Hacker News new | past | comments | ask | show | jobs | submit login

Yes: not considering everything that comes with a tractor these days, it's basically irrigation programmers, pH meters, humidity probes, sonars and speed-adjustment controllers for sprayers.

I hope someday I will be able to show HN some simple electronics of my own.




Interesting, do you think they improve yield and/or decrease workload ?


The irrigation controls have a direct and significant impact in yield. Other tools raise profitability by contributing to greater efficacy and less waste. The pH meter, for example, pretty much payed itself the first time it was used.


I'm asking because I was interested in reviving (at my scale) farming on my mother's caribbean island. Lots of space, sun and rain, but farming is still seen as a burden (remains of colonialism organization). I think there's a lot of things to be improved to make it both simpler, greener (ketone was used for decades there). Ultimately to give people back the amazing vegetables that grow there naturally and avoid importing low quality ones (also social benefits of people being in nature more).

Do you have advices or references to read about this ?


I know nothing about agriculture in the Caribbean, but I would suggest taking advantage of the local produce and starting there.

Do you have any ideas on what you want to grow?

I checked the Caribbean Agriculture Agricultural Research and Development's website (www.cardi.org) for some information. They have annual reports, that stop at 2011 for some reason. I would read some of them to get an idea of what are the current trends.

One idea that comes to mind after reading the 2011 report is producing high quality seeds. Grain prices for direct consumption are not as interesting.

I would also search for local farming associations to get to know what people are doing.

I suspect that the Caribbean will be more susceptible to climate change than other regions, so food security might become very important in a near future.

Good luck!


Mostly local indeed, but I don't think all local would make a fully balanced diet so maybe a few other things. If you step outside the road you can easily find trees loaded with varieties of oranges, citrus, coconuts, avocados .. I'd start with that and see for the rest

Many thanks for the links, I don't think I would have googled for that.

I will ask local farmers when I get the chance to, but few reports that I had by inhabitants is that .. farming is mostly avoided (laziness, pollution, whatever). To the point where they import things that used to grow locally from netherlands.

I'm also surprised about the climate change thing, I imagined a volcanic island to be too dynamic to be affected as much as, say, Europe.


There are organizations out there like the Puerto Rico Resilience Fund. Maybe they might be able to help/know someone. I read an article that sounds like they have a great solidarity network.




Guidelines | FAQ | Lists | API | Security | Legal | Apply to YC | Contact

Search: