Thanks Anthony, this is a very interesting post (and I appreciate your answer to my question on your previous post). I have a couple more questions if you have time to answer them:
Dear Anthony, I really hope UCF is successful. I think it deserves significantly more attention from effective altruists than it has received so far. I just donated on your donorbox link. One thing I'm curious about: what's your reason for choosing Alvan Blanch for the grain-processing system? I don't know anything about agro plants, but I would have guessed a UK company would be expensive compared to e.g. an Indian or Chinese one.
For EAs reading: I'd love to see a cost-effectiveness analysis of UCF, and would be happy to fund one. Please contact me here or at macsweenroddy AT gmail.com if you'd be interested in doing one.
Two interesting questions that bounce of this are "how many members does EA have?" (obviously this is somewhat vague) and "how many members would be optimal?" (more members has clear benefits, but it's presumably possible to get too big). From e.g. Facebook group membership and survey responses, it seems like the answer to the first question is somewhere in the 1000-10000 range. I'm not sure what the best points of comparison with regard to the second question are, but the Extinction Rebellion movement, most major British political parties, and Scientology all have significantly more members.
Thanks, that's very useful. I've been looking into this some more, and I have some more questions:
I appreciate that avoiding the risks of a sugarcane monoculture is valuable separate from increasing the average income. But I'm still surprised that the average annual income with sorghum could be lower than with sugarcane. Is there some thing I'm missing about the price of sugarcane or the costs of growing it?