Solarpunk Farming

Yeah China does seem to be out in front at the moment. I think farming is going to change very rapidly over the next while as renewable energy infrastructure builds up and we get better at growing things around or beneath solar panels / wind turbines. I think soon we will have energy independent farms that are increasingly capable of hands off operation, generating higher margins for whoever owns the land and allowing them to undercut farmers using older equipment with higher labor costs, which will accelerate the growth of megafarms. And I think for small farmers trying to stay competitive without signing predatory agreements, we're going to need open source robotics and agricultural management software to keep up with the proprietary systems, or at least close. We'll need to be able to build and maintain our own equipment, in an environment where the best equipment designs are highly specialized for their particular region and crop, and might change (relatively) rapidly as new optimizations are discovered.