Ellison's Half-Billion-Dollar Quest To Change Farming Has Been a Bust (msn.com) 34
Oracle founder Larry Ellison's agricultural technology venture Sensei Ag has largely failed to deliver on its ambitious goals despite costing more than half a billion dollars, more than he spent to purchase Hawaii's Lanai island itself. Eight years after its founding, little of the revolutionary technology Sensei promised - including AI crop breeding, robotic harvesting, and advanced sensors - is being utilized in its six greenhouses on Lanai, according to WSJ.
The company has faced numerous setbacks, including greenhouses that weren't built to withstand Lanai's strong winds, solar panels that malfunctioned, and executives with limited agricultural experience. Far from its original mission to "feed the world," Sensei currently grows lettuce and cherry tomatoes primarily for Hawaii's local market, while its Canadian operations supply some East Coast supermarkets. The company has pivoted to focus on developing software and robotics at test centers in Southern California, aiming to eventually license technology packages to other indoor farms.
The company has faced numerous setbacks, including greenhouses that weren't built to withstand Lanai's strong winds, solar panels that malfunctioned, and executives with limited agricultural experience. Far from its original mission to "feed the world," Sensei currently grows lettuce and cherry tomatoes primarily for Hawaii's local market, while its Canadian operations supply some East Coast supermarkets. The company has pivoted to focus on developing software and robotics at test centers in Southern California, aiming to eventually license technology packages to other indoor farms.
Tech Billionaire Discovers Farming is Hard (Score:3)
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Just wait for the moment when tech billionaire bros realize running a government is hard in the same way... And with the same result.
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Just wait for the moment when tech billionaire bros realize running a government is hard in the same way... And with the same result.
Yeah, except in that case, the US population is the "crop".
Re:Tech Billionaire Discovers Farming is Hard (Score:4, Funny)
The difference being, current farmers actually know how to run a far, where current politicians don't know how to run a government either.
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The "current politicians" are the employees of the tech bros. They only know how to run things into the ground.
https://bsky.app/profile/maris... [bsky.app]
Re:Tech Billionaire Discovers Farming is Hard (Score:4, Informative)
Oh, please. You think that just because your preferred politicians are incompetent, that means that all politicians are incompetent?
If someone told you that government is always competent and honest, you'd consider that person the biggest idiot around. And yet, that statement is exactly as accurate as saying that government is always incompetent and corrupt, and believing either statement is equally idiotic.
Somehow, most governments seem to make their people mostly happy. Even the US government does, as is being shown by the economic chaos and human suffering being caused by the current government (as compared to the previous imperfect but not incompetent administration).
To the original subject: I do expect tech to improve farming (and it has!) but the improvements will be slow over time. "We can easily reinvent farming" is exactly as moronic as the statements mentioned before.
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Somehow, most governments seem to make their people mostly happy.
So you are good with making most people happy with a debt of several trillion dollars.....The system is broken and the people in the system have no interest in fixing it so somebody from the outside needs to come in and fix it for them.
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And with the same result.
Unfortunately the result won't be the same. When they bankrupt a company they just shut it down and move on. Yeah, it may affect a bunch of people, but certainly not in the same magnitude as when they belly-up a government.
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I meant that it will be a failure. Of course I agree with you that the scale is incomparable.
Re: Tech Billionaire Discovers Farming is Hard (Score:2)
I do not think that indoor farming would really be that hard. In fact, if not for massive farm subsidies, they might have taken over just due to market forces already.
I do not see this story as a strong test case for indoor farming. Ellison clearly had big dreams of being innovative when he should have just been pragmatic.
If I were to attempt something similar, I would try to leverage abandoned buildings in large cities. It would be easy enough to make them compete with each other to the point where they pr
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> I do not think that indoor farming would really be that hard
You'd be wrong about that. Growing indoors means water where buildings weren't engineered to handle it just to start.
After that not-so-minor issue you have to start worrying about being cost competitive. Your produce has to match or beat something trucked in from a traditional outdoor farm. That means high density growing because urban real estate costs more than rural acreage, which means worrying about the height of your plants so you can
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I think we can file this under "play stupid games, win stupid prizes"
It's almost like they think the entirety of global agribusiness never thought of these pedestrian ideas and disqualified them because they know what they're doing. The sheer arrogance of it is quite stunning.
It's been done... (Score:2)
Sounds like they need their own Hank Kimball and Mr. Haney.
And Lisa... can't forget Lisa.
billionaires saving the world (Score:4, Insightful)
"executives with limited agricultural experience"
There's a lot of that going around.
Billionaires are not trying to save humanity, they're looking for revenue streams that are fundamental to human survival.
Well duh! (Score:4, Funny)
All the money went to paying licensing fees for the Oracle products that were used to manage the project! ;)
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I have heard, that the CIty of Birmingham, UK, has offered their deepest condolences to all those financially and otherwise affected in Hawaii due to this failed implementation of a plan cooked up by Oracle. "We feel your pain!"
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Automated farming is the future, and inevitable (Score:2)
The idea was good, the implementation sucked. Just because person A fails, doesn't mean person B can't succeed .. OR, even that person A himself can't succeed with lessons learned. How many rockets blew up on the launch pad before we got people in space routinely? How many airplanes crashed before flying became a safe form of transportation? Automated farming is totally doable, even with present day technological capability.
We now know that tougher greenhouses must be made, more robust solar panels, and mor
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"If at first you don't succeed, keep on trying 'til you do suck seed!"
- Curly
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https://vegansustainability.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/02/dutch-1024x682.jpg
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No it didn't. It's right there in the second paragraph:
Sensei currently grows lettuce and cherry tomatoes primarily for Hawaii's local market
Solar Panels that malfunctioned? (Score:3)
Ellison said the greenhouses, totaling 120,000 square feet, would be off the grid, powered by solar panels thanks to its partnership with Tesla. But the panels often didnâ(TM)t work. The high winds showered them with dirt and debris, and there were questions on whether they were installed properly, according to one of the people.
The solar panels didn't malfunction. They worked as well as you could expect if you mounted them someplace idiotic.
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Yeah but it's a billionaire, so just take the "takes accountability for design error" space off the board. It will always be someone else's fault because they can't possibly admit not being perfect or the entire illusion collapses.
great plan (Score:2)
Developing new tech on a remote island with limited/inconsistent access to the manufacturing and materials resources you need is the perfect way to start, of course.
Reeks of total incompetence and inexperience (Score:1)
You'd think a business person would have more sense. But I guess not, thinking they can just toss money at it. Every single problem sounds like they didn't have qualified, experienced people working the problem. Like a bunch of inexperienced, unknowledgeable college grads currently being led by someone who should be old enough to know better yet is showing he really lacks experience, knowledge or even smarts and are all set to destroying this country.
Um too late (Score:2)
Borlaug's Green Revolution was in the '60s (just in time to stave off collapse for a few decades), and since then we have turbo-boosted production to such a level, there's nothing left to optimize.
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Borlaug's Green Revolution was in the '60s (just in time to stave off collapse for a few decades), and since then we have turbo-boosted production to such a level, there's nothing left to optimize.
Oh yes there is. Truly automating the planting and harvesting of crops is the next big revolution needed. Farming is mechanized, but not yet automated. Robotic harvesting for all crops will be a huge deal in the US (no more "seasonal worker" issues), and we may very well in our lifetimes see robots... humanoid or not... picking crops that could previously only be picked by human hands. If Boston Dynamics can make a dog that can navigate minefields and open doors, it can make machines that pick cotton, lettu
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Nothing left to optimize? You didn't even do 1 second of thought on that did you?