy, and I will expound at length on this if anyone really wants. Just as one example, to really implement it at scale would be a vast new strain on urban water supplies. And it must be repeated that, even if this all works out, it will lead to an increase in rents for the places where it's more practical.

Even after saying all that, there is still the essential question of whether the people who would most need it are functionally capable of doing it. Will social workers have to become professional gardeners on top of everything else? Will we offer tax cuts for taking care of your neighbors' vegetables too?

Agrivoltaics was mentioned. I happen to know a man, a longtime friend, who studies it professionally, and another who actually practices it at home, and I have looked into it myself in my own capacity as a rural landholder. The conclusion is unanimous: as a kind of hobby or supplement, it's worth considering, but at scale, to really make a difference, it is simply not "there".

Probably no other nation in history has had its social fabric so deeply cut with social problems and spent so much money and effort to patch them with so little to show for it. In England at one time the care of the poor was the responsibility of the parish priest, but if a man were dissipated with drink - and this is still something entirely otherwise from being dissipated with fentanyl - it was still more or less his own problem. He could come and be fed and shriven but the rest of his life was largely his own. That is to say, these are problems that have never been solved, not once in all the history of mankind. It seems inexpressibly naive to think they should be easy now.

[lemon10]

Re: Home farming.
Yeah, gotta agree with spin here, the math simply doesn't work out.

Raising chickens is pretty easy all things considered, you can do it at your home right now and get a substantial amount of eggs every single day out of it.
But, again, the math doesn't math.
Right now its pretty well agreed that eggs are very expensive, in some states being over $6 bucks per dozen.
The federal minimum wage is $7.25 per hour.

Assuming you put literally 0 money into raising the chickens even the lowest paid minimum wage worker will need to get 14.5 eggs per hour of labor to break even compared just going to the store and buying them. Of course your going to spend vastly more time then that setting things up, caring for them, feeding them, *and* you need to buy feed for them as well.

Aside from a few exceptions that still require you have a non-trivial amount of yard (eg. having a fruit tree in your backyard, some herbs that fit with your local climate that you don't need to water) this is even more true for other food, you need to make a pretty absurd amount of potatoes per hour of labor to break even with what you can buy, but since farming is hard in practice you probably end up actually starving to death instead.

There is a reason backyard farms fell out of favor, and its not because of some conspiracy, its simply because its just a bad deal compared to even a really crappy job.
---
Even commercial hydroponics (with economies of scale and specialization on its side) finds it really hard to compete with just sticking a bunch of plants in the dirt, turns out that competing with free sunlight and vast tracts of land is difficult and requires expensive equipment ($$) and skilled engineers for all that equipment ($$$).

[wobbly]

Everything is like that. There's a certain culture that treats idle speculation on possibilities without any real consideration, what you might call spitballing, as a virtue. Every conceived solution has its deep well of issues, of course. There are enough problems with the idea of "tax credits for feeding your neighbors' kids", say. How would we even verify this? There are innumerable people who would falsely claim the deduction in any possible way they can. How would this impact the neighbors' tax bills or eligibility for means-tested services?

Stuff like this is why I dislike means-tested services. No-one needs to prove they are poor enough to attend public school. It's considered a basic right eligible to all, whether you can afford it or not. Every time you add a means-test, some people who shouldn't be covered are covered and some people who should be covered are not. And there are added costs in complicating the system. The amount you save by not covering everyone is reduced by the amount you lose in added bureaucracy. For me child care should work the same, everyone is eligible for goverenment assistance whether they earn enough to afford it or not. With food, I'm not sure how this would work, but you provide a baseline of food to everyone not just the poor.

Edit: I've lived in suburbs that had some sort of community grocery shop. Not sure what the technical name for it is, or whether it worked through the government or a charity. But anyone could go there, you didn't need to prove you were struggling, you just signed up and they gave you a card that entitled you to a certain amount of cheap groceries.

Edit 2: What I'm thinking of is different to a food co-op which I've also encountered. If a human could live off of nothing but lentils than co-ops would solve everything. I've seen a 3rd thing that was similar in areas with Indian groceries. Some of these stores were selling dirt cheap pre-made vegetarian curries, probably they were that cheap because something dodgy was happening in the labour process, but it was definitely a situation where you could live cheaply by just giving up meat.

[Lord Shonus]

Right now its pretty well agreed that eggs are very expensive, in some states being over $6 bucks per dozen.

[citation needed]

Pretty much every time somebody makes a claim, they wind up pointing to the "all the expensive buzzwords" eggs and not to the basic grocery store ones.

