I was just cleaning the kitchen and I thought of another calorically dense food that’s very important to humans nutritional needs.

Oil.

Olive oil, avocado oil, vegetable oil, etc. Can you grow any crops vertically that produce a significant, or even reasonable amount of oil in the space that you use?

Please don’t hear what I’m not saying.

I love vertical farming, and I want it to keep expanding as much as possible. It’s a wonderful addition to our food supply system.

Additionally, I love inter-specie growing practices. So many more farms need to use inter growth methods. The same is true for forestry methods. Plants grow better in a multi species environment. That makes harvesting a bit more complicated, but the sustainability trade off is worth it.

May I ask what products you grow?

What points do you disagree with in my other comment? (Link below)

https://reddit.com/r/Futurology/comments/z3l02v/_/ixqanl9/?context=1

Sure. Because I forgot to mention potatoes too.

Any food that is calorically dense like corn, wheat, potatoes, soybeans, rice etc, all those foods are grown most efficiently through our current horizontal farming methods. Our crop yields have increased dramatically in the most recent decades.

Have you seen the size of some of the industrial corn fields? We’re never going to put those in skyscrapers. You can do the math and see how many buildings it would take to get the same acreage and yields. There is no advantage. Only cost.

Additionally, other high calorie foods like bananas and nuts, often come from trees. As much as I love the idea of vertical forests and floating mountains (Pandora reference) the root systems of trees usually make any sort of container gardening a non-starter.

So that leaves us with nutrient rich green leafy vegetables mostly. And there’s nothing wrong with this. **I’m all for more food being produced as close to the source of consumption as possible. **

As important as sustainable farming practices are, the reduction of industrial animal production is far more impactful. Excess animal production causes a lot of waste and imbalance in our food supply chain. Not the least of which is the over production of grains for animal feed.

I’m most encouraged for our future by the work that’s taking place in cultured meat and proteins. If we can grow the proteins without the animal, that is a significant shift in food production.

Which is a great final point for another calorically dense food. Cheese and milk, those can’t be grown vertically. (yet) A dairy farm, or even almond farm if you prefer almond milk, all require significant space. And again there is no benefit for vertical orientation. You don’t want dairy animals on the 50th floor of a skyscraper.

Chapul Farms had a protein bar for a while but they had issues with consistent distribution and retail.

They pivoted and are making animal feed and fertilizer with bug protein instead.

Vertical farming is acceptable for growing nutrients. It will not/cannot scale to grow calories more efficiently. (Corn, wheat, soybeans, rice, etc.)

It’ll be great to see all of these innovations blended appropriately.

But, the OP’s original post, there needs to be more incentives for change.

Yup. I grew up on a rural farm. It was brutal, especially in the winter.

Still, there’s something rewarding about growing food for other people and spending most of my time outside in nature. I’m sure I’m romanticizing it a bit.

Correct. If there was UBI and I didn’t have to worry about the markets and healthcare and all sorts of other necessities, I would gladly farm my life away.

It hurts to see the destruction of nature.

I love seeing demolition in a city, especially old abandoned factories.

I dream of a day when the US has effective corporate regulations and one of them is a “return to earth” mandate that makes corporations responsible for demolishing any abandoned plants and property.

By going to therapy, admitting to myself I had an abusive childhood and recognizing that drugs and sex were a coping mechanism for all the unprocessed grief and anger.

“The Art is to embrace the suffering without judgement with appreciation in the perfection of the laws of the universe which include your own heart breaking.” Ram Dass

So maybe when I’m 70…got it. Better late than never I suppose.

Any idea when it will be available?

Two points:

One, does this discovery give us any better shot at fixing tinnitus?

Two, while I appreciate this article, this quote:

*“This is the last sensory system in which that fundamental molecular machinery has remained unknown,” *

Doesn’t strike me as accurate. I thought the sense of smell was the bigger molecular mystery. Especially because people smell differently. What is pleasant to one person is not to others. However, sound is pretty universal and easily measured with tone, frequency & decibels.