cultivate salt-water crops ?

[Widdekind]

If humans gradually cultivated various food crops, over hundreds to thousands of years; then could not the same tried-and-true tactic be applied, to cultivating salt-water crops, which could be irrigated, with ocean water ? I.e. take "durum wheat", grow it for hundreds of years, in increasingly saline conditions, and gradually cultivate "beach wheat" ?

 

(Can humans consume sea-weeds ?)

[questionposter]

If humans gradually cultivated various food crops, over hundreds to thousands of years; then could not the same tried-and-true tactic be applied, to cultivating salt-water crops, which could be irrigated, with ocean water ? I.e. take "durum wheat", grow it for hundreds of years, in increasingly saline conditions, and gradually cultivate "beach wheat" ?

 

(Can humans consume sea-weeds ?)

 

Sure it could happen, the only problem is doing it at a slow enough rate to not actually kill every plant, because if you just put any random plant in sea water, it's just going to die, that's like throwing someone into a valconoe, just too big if a difference. But, if you perhaps have only .01 percent salt for one generation, then .02 percent for hte next and so on, you might see some results, but it's still purely random if it would even happen.

[CaptainPanic]

It could be done, but as you correctly say, it would take hundreds to thousands of years. Not a good business plan then.

 

Answer to the other question: yes, some sea weeds are edible.

And that's a plant which is already suited for living and growing in the sea.

[Moontanman]

Genetic manipulation has produced some crops that can live in brackish water but this might be a faster way...

 

http://www.wired.co.uk/news/archive/2009-05/01/irrigation-system-can-grow-crops-with-salt-water

[jeskill]

There's a really cool sea water horticulture project going on in Eritrea that involves foresting marginal areas with mangroves and feeding salt water grasses to livestock and creating a habitat for fish (that can also be eaten). Not really an example of salt water plants being eaten by humans, but a good use of formally marginal land and it does seem to reduce hunger.

[Santalum]

There's a really cool sea water horticulture project going on in Eritrea that involves foresting marginal areas with mangroves and feeding salt water grasses to livestock and creating a habitat for fish (that can also be eaten). Not really an example of salt water plants being eaten by humans, but a good use of formally marginal land and it does seem to reduce hunger.

 

 

What happens when all such marginal land is fully utilised and there are yet more starving mouths to feed?

[StringJunky]

What happens when all such marginal land is fully utilised and there are yet more starving mouths to feed?

 

Soylent Green?

[Santalum]

Soylent Green?

 

Canibalism more like it.

[questionposter]

Canibalism more like it.

 

No, you build upwards, no outwards

 

http://www.wellespar...ards-greenhouse

 

The same thing is happening with silicon chips, only instead of silicon it's micro-pillars of carbon non-tubes.

Edited January 24, 2012 by questionposter

[CaptainPanic]

 

No, you build upwards, no outwards

 

http://www.wellespar...ards-greenhouse

 

The same thing is happening with silicon chips, only instead of silicon it's micro-pillars of carbon non-tubes.

If I follow the thread, then you propose a multi-story greenhouse in Eritrea?

 

The idea of a multi-story greenhouse assumes an abundantly available cheap sustainable form of energy. That assumption is false in modern day Eritrea, which is one of the poorest countries in the world.

[questionposter]

If I follow the thread, then you propose a multi-story greenhouse in Eritrea?

 

The idea of a multi-story greenhouse assumes an abundantly available cheap sustainable form of energy. That assumption is false in modern day Eritrea, which is one of the poorest countries in the world.

 

So...what about sunlight? Or what about geothermal energy? Or what about the energy in the Earth's tides? Or what about wind? Or what about genetically engineered microbes?

I mean the alternative energy and multi-story greenhouse would solve that food problem, but the only problem is right now it's very expensive. And money is also why you don't have those huge ocean water purifiers all over Africa.

Edited January 24, 2012 by questionposter

[Santalum]

So...what about sunlight? Or what about geothermal energy? Or what about the energy in the Earth's tides? Or what about wind? Or what about genetically engineered microbes?

I mean the alternative energy and multi-story greenhouse would solve that food problem, but the only problem is right now it's very expensive. And money is also why you don't have those huge ocean water purifiers all over Africa.

 

All those energy sources require massive amounts of energy intensive infrastructure and we return to the same problem of there being no cheap energy source.

 

The africans cannot build and maintain these things with their beasts of burdon or with man power alone.

 

And nor can you run heavy earth moving machinery etc on geothermal and solar power. The only way the west can currently build such massive infrastructure on a wide scale is with oil power. Once cheap oil is gone even our ability to exploit renewable energy sources on a large scale will be severely handicaped.