[Frumple]

The extra scuffed thing to me is how much that screams "people's perception of egg costs are just wildly fucked".

6 bucks for over a pound of meat-related food wouldn't even count as very expensive in the cheapass place I live. That's like half the price per weight of cheap jerky (~10-11 bucks for about half the non-shell weight of a dozen american large eggs), still under par for anything but the absolute cheapest meat on the market. In whatever COL-jacked place-that's-probably-actually-worth-living-in that price is coming from, it's just about a guarantee that six bucks is still the cheapest damn meat in the store (or whatever section of it that price is being lifted from).

The world where eggs are going for six bucks a dozen still isn't the world where eggs are very expensive. That'd still leave them comfortably in the bottom half of meat stuff by weight! They'd still need to like double or triple again to stop being bloody cheap by meat standards! Pay attention goddamnit!

Nevermind it's not actually true, the country's not actually seeing those prices for a standard dozen large. Even if it were the damn things would still be cheap!

[zhijinghaofromchina]

Rest in peace former president Jimmy Carter, a great man with good morality.

There is an old saying goes that if you do something kind you’ll live a long live, and he proved it as a centenarian. If he is still very healthy these years maybe he should try to run for the presidency. With the great reputation and the efforts fighting for the peace, he may end the war in Ukraine and heal the contradictions.

Will the Americans have another chance to vote for a president who ‘tells the truth’ instead of cheating his/her electors, a president who comes from commoners and works for the public, a president who heals the world instead of harming it, a president who won great respect from the biggest competitive country of the USA, a president who spreads the basic values of human rights, peace, diligence and the other virtues that are widely accepted by the world instead of just shouting out the slogan ‘American First’……I doubt it.

If Henry Kissinger doesn’t want to go to the hell as a warmonger after his death, there’s probably a tiny heaven set up by China specially for him. But Carter, he’ll absolutely enter the heaven of any country and be remembered as one of the greatest celebrities in the world.

[lemon10]

Right now its pretty well agreed that eggs are very expensive, in some states being over $6 bucks per dozen.

[citation needed]

Pretty much every time somebody makes a claim, they wind up pointing to the "all the expensive buzzwords" eggs and not to the basic grocery store ones.

Sure: https://worldpopulationreview.com/state-rankings/egg-prices-by-state

I probably should have stuck a "very expensive compared to the price they used to be", there but that's actually the opposite of my point in the post anyways? My point is that even if eggs are expensive, doing it yourself is far more expensive (even if only in time, *and* they are one of the very easiest food products to make yourself), so going: "Haha, eggs are actually only $3 per dozen, that website is stupid", just means my point is twice as true.

Same with going "haha, eggs are way cheaper then steak", well if you actually try to raise steak at home without a huge yard you'll probably find that its probably going to end up costing you hundreds of dollars per pound in time and feed and even equipment.
---
Also using jerky for price is silly. Jerky is expensive because they dehydrate it, meaning that even the cheap stuff is likely to be more then steak per pound.

Ditto with using expensive meat. Duh, expensive meat is obviously way more expensive then eggs.

[Robot Parade Leader]

The cost of living has gone up. Inflation in general has gone up. Wages mostly haven't or if they have, then they haven't kept up with inflation.
The democrats lost on this idea that "Actually things were fine and doing ok."

We absolutely, positively do not want to hear that lie and will vote out ANYONE, ANYONE who says it. If politicians want to end their career, say that.
The middle class is dying and needs help. It has been for a long time. We don't need companies to "trickle down," because it doesn't work, but tragically people are falling for this old trickle down lie. Sure it's not easy raising chickens, or hydroponics or whatever, and as T said, we don't even really have the widespread tech. We could if we cared enough to vote in the funding for it but that's not gonna happen anytime soon. There's just the horrible, unshakable idea that investing in the American people isn't worth it and is all a waste. More money to the mega corporation though, "that's the best idea ever...." It hasn't worked so far, but we're gonna keep right on doing it.

The point is, there's no real option presented and maybe growing your own food indoors isn't practical right now, it's at least an idea. I don't know how to make anything else be produced by the people who need it. Unless they build a ton of housing to lower rent, that price is not going down (unless there's another foreclosure crisis and property values tank). Unless we figure out how to make more medical care, that price is not going down.It's like that for everything it seems. The companies want to charge you more and more but pay you less and less comparatively. It's amazing, businesses have the audacity to say workers cost too much or don't work hard enough. We are working harder than ever, and our paychecks do not buy us as much. Killing BS is their customer base, but they can't see that. This can't keep going on forever.