Earlier (well, this evening) I crunched some numbers on how to farm over the Maxwell mountains. It wasn't pretty. So let's see how a green-thumb would work on the surface (assuming coolant, obviously).
I rule out photosynthesis entirely. Not only is Maxwell's slope even darker than up in the clouds, but there's a mountain to the ecliptic west and we get the full "benefit" of Venus' lengthy backward day-year. As in, over two hundred of our days. Plants are flat not going to survive this long night. Unless we use underground grow-lamps - but I am prioritising my energy intake for coolant, machines, and computers. Life-support too, eventually. And mines. And the bullet-fountain and... ah forget it.
But then I started thinking - extremophiles. Suppose we get enough water to flood a cavern, and can keep it cool(er). What can live there?
Here's the good news: I mainly need only not to boil the water. We don't even insist on lowering the air-pressure. Allow me to introduce the Movile Cave.
Some millions-years ago, Mother Nature introduced some bacteria and bugs into a sulphrous cavern in what's now Romania and then sealed it from the surface. Amazingly, the life there didn't suffocate. Instead, the bacteria shifted to a sulphur cycle and the bugs shifted to live off of them.
The best of it is: as long as the cavern's air has some oxygen, I don't think raising the air pressure will hurt the bugs. In fact I think it will help them - they breathe through their skin. I am also unsure how hot this pot can go before it starts "boiling lobster" as it were, but I suspect there is some leeway here.
This cave would still need to reside around the later phases of habitation: the liquid CO2 coolant tier. And humans wouldn't survive here unaided, and robots wouldn't do well for long.
But it's a local food source not requiring too much effort nor energy, just coolant and airlocks. One more step to self-sufficiency.
PLANTS TOO 8/22/23: Consider acetate-driven plantlife.
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