[ATE] Farming example

[(E)]

Originally Posted by Minuteman37

E, I'm currently putting together a battle star Galactica style ark fleet for a game, but I'm running into some difficulties. Retrofitting mature aquaponics into the class of ship that has the facilities needed is giving me 150 persons worth of food a day from each of its 4 environmental bays but it's requiring 750 man hours each day, assuming 12 hour shifts that's just over 60 people per bay or 240 people per ship that's making food for 600 people. That 20% of the population working in food production isn't unreasonable, but that's only achieved by in the longterm unsustainable 12 hour work shifts.

So what's needed to shrink that 5 man hours a day per person number?

The numbers I came up with are based on the various isolation experiments I found while doing the research, Biodome, NASA, USSR's various space research projects etc. One thing these all have in common is they are small scale, typically around 4 people, efficiencies related to having a larger set up might (partially) alleviate the labour issue.

Reducing the production efficiency of the area producing food would also help. This is the traditional gardening (high food per area) vs farming (high food per worker) trade-off. It's should also be noted that the systems in "farming in space" are all specifically designed for the smallest area/volume possible.

An in game solution might be to acquire specialised tools and machinery to improve efficiency, as again these systems are based on small scale examples with little specialised equipment.

Tweaking the air mixture to maximise plant production is another slight possibility, though one that would require conditions suitable for juggling two atmospheric mixtures.

The first option might net a 20-30% improvement.

Eyeballing a number for increasing the space available, doubling the area used while producing the same amount of food might give a 20-25% benefit.

As to the added equipment, that's going to be down to the setting specifics, but it could double (or more) the productivity.

[EDIT]
If you wanted to take the efficiency in the other direction there are a few options as well. Medicines and "Function" crops could be added, various raw materials such as fiber for filters and other non-food agricultural products.

[Minuteman37]

Originally Posted by (E)

AKA Salt

Going back to the SALT facility for a bit, what's the staple diet of its inhabitants going to look like? Sure it may maintain seeds for a diverse range of crops, but as far as feeding its residents I don't think figs and 7 species of cabbage would be worth the trouble. What are the bread and butter vegetables, what fruits would take well to Hallway orchards and produce high yields, what the primary cereal crop would be, what meats would be in their diets, what herbs and spices would be present, and what exotic crops they could potentially want to trade with from the outside. Also what foods they'd export and how those would be prepared. Sure dry rice and beans would make sense, but what about things like canned corn, or tomatoe soups.

[(E)]

The staple diet for the residents of the SALT facility is going to be extremely diverse, with most (non-processed) food available. It is going to be planned in advance though, with whoever is in charge of coordinating the crops having influence on what gets eaten in the following year(s). Hopefully the residents tastes coincide with the crop coordinators.

A huge range of fruit is likely, this will follow the trend of having a very, very wide range of food available. Being a fussy eater will be problematic when the production is diverse as it is at SALT. The main starch for a meal could be potatoes, sweet potatoes, Yams, a dozen different grains, several other root vegetables, the list goes on.

As for preserved food, canning is actually slightly tricky unless they have access to glass or metal. They produce plastics internally but those might not be suitable for canning techniques. (Anyone with more knowledge of biological based plastics is welcome to chip one here). Salt is also scarce.

That leaves the major techniques for food preservation to be old fashioned. Drying, candying and simply using foodstuffs with a long shelf life. The aforementioned rice and beans being among these, though sugar and dried fruit will likely feature highly as well. Freezedrying would be possible with a little work, though this would be a project undertaken after the end.
Most green leafy herbs are simple to grow under artificial light so they would be present.
As for other flavouring plants I would say that given that the population of SALT is made up mainly of plant experts there would be several hobbyist type operations growing whatever the GM fancies.

[EDIT]Vinegar will be simple, so pickles as well

I hope this is helpful.

[Minuteman37]

My thinking is a SALT facility has partially opened up relations with other communities in the region so has convertered some of its growing space to more efficient food stuffs for export. Raw materials for canning and the like wouldn't be an issue, there far more mouths to feed then the facility could support so they're in a favorable trading position.

[(E)]

Farming in the New Venetian Republic
Now that Realm management is out its time to give the sample After the End realm some attention.

Assumptions and setting information
- Toxic, wet conditions
- Some global warming, heavy cloud cover.
- Weed has reduced the speed and outflow speed of the river making it more swamp like.
- Flooding happens on a large scale, hurricanes happen more regularly.
- Education is available
- Common pre apocalypse crops would be the foundation of agriculture
- TL 4 down from TL 9
Challenges
- Short supply of both soil and uncontaminated water.
- Maintaining a clean growing environment.
- Frequent flooding and bad weather.
Benefits
- The realm is good at planning.
- There is a large population.

