And about the wheat issue... In a lot of places in the world, people have foolishly built cities on the most fertile flood plains, while the rest of the country is desert. (Egypt).
In order to feed/grow their population, they need to figure out a way to use their sandy soil to produce, or force people to move their cities from the floodplains to the desert so they can farm the floodplains.
I think hydroponics is perfect for this type of sandy soil, as I said earlier in this thread, because of the obvious drainage properties of soil, and it's inability to hold nutrients and water. Under these conditions, they might be best off growing
everything hydroponically.
Nutrient run off is a problem. It happens in animal waste fertilization. It would happen with that sandy soil and syhthetics too...The damage to local watersheds would be increasingly bad for the balance of such a fragile ecosystem.....Just look at the lower Great Lakes basin and the algae blooms in lake Erie as a simple example of both forms of run off problems.
Look, all I can say in response to that is thankfully not everyone thinks like you do - the wealth of great minds at such institutions as MIT certainly don't. Look at how technology has evolved in just the last 100 years alone, slightly more than the average lifespan of a single human primate. Who would have thought in 1913 when Henry Ford developed the first mass-production assembly line that just 50 years later humans would land on the moon, and who in 1969 would have thought just 40 years later we would be developing the technology to send a rover to the icy oceans of Europa in search of life?
Anyway, the folks in question don't give a flying you know what about profit - they work for food. And with the billions of dollars of international aide allocated to Africa alone each year, I think it's well within the realm of possibility for hydroponic greenhouses to be set up in these regions in the near future and sustained relatively inexpensively as church just touched on.
Off topic point: It was Ransom E. Olds that invented the Assembly line, not Ford....Ford made it move, increasing out/through put.
ON topic: (I must have been across the pond when this topic hit and missed it.. A GOOD ONE)!
This is a question that has been asked in lecture's I've given. This poses problems on several fronts. First off, many of these 3rd world countries are run by despot rulers who steal everything they can from the counties coffers. You cannot simply give monetary aid and expect it to get where/be spent on the intended project....Cost to scale problems are a factor and distribution of the end product comes into play also. To spend big $ on a large scale project involves many things.
Logistics becomes a very important player in this idea. Simply getting the needed fuel to distribute the end product, not to mention the supplies to the manufacturing facility are difficult at best....roads are basic and unpaved. Distances are great between many places on the African continent.
The materials needed to build a facility of more then local effectiveness is beyond hard to come by. Everything must be imported. Now you have to consider the actual nutrients involved. Not much going on there as far as making useable refined nutrients. Ok, P is mined there for the world. But not only is the refining done elsewhere. But the sustainability of mined P is becoming quite a question for the near future - world wide!
Ok, so I know at this point you'll bring up the experiments on making "synthetic P"....Yes, it is going on. There have been several results tested and found working....But guess what? The cost of manufacture is a severely limiting problem right now....
How about importing? Logistics and material cost....again!....The trade barriers between countries there are a consideration that cannot be ignored also.
Ok then, how about small scale facilities that work on a more local approach?
Logistical problems still make this a very hard proposition to do......Hell, in most area's water is a major limiting factor. Not to mention electricity!!! Most area's have none or are limited by generators that run on that hard to get fuel! Most electrical use in rural area's are dedicated to school's - That's a GOOD thing! The next is to pump water....
You said water is a problem,,,how so?
To get and keep water at usable levels for a hydroponic facility to actually be viable...would strip water from other use's....like watering cattle and farmed food stuff's grown. In Africa, cattle are like money....The "rich" out side of large metro area's have the most cattle....dowries are paid in cattle and are haggled over before the betrothal! Water in many area's is like gold....highly sought after! Most local proteins are chicken, goat and sometimes pork....Even then, it mostly saved for special occasions!
So what do think could maybe work?
Aquaponics on workable scales are
possible for small to medium communities. That's right we're back to organic's! This solves problems on the logistical and financial fronts. Not only is vegetable matter supplied, but protein, in affordable forms (Tilapia) becomes available to those who cannot "afford" cattle.....In fact cattle supply more milk then meat in the "bush".....
You must remember that vegetable matter over there is legumes as in beans and peanuts with a cpl of other pod producers in there too, tubors - Cassava type melons mixed with a bean paste to make a poi like paste, and mainly corn, ground and like "mush" in the southern states here. The rainy season brings insects that they eat with joy! There are "Greens" of a sort. Most people fish on some level, area dependent.....Still, fish supplies a lot of the consumed protein on the continent.
Aquaponics fits this niece well. It will supply the protein and the vegetable matter.....Feeding the fish has several possible and sustainable methods. And yet still....It has it's limiting factors too. Feeding the Tilapia can involve more then growing duckweed as amino acids are needed.....BUT, duckweed will work to make edible size fish.....Then your looking at other plants in the soup too. plants for human consumption....There is still sludge "waste" that needs to be removed as it settles on the bottom of the culture "tank". This has benefits for outdoor soil farming as it is
vermicomposted!!!!
The whole idea of hydroponics feeding the 3rd world is a nice thought.....sustainability is a real future concern...Water would HAVE to be stripped of nutrient content and reused by any workable means that are affordable, as fresh water is fast becoming a world problem....condensate stripping would work, but what do you do with the left over waste? Figure that one out and get rich! Hmm,,,,,light bulb! I ain't telling you what I just thought
...
Natural nutrient supplies are dwindling = P,,,, and "synthetic" P is a ways away yet and we don't know if it will have any repercussions down the road healthwise...
There's a few thoughts from someone who speaks on the idea of sustainable farming practice, old world farming technique and modern farm organics along with natural farm cost reductions....
Doc
