I would hope that the savviest of SV or startup folks recognize that the actual planting, growing and harvesting of crops isn't the thing that they are trying to innovate on.
Rather it's the disastrous logistics chain and resultant waste, leading to overproduction and augmentation of our food system, is the problem trying to be solved.
The problem with human labor in agriculture is that we've already spent a lot of effort to remove humans, the jobs that are left are really hard to automate.
It's the logistics chain from the farm to your plate that's the disaster. That's not for lack of trying. But having exposure to farming growing up, there's no good way to get a ripe berry from Washington State to Florida before it spoils without freezing it, genetically engineering it (which is fine, I'm pro GMO, it's just costly) or treating it. Even if you do, handling it will see large losses.
So the trick is, how do you reduce how far something needs to travel from the time it's ready to harvest until it's consumed.
Well, you can get it there, but berries aren't worth enough to make that journey by air. That is generally reserved for seafood and there is an equally amazing logistics system to do that. Calling one of the most amazing processes on the planet "disastrous logistics chain" is just disingenuous.
30% of all food produced - approx 1 Trillion dollars worth - is lost in the supply chain, and contributes the equivalent of the third largest CO2 producer if it were a country.
I'm not sure how to describe that other than a disaster.
There is room for improvement, and there is significant financial incentive to realize that improvement. That said, I'm not sure that measure is the whole picture. If we are losing 30% of our food to the supply chain, what is the alternative? Perhaps we could farm things more locally and shorten the supply chain? If we did that, would we still get 100% of the yield of the old approach? What I am saying is that if we try and fix the waste problem, it would very like be at the expense of reducing yield. The extreme example is the tomatoes I am growing in my back yard. None of them will be wasted, but I'm fairly certain that the yield per square acre is absolutely atrocious.
I call it an unavoidable cost of making sure people have food on the table. There is no way on this planet that you can design a supply chain that you produce the same amount of food that is consumed. This isn't parts that get put in some widget, people have different tastes at different times. I'm honestly surprised its only 30% given the fickle taste of people.
The CO2 production will reduce as we steadily change from diesel to electric. Ocean going vessels are just environmental problems that treaties seem to ignore.
There are two main options to avoid having to deliver food from (for example) Washington State to Florida.
One is to change consumer behavior to focus much more on in-season products that can be grown locally. This is a difficult social challenge.
The other is to change plant behavior so that they become products that are always in season and can be grown everywhere. This is a difficult technical challenge, but things like indoor vertical farming can potentially solve that. The problem described in this article is that it does not (yet?) work for effective farming, but making it possible to grow the appropriate berries or fruit locally throughout the year would fix the logistics chain by eliminating most of it.
Rather it's the disastrous logistics chain and resultant waste, leading to overproduction and augmentation of our food system, is the problem trying to be solved.