The Four Fs
I would like to point out that the four F’s section of Realm Management is useful for when considering what is involved in agricultural production. People doing things like extrapolating a realms entire agricultural production based on the yield of a single field of wheat is a gripe of mine and seeing this is a breath of fresh air.

Food, Primarily Corn for calories, Soybeans for protein, pigs and chickens exist in food conversion roles
Fiber, Cotton, Leather from pigs
Fuel, Driftwood, corn husks and cobs, pig manure, meat
Function, mealworms/crickets/waxworms, vanilla, grains of paradise, pigs are also used to control excess vegetation.

The New Venetian Republic
Before traveling down what used to be called the Mississippi river in a ramshackle boat you had seen the foul mire that, before the end, used to be productive farmland. Now you see crumbling vine covered buildings surrounded by weed choked water, here and there a building leans in a drunken fashion as it slowly succumbs to the mud that encases it’s foundations. The deeper water that marks the old river is largely free of weed, this space and the scattered remnants of the old world that remain above the water are where the New Venetians live and work.

Location
Cairo II, a bread basket community within the Republic.

Systems

The Water Farms
Cairo II obtains clean water through a process of filtration through a simple fiber filter followed by solar distillation. Due to cloud cover this is difficult and they use glass enclosed and black painted heat exchangers that have been stripped from fridges to heat the water. This need for the largest surface area possible makes these devices quite large and quite fragile, it's a full time job to maintain and protect the solar units on any kind of scale. As a result water farmers exist and supply water for drinking and irrigation.

The Barges.
The majority of the food in Cairo II comes from intensive agriculture systems that take place on salvaged and refurbished boats, the most common type of which is the river barge, a term that has become synonymous with agriculture in the New Venetian Republic. To further protect the crops and just as importantly the soil from the toxins present in the water, open topped shipping containers are used to house the growing plants.
Each barge has several sets of pipes and hoses that divert toxic water and irrigate the plants with fresh water. Some barges also have pumps in place to assist in the drainage for the crops within.
These pumps can be powered by methane, burning dried swamp weed, bio-diesel or in rare cases electricity, failing that there is always simple muscle power.
The use of late TL 9 crops, namely Corn and Soybeans allows this farming system to be efficient enough, in what is basically a horrible place to grow crops.
This is an intensive farm system, each farmer is very limited in the area they can work. Approximately five barges per farmer.
The compartmentalized nature of the individual barges allow the community to maintain the cultivars required to produce hybrid seed. (hybrid seed being the product of a first generation cross between two distinct cultivars, later generations lack the hybrid vigor demonstrated by the first generation)
7 tons per acre is possible, though the effective rate is reduced to support the area growing the non hybridized cultivars.
In the case of Cairo II at an absolute minimum 1% of the area producing corn has to be reserved for non hybrid seed production. As losing TL9 seed would reduce their total output by maybe 70% compared to heritage seed there are multiple redundancies doubling the area used for seed production 2%. The fact that the seed production has to be kept relatively isolated to prevent cross pollination combined with maintaining as diverse a genetic range as possible means that the hybrid seed is expensive in other ways, such as labor, material resources and pre-collapse technology. Needless to say seed production (and sale) are relatively critical industries that could be targeted for sabotage or theft.

It is worth noting that to achieve these results intensive farming methods rather than extensive methods are used. As such each farmer works a relatively small area. The ratio of labor to agricultural production is similar to that of a TL 4 society even though the yields may seem high. In simplified terms each farmer will usually produce enough food to support eight members of the population.

Everything but the squeal

The pigs accumulate toxins to a greater or lesser extent, as such there are two systems used to farm pigs, one for eating and a second system for the animals that aren’t destined for the plate.
Pigs are fed and maintained with a combination of forage and feeding. Each pig farmer has a boat load of pigs that they take to the various islands of “dry land” or even vine choked buildings where the pigs are released to forage while the farmer or herder collects inedible (and low energy) material to feed to insects.
In Cairo II they maintain 3 different species of insects for this purpose, higher protein crickets, higher fat waxworms and the general purpose mealworm. Each of these species suit different food sources and are ideally fed to the pigs to suit the pig’s stage of development.
Typically the pigs will be encouraged to develop as much fat as possible just before they are slaughtered.

So you have a pig and you can’t eat it, what do you do now?
As the saying goes, everything but the squeal is used. First off the hide is useful and serves as a not insignificant part of the “Fiber” requirement of the community, pig skin is used in some articles of clothing and as a hard wearing material with many applications.
From there the fat and meat is stripped from the carcass, the fat is rendered for bio-fuel and other industrial uses while the meat is used to produce methane to power pumps and engines.
The remaining bones are cooked and ground to be used as fertilizer.
The other fat rich organs join the bio-fuel pile.
Finally the blood is collected for human consumption as the specific toxins present here do not accumulate in the bloodstream (or so the locals believe). Black pudding is on the menu as a result.

