Hi, I'm Mattias Lepp the founder of Click & Grow.<p>We have been playing around with the idea of basic free food, something very similar to basic income <a href="https://blog.ycombinator.com/basic-income/" rel="nofollow">https://blog.ycombinator.com/basic-income/</a> and lately been able to reduce the cost of our plant growing technology to a level that could actually make the idea attainable.<p>The idea behind the technology is simple, instead of using the expensive mechanical control systems that hydroponic systems employ, we control the most important parameters affecting plant growth on a micro level and use chemical not mechanical mechanisms to optimize the grow cycle. Parameters such as pH, aeration, moisture, and nutrition can be easily manipulated or fixed with today’s materials.<p>In place of complex control system and rockwool (most common growing substrate), we decided to develop a growing medium that provides the exact pH level, aeration, moisture and nutrition level based on each plant/variety’s needs.<p>That growing medium allowed us to get rid of sensors, pumps, mixers, dozers, aerators, filters etc. and thereby reduce the initial investment for farms and growing systems nearly 80% when compared to similar hydroponic systems.<p>We are also using growth phase adaptive lighting system which allows us to reduce energy cost compared with static LED grow lights. By adjusting dynamically spectrums and spectrum intensity during the growth periods, we are able to achieve the optimal photon stream.<p>I would really appreciate you thinking along with me on this and share your thoughts/ideas especially about basic free food and if you have any questions, I would be more than happy to answer.