However, "when can stacked agriculture be price-competitive with conventional agriculture" is a different question than "when can the price of an automated self-sufficient food source be in reach of a household" because people might pay a premium to not have to work a normal job.
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The cutoff for ordinary people being able to be autarkists is something like "when can the cost (in materials, equipment, etc, in net present value) of an automated life-support system, anywhere in the world, be within an order of magnitude of a down payment on a house?"
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If you have to pay ongoing costs out of the revenue of your farm, you're not an autarkist, you're just a farmer. And then you have to compete on the market with professional farmers. That's not "not having to work for a living".
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The other comparison point is with extreme saving/early retirement. Going to live on an automated farm is a big lifestyle change; the first people to switch will be people who *already* are willing to make extreme lifestyle changes in order to not have to work for wages.
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Mr. Money Moustache supports a family of three in rural Colorado for $30,000 a year. He says you have to save up abut $1M to be able to quit working for pay and live like he does.https://www.mrmoneymustache.com/2012/06/01/raising-a-family-on-under-2000-per-year/ …
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If you can't get the *total* upfront costs of running a household autarky to be less than $1M, or provide a lifestyle that's nicer or less labor-intensive than the Money Mustaches', then autarky is less practical than just saving a lot and retiring early to a small town.
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"But most people can't afford to save $1M!"....exactly. If you want fully-automated-luxury-autarky to be available to all, it needs to be *more* affordable than frugal early retirement, not less so. $1M is an upper bound; you'd have to do much *better* to get mass adoption.
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What you need is for the cost of the tools/equipment/materials to produce food, water, and power, plus the land in a much more remote location, to be cheaper than groceries/electric bill/gasoline plus the cost of a house within driving distance of stores.
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I don't know the current costs of automated farming and electricity generation well enough to know how close we are to this; I welcome other people with figures. (
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Replying to @s_r_constantin
I know almost nothing about the costs of automated farming, or even the technical feasibility. Sorry. It's an interesting question of course.
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But what about cost of a local solar generator providing all your electricity needs? How close are we to that?
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Replying to @s_r_constantin
Owning enough panels is perfectly feasible right now. Many people are doing it, though most people also attach to the grid. You probably need to be living in a detached house, though; if you're in a high rise apartment building you don't have enough surface area for it.
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