 

The reason why renewable energy sources require massive infrastructure is that they are all very diffuse energy sources compared to oil. Hence you need to harvest them over a very wide area to obtain economically viable amounts of energy. But then you need to spend rather large amounts of energy on building an maintaining the infrastructure. In the end the energy profit you make is very much smaller than is the case with oil at present.

 

 

So the bottom line is that renewable energy sources cannot and will not replace oil on the current scale required for the current number of people on earth at their current energy consumption habits.

Edited January 25, 2012 by Santalum

[CaptainPanic]

So...what about sunlight? Or what about geothermal energy? Or what about the energy in the Earth's tides? Or what about wind? Or what about genetically engineered microbes?

I mean the alternative energy and multi-story greenhouse would solve that food problem, but the only problem is right now it's very expensive. And money is also why you don't have those huge ocean water purifiers all over Africa.

You want to convert sunlight into electricity, and then back into light to grow plants in a 3-story greenhouse?

Why not just put plants in a field, and let them enjoy the sunlight directly, in a 1-story field ?

 

If sunlight is your bottleneck, then surely applying the sunlight directly onto a plant would be the most efficient method to use it.

 

Anyway, if we ever have electricity in such abundance, and at such a low price that we can waste it to grow even our most basic crops, then the multi-story greenhouse would work. Until then, it is pointless.

[questionposter]

You want to convert sunlight into electricity, and then back into light to grow plants in a 3-story greenhouse?

Why not just put plants in a field, and let them enjoy the sunlight directly, in a 1-story field ?

 

If sunlight is your bottleneck, then surely applying the sunlight directly onto a plant would be the most efficient method to use it.

 

Anyway, if we ever have electricity in such abundance, and at such a low price that we can waste it to grow even our most basic crops, then the multi-story greenhouse would work. Until then, it is pointless.

 

Sometimes there isn't enough sunlight or there isn't enough land horizontally to cultivate many crops, but I would agree that sunlight is still themore efficient energy.

Edited January 25, 2012 by questionposter

[jeskill]

What happens when all such marginal land is fully utilised and there are yet more starving mouths to feed?

 

Are you implying that the more food there is, the more the population will grow? Humans are not bacteria -- fecundity is not solely affected by the amount of food available. It's affected by poverty, education, stability, and a host of other socio-economic factors. If you want to lift people out of starvation and poverty, you need to give them stability and a means to survive on their own. This is just one example of how to do it. There's a lot of good evidence to suggest that projects like this can help to lift a significant proportion of people out of starvation and poverty.

 

Moreover, the main cause of starvation is not a lack of food production. According to FAO and worldhunger.org, poverty and the unequal distribution of food are the main culprits.

 

Does the world produce enough food to feed everyone?

 

The world produces enough food to feed everyone. World agriculture produces 17 percent more calories per person today than it did 30 years ago, despite a 70 percent population increase. This is enough to provide everyone in the world with at least 2,720 kilocalories (kcal) per person per day according to the most recent estimate that we could find.(FAO 2002, p.9). The principal problem is that many people in the world do not have sufficient land to grow, or income to purchase, enough food.

[questionposter]

Are you implying that the more food there is, the more the population will grow? Humans are not bacteria -- fecundity is not solely affected by the amount of food available. It's affected by poverty, education, stability, and a host of other socio-economic factors. If you want to lift people out of starvation and poverty, you need to give them stability and a means to survive on their own. This is just one example of how to do it. There's a lot of good evidence to suggest that projects like this can help to lift a significant proportion of people out of starvation and poverty.

 

Moreover, the main cause of starvation is not a lack of food production. According to FAO and worldhunger.org, poverty and the unequal distribution of food are the main culprits.

 

Does the world produce enough food to feed everyone?

 

 

 

Ok, well then relatively speaking, from a single given frame of reference, there is not always enough food. Even though the food still exists miles and miles away, in a localized situation, enough food is not necessarily available.

Edited January 25, 2012 by questionposter

[Santalum]

Are you implying that the more food there is, the more the population will grow? Humans are not bacteria -- fecundity is not solely affected by the amount of food available.

 

Yes, that is what I am suggesting.

 

And yes I am suggesting that humans, collectively, are much like bacteria in always expanding their population to take up available food until they exhaust supplies and then the population crashes.

 

The oil age has dramatically increased the supply of food available to humans, our population has expanded exponentially to take up that food supply and now the end of the oil age is upon us.

 

Food supplies will be dramatically cut and the human population must inevitably crash and there will be little that anyone can do about it unless reproduction is banned for a few decades or there is a major deadly epidemic or global conflict to slash our numbers.

[questionposter]

Yes, that is what I am suggesting.

 

And yes I am suggesting that humans, collectively, are much like bacteria in always expanding their population to take up available food until they exhaust supplies and then the population crashes.

 

The oil age has dramatically increased the supply of food available to humans, our population has expanded exponentially to take up that food supply and now the end of the oil age is upon us.

