Difference between revisions of "Talk:Food"

Revision as of 05:04, 24 March 2011

• The concept of agroecology is best illustrated by a web diagram.

• Vertical farms (feed 40,000-50,000 people)

• Aquaculture is an important part of the puzzle. Yields are 4-20 times higher when you farm on water rather than land (source: Permaculture: A Designer's Manual by Bill Mollison). The principles of agroecology apply in exactly the same way as on land; in other words, what would be most productive is lakes, ponds, wetlands and oceans being treated as permaculture farms.
• Integrated Multi-Trophic Aquaculture - simply means agroecology on water
• Mariculture: If we can effectively farm the ocean, this must lead to abundance - no one could say that open sea is a scarce resource.
• Edible seaweed is an underexploited food source. Good resource on the potential of seaweed farming in the US: [1]
• Lovely public-domain picture of a seaweed farm
• Seaweed as animal feed. See Ocean Harvest Technologies - uses floating rafts tied together to grow seaweed. This can readily be converted to food for us; a fish farm can often turn 4kg of feed into 3kg of fish meat.
• Algae as a food source. Spirulina was called by the UN the 'best food for the future'. Small-scale local production of spirulina has promise in alleviating hunger.
  • • Seaweed as fertilizer

• Seawater greenhouses in deserts

• Automated agricultural equipment. Robot farmers
  • Tractors and combine harvesters could be fully automated with today's technology. Application of GPS, vision system and cut-off safety boundaries near roads and habitation.

• As fishing has become more and more hi-tech lately (sonar to find shoals of fish etc.) might it be possible to build autonomous fishing boats? This would save people from doing dangerous work.
  • As a really easy application, I can envision autonomous lobster pots that have sensors to tell when they've caught a lobster. This sensor would activate a mechanism to either haul the pot back in along a cable, or else to release a weight so it rises to the surface.

• LED grow lights improve yield by supplying just the right wavelengths. "The findings suggest that LED lighting promotes plant growth and health better than conventional HPS (high-pressure sodium) lighting, at about one-tenth the cost in electricity," Borys notes. "However, the LED lighting cluster cost roughly four times as much as the HPS lighting." [2].

How much land is needed to feed one person?

• [3] "The data I keep coming across on the web and in gardening books suggests that, to provide an adequate, year-round vegetable diet (excluding grains) for a family of four using standardized organic gardening methods, you would need a garden plot about 4000-5000 square feet" That's 1000-1250 square feet per person, 93-116m²
• [4] "On approximately two acres-- half of which was on a terraced 35 degree slope--I produced enough food to feed more than 300 people (with a peak of 450 people at one point), 49 weeks a year in my fully organic CSA on the edge of Silicon Valley . If I could do it there you can do it anywhere." 2 acres = 8094m². For 300 people, that's 27m² per person. For 450, it's 18m². He goes on to say, "In a good but somewhat sloppy design, you need about 500 square feet ( 47m² ) per person MAXIMUM. In a very good design, 200 square feet ( 19m²) will do the job."
• Hydroponics: [5] "SH garden produces 2 kilos of vegetables a day per 20m² space."
• [6] 20m², according to one of the guys who designed food production systems for NASA (probably aeroponics, though he doesn't specifically mention aeroponics in the video).
• [7] ""It takes about 15,000 to 30,000 square feet of land to feed one person the average U.S. diet," he says. "I've figured out how to get it down to 4,000 square feet. How? I focus on growing soil, not crops." " 4000 square feet = 372m²
• [8] "Ecology Action has dedicated almost a quarter-century to rediscovering the scientific principles that underlie these traditional systems. The people in Biosphere II in Arizona have been using techniques based on those outlined by Ecology Action: they raised 80 percent of their food for two years within a "closed system." Their experience demonstrates that a complete year's diet for one person can be raised on the equivalent of 3,403 square feet!" 3403 square feet = 316m²
• [9] 1000 square feet = 93m²
• At the very inefficient end of the spectrum: [10] "The current typical American’s food footprint load, including area left to meat, is approximately 2.1 acres. Traditional Victorian wisdom was that two acres would feed a person." 2 acres = 8094m².
• "Richard Bradfield has grown enough to feed 72 people per hectare [139m² per person] by the techniques of double planting and multiple cropping, and with the use of cuttings for livestock feed. These results,8 as published and also as described to me by Bradfield, were obtained in the Phillipines, which has only a nine-month growing season and less than ideal weather conditions." The colonization of space by Gerard K. O'Neill

So figures vary wildly for organic farming. I tend to believe the higher estimates, 300-400m², as there's a lot of hype around organic farming issues. (Though the quote from David Blume is interesting; he does seem authoritative.) For controlled-environment growing, figures are consistent at about 20m², coming from credible sources based on actual experience. -- Balatro

Aeroponics benefits summary

• 98% water saving
• 99% space saving
• Energy-efficiency
• No pesticide/ no crop lost to pests
• No fertilizer
• Local/ No transport
• Fresh
• Tastier
• DIY/ swadeshi
• Nutritiousness
• High yield
• Constant yield
• Automation