The Hidden Risks of Autonomous Farming, Part 2

Last time, I posed the following questions: 1) What are the hidden black swans associated with relegating all food production to robotics? 2) Is food production important enough that we should [...]

The Hidden Risks of Autonomous Farming, Part 1

I thought it would be a good time to kick off 2018 with a piece looking at the future and the brave new world of autonomous farming. But in order to look forward, let’s think like historians and [...]

Land as Insurance, Part 3: The Role of Farms

Here is part 1 and part 2 of the Land as Insurance series. In an attempt to understand how to create insurance for my family around food, water, energy, and money, I came up with the idea of [...]

Coppicing – A Lost Art Revisited

Coppicing has always been interesting to me as a wood production system (fuel, timber) because it uses trees that can be cut perpetually. In other words, the tree is cut and grows back. This is [...]