 

Food supplies will be dramatically cut and the human population must inevitably crash and there will be little that anyone can do about it unless reproduction is banned for a few decades or there is a major deadly epidemic or global conflict to slash our numbers.

 

It's not that "the more food there is, the more humans there are", it's if a system can sustain the existence of more humans, then it will unless there's some major catastrophe.

[jeskill]

Yes, that is what I am suggesting.

 

And yes I am suggesting that humans, collectively, are much like bacteria in always expanding their population to take up available food until they exhaust supplies and then the population crashes.

 

The oil age has dramatically increased the supply of food available to humans, our population has expanded exponentially to take up that food supply and now the end of the oil age is upon us.

 

Food supplies will be dramatically cut and the human population must inevitably crash and there will be little that anyone can do about it unless reproduction is banned for a few decades or there is a major deadly epidemic or global conflict to slash our numbers.

 

OK. The problem with your argument that "we are always expanding our population to take up available food", though, is that there's evidence to refute it: the regions of the world that currently have the most food also have the lowest fecundity. The regions with food scarcity currently have the highest fecundity. If there were a direct correlation between human population growth and food production, developed countries would have the highest population growth rates and developing countries would have the lowest.

 

Ok, well then relatively speaking, from a single given frame of reference, there is not always enough food. Even though the food still exists miles and miles away, in a localized situation, enough food is not necessarily available.

 

In certain spaces and certain times, yes, I agree with you. But as stated before, most NGOs working on this issue agree that starvation is a primarily a product of poverty (i.e. lack of purchasing power). Ergo, increasing purchasing power can also decrease starvation due to the fact that many places in the world currently produce an excess of food. To take the Eritrean example, we have people literally creating a mangrove forest on former wasteland, not only creating a habitat that houses their food, but also creating a resource that can be extracted and exchanged for money/food (the resource is wood). So, the mangroves are reducing hunger by increasing the availability of food and increasing the purchasing power of the people.

[Santalum]

It's not that "the more food there is, the more humans there are", it's if a system can sustain the existence of more humans, then it will unless there's some major catastrophe.

 

I am not at all suggesting that humans consciously make a decision to expand their population to take up all available food.

 

I am merely pointing out that, like all other animal populations, humans behave in excatly the same way at a collective population level.

 

If times are good then more humans survive and individuals are more likely to precreate at a higher level.

 

If you are starving to death and fleeing a conflict then it is less likely that you will take the time out to precreate, sustain a pregnancy or that many or any of your children will survive. X that 100s of 1000s and you have downward pressure on population levels.

 

OK. The problem with your argument that "we are always expanding our population to take up available food", though, is that there's evidence to refute it: the regions of the world that currently have the most food also have the lowest fecundity. The regions with food scarcity currently have the highest fecundity. If there were a direct correlation between human population growth and food production, developed countries would have the highest population growth rates and developing countries would have the lowest.

Only because the west has cheap contraception. If we did not then our populations would have continued expanding exponentially.

 

In certain spaces and certain times, yes, I agree with you. But as stated before, most NGOs working on this issue agree that starvation is a primarily a product of poverty (i.e. lack of purchasing power). Ergo, increasing purchasing power can also decrease starvation due to the fact that many places in the world currently produce an excess of food. To take the Eritrean example, we have people literally creating a mangrove forest on former wasteland, not only creating a habitat that houses their food, but also creating a resource that can be extracted and exchanged for money/food (the resource is wood). So, the mangroves are reducing hunger by increasing the availability of food and increasing the purchasing power of the people.

That is the trouble with emergency food and medical aid providers. They reduce the death rate but do not meanifully compensate for it by also providing them with adequate contracpetion.

 

Hence in places like africa all they have ever succeeded in doing is providing a temporary pin prick solutions to hunger only to have the region plunged back into human misery when the next drought or war comes along. But as they faciltate the populations to grow they create an ever larger aid burdon for future generations to deal with.

 

Sadly aid providers are largely fixated on short term quick fixes that will never eliminate poverty in the long term for future generations.

 

 

 

 

And we should also keep in mind that the only way that most western countries can sustain their current populations is by taking various resources, including food, from less developed parts of the world.

 

If western countries were forced to sustain their current populations on the resources remaining within their current borders then the populations of most if not all of them would crash.

Edited January 26, 2012 by Santalum

[jeskill]

Only because the west has cheap contraception. If we did not then our populations would have continued expanding exponentially.

 

OK. So you're admitting then that there's not a direct cause/effect relationship between food production and fecundity because the availability of contraception affects fecundity regardless of food availability? Great. Thank you for making my point. Would you disagree that fecundity is also affected by the level of political stability and the availability of education? After all, less politically stable places do tend to have more war/rape and have less availability of contraceptives. On the other hand, it's well known that the more education a female gets, the less likely she is to have lots of children regardless of the amount of food available.