Some few pigs are grown in toxin free environments on toxin free feed. These animals aren't let out to forage, they are kept indoors and fed very high quality food of assured purity. This is due to an abundance of caution around the accumulation of toxins, more caution is taken with these animals' food than is taken with the diet of poorer members of society. Fear about toxin build up means the meat from younger animals has a higher demand and as a result is more expensive, in The Republic of New Venice, pork is the food of the desperate and the wealthy.

High value crops that are grown include Grains of paradise (a seasoning similar to pepper) and Vanilla which has become viable here due to the change in climate. Due to their low weight, divisibility and desirability they are a form of portable wealth and are frequently bartered far and wide.

Gardens are also common and there are numerous small scale crops not listed here, as this is not a small community and is rather a realm with quarter of a million people I have focused on the more industrial farming.

Adventure seeds
- Lost Gold, at about this technological level plants may be developed to be incredibly tolerant of toxins in the soil while at the same time, not transferring these toxins to the parts of the plant that people are interested in. The PC’s are tasked with recovering prototype TL 10 corn seed that will grow in New Venice’s conditions. This is likely located in a pre-collapse genetics lab, nothing dangerous could be in a place like that, could it?
- Grand theft agri, a barge with a full crop of corn is a very valuable thing, literally tons of food and the means to produce more. Now can you get it past New Venice’s navy?
- Bringing down a realm, Cairo II is the food basket of New Venice, a well informed hostile agent has realised that disrupting the seed corn will likely cause a famine. With careful study it can be found out that the supply of seed can be partially disrupted for an entire season with the destruction of just thirty two barges. The supply of seed can be completely shut down for a single growing season with the destruction of sixty four barges.
- Danger threatens the community of Cairo II, the decision has been made to evacuate the area. This includes moving the thousands of boats and barges that hold the farms of New Venice. Can the PC’s protect the sprawling convoy?

[(E)]

Crunch
500 square meters per barge
8 barges to an acre
Collective term is a tow of barges
Each barge in an average year produces 1760lbs of corn or 250lbs of soybeans or 800 lbs of sweet potatoes or 100 lbs of cotton. (though cotton is also grown on “dry” land.)
2:1 feed conversion for mealworms, crickets and waxworms.
5:1 feed conversion for pork production

[(E)]

Where to from here?

I've got Elven Agriculture lined up to coincide with the release of the forthcoming elves book.

Peasant farming many generations after the end is possible as is exploring ideas I've already covered with different internal switches thrown.

Farming in the near future is an option as well, though there would have to be many guesses made about circumstances and location.

Any interesting ideas for communities or circumstances are welcome.

[Daigoro]

Recently, I was perusing the thread on assumptions about elves, and there was a lot of good stuff there that could be picked up on.

But I was also hoping you'd run your looking glass over the YOU-Topia cybercity island setting as well. I'd done a fair bit of reading about how the oceanic thermal conversion generators work with their potential for mariculture output, and I was wondering how much might be available for the city of 11 million. There was meant to be an infrastructure post talking about power, water and cooling generation but I never got round to writing it up, though I have a few notes and numbers saved.

It might only be of interest to 5 people on here, however.

[benz72]

Originally Posted by (E)

Bunkertech largely finished

Other ideas
- cabinet farms.
- homestead
- small scale
- mall
- full scale bunker food production
- nomads
- dry environment
- various TLS

Quite an interesting exercise, anyone else have any ideas or suggestions they want looked at? On a side note about half of the algae types exist already.

Does BunkerTech have a pharmacology module for the infirmary? Can they produce antiseptics, antivirals, anesthetics, or other medically useful compunds?

[(E)]

Originally Posted by Daigoro

Recently, I was perusing the thread on assumptions about elves, and there was a lot of good stuff there that could be picked up on.

A lot of that has been worked into the elven example.

But I was also hoping you'd run your looking glass over the YOU-Topia cybercity island setting as well. I'd done a fair bit of reading about how the oceanic thermal conversion generators work with their potential for mariculture output, and I was wondering how much might be available for the city of 11 million. There was meant to be an infrastructure post talking about power, water and cooling generation but I never got round to writing it up, though I have a few notes and numbers saved.

It might only be of interest to 5 people on here, however.

Cyberpunk would be an interesting setting to explore, though there would be some complications that would require a higher word count, there are two entire food systems to start with, one for the wealthy and one for everyone else. High levels of international trade and specialization would have to be accounted for.

Originally Posted by benz72

Does BunkerTech have a pharmacology module for the infirmary? Can they produce antiseptics, antivirals, anesthetics, or other medically useful compunds?

That's an interesting topic, it might be difficult to have something more complicated than "they spliced some useful DNA into algae" but I'll do some reading.

Something like a dwarf variety of NZ Flax might fit for an indoor cabinet system, rather than a bunkertech module.