(May 14, 2018 at 7:09 am)Khemikal Wrote: The primary reason to hire migrant labor..in ag... is skill, not cost. Migrant haters need to learn a fuckin trade, lol.
Personally...I used to commute two hours a day to farm. Factoring in the length of the days and cost of travel I think I was making something like $8 bucks an hour, lol....-but- I love it and we were building the sort of operation you're all going to be familiar with, in cities, in coming years. All those big box retailers that are getting pushed out leave an amazing piece of land behind them for integrated hydro. It's right in the middle of the market with massive frontage and parking, and the infrastructure is already set up.
In chicago, for example..theres a millionaire waiting to happen with RAS trout/tilapia, prawn and marine shrimp in a combo dwc/vert facility. In a one acre parking lot, you can grow a simulated 8 acres of strawberries - 100k lbs, and @ 2.5/7tons of fresh.. as in never frozen, seafood. It;s the establishment cost, not the productivity..that;s the issue. Quarter mil for the hydro if it;s facility based, another 150k ish for the ras*. That;s just to set it up (and if you did it yourself instead of hiring some asshole like me to do it), operating cost would be near 200k yearly. Could tilt it towards the RAS and produce many times as much seafood if you run yuppie chow in a biofloc system. The average (successful) integrated system goes black in 2 to 3 years despite upfront costs approaching 1mil in the first year.
The only real limitation in the urban setting is phosporus disharge regulation into muncipal water - and it;s usually not an issue (not an issue at all with trout and strawberries). The city rarely cares about it;s residents and favors high taxpayers. That and the purchasing agreements @ the fuckin kroger.....;(
*People have done it a hell of alot cheaper..buyt it;s usually one or some combo of sweetheart deals, redneck macguyver setups, and subpar control systems. Guys who, for example, trickle water through a 55gal drum filled with netting rather than pay 8kUSD per 20m3/water for bioreactive mechanical filtration.
Excellent points. There are lots of defunct regional shopping malls that could be converted into assorted mini-farms as you describe. The main drawback might be the high water use and disposal issues. It'll be a good project for a billionaire to look at.