 

That is the trouble with emergency food and medical aid providers. They reduce the death rate but do not meanifully compensate for it by also providing them with adequate contracpetion.

 

Hence in places like africa all they have ever succeeded in doing is providing a temporary pin prick solutions to hunger only to have the region plunged back into human misery when the next drought or war comes along. But as they faciltate the populations to grow they create an ever larger aid burdon for future generations to deal with.

 

Sadly aid providers are largely fixated on short term quick fixes that will never eliminate poverty in the long term for future generations.

 

USAID and other large organizations are fixated on short term damage control, but there are aid providers who are working on long-term fixes as well. I've mentioned some of them in my previous posts, but there are a lot of small NGOs that are helping farmers grow hardier and healthier crops to reduce malnutrition. If you are someone who doesn't like the quick fixes, you might consider donating to the small NGOs that are taking the long-term route.

 

 

 

And we should also keep in mind that the only way that most western countries can sustain their current populations is by taking various resources, including food, from less developed parts of the world.

 

If western countries were forced to sustain their current populations on the resources remaining within their current borders then the populations of most if not all of them would crash.

 

Do you have evidence to support this statement?

 

 

[Moontanman]

And we should also keep in mind that the only way that most western countries can sustain their current populations is by taking various resources, including food, from less developed parts of the world.

 

If western countries were forced to sustain their current populations on the resources remaining within their current borders then the populations of most if not all of them would crash.

 

 

This is not true, in fact the USA grow far more food than we need and we export a great deal to other countries, so this statement is false.

[jeskill]

I've just realized that we've gone a bit off topic. Apologies. With respect to the OP's original question, it would seem that by focusing on edible halophytes, we could start growing salt water crops right now, instead of waiting for natural selection and adaptation to create salt-loving wheat or durum. Wired writer Alexis Madrigal wrote an interesting article about salt water crops in 2008:

 

These plants [halophytes] are attractive candidates for both food and fuel because they have very high biomass and oil seed yields. The

Science authors note that one leading halophyte-candidate, Salicornia bigelovii, produces 1.7 times more oil per acre than sunflowers, a common source of vegetable oil.

A quick search on google scholar brought up a

recent study on the productivity and nutritional value of Salicornia:

In this study, we thus demonstrated the feasibility of cultivating Salicornia and Sarcocornia by applying a multiple harvest system and 100% percentages of seawater in the irrigation water generating economic yields with high nutritional value. The findings also showed thatSalicornia and Sarcocornia leafy vegetables may attract additional interest as an alternative source of omega-3 polyunsaturated fatty acids for human consumption, even when the crop irrigated solely with seawater.

Edited January 26, 2012 by jeskill

[Santalum]

OK. So you're admitting then that there's not a direct cause/effect relationship between food production and fecundity because the availability of contraception affects fecundity regardless of food availability? Great. Thank you for making my point. Would you disagree that fecundity is also affected by the level of political stability and the availability of education? After all, less politically stable places do tend to have more war/rape and have less availability of contraceptives. On the other hand, it's well known that the more education a female gets, the less likely she is to have lots of children regardless of the amount of food available.

 

 

 

USAID and other large organizations are fixated on short term damage control, but there are aid providers who are working on long-term fixes as well. I've mentioned some of them in my previous posts, but there are a lot of small NGOs that are helping farmers grow hardier and healthier crops to reduce malnutrition. If you are someone who doesn't like the quick fixes, you might consider donating to the small NGOs that are taking the long-term route.

 

 

 

 

 

Do you have evidence to support this statement?

 

 

There is abundant evidence to support this.

 

I will give you two well documented cases.

 

 

1) The US, Australia and Britain are dependant upon middle east oil and they are in turn dependant on steady supply of oil energy and fertilisers to sustain its current agricultural out put.....apart from their other industrial outputs. If the middle east stops selling oil to them then their agricultural out puts would alone plummet and they would not be able to feed their large over consuming populations. Which is clearly why all three countries are prepared to go to extraordinary military lenghts to maintain their oil supply lines from the middle east.

 

 

2) Don't know about the US and Britain, but recent figures in Australia show that we are now net importers of fresh produce and other non-grain and non-animal foods: http://en.wikipedia....re_in_Australia for starters. Climate change and peak oil/peak fertiliser is expected to further diminish our agriculutral output and we may well become a net importer of grains as well at some point in the near future.

Edited January 27, 2012 by Santalum

[CaptainPanic]

Good one, jeskill. Salicornia is indeed suited for seawater conditions, and it tastes good too (although it's a little salty, for obvious reasons).

 

I wonder what the yield per hectare (or per acre) could be. Too lazy to look it up