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Optimization for land area in agriculture is already a catch-22 type affair: We subsidize the planting of corn to produce ethanol -- one of the most inefficient forms of solar energy 'harvesting' possible. So going directly to electrical harvesting while retaining the ability to grow high-value crops is certainly still advantageous...

To put some numbers: ~40% of the corn grown in the US (approx. 5.4 billion bushels out of roughly 14.9 billion bushels total production) goes toward ethanol production

No sure if the reference to catch-22 was meant to be specific but this is one of my fave quotes from the book:

> His specialty was alfalfa, and he made a good thing out of not growing any. The government paid him well for every bushel of alfalfa he did not grow. The more alfalfa he did not grow, the more money the government gave him, and he spent every penny he didn't earn on new land to increase the amount of alfalfa he did not produce. Major Major's father worked without rest at not growing alfalfa. On long winter evenings he remained indoors and did not mend harness, and he sprang out of bed at the crack of noon every day just to make certain that the chores would not be done. He invested in land wisely and soon was not growing more alfalfa than any other man in the county. Neighbours sought him out for advice on all subjects, for he had made much money and was therefore wise. “As ye sow, so shall ye reap,” he counselled one and all, and everyone said “Amen.

> We subsidize the planting of corn to produce ethanol -- one of the most inefficient forms of solar energy 'harvesting' possible

You subsidize it so the farmers have capacity to swiftly increase food production in any moment.

By design it should provide the most efficient way to get that capacity, not to provide the most efficient way to get energy.

That's a great plan... except that we're degrading the soil in the process, significantly reducing it's long-term growing capacity to maximize short-term profits.

I'm all about sound long-term land management and subsidized capacity. The current system is not that.