Future offers water and food problems but we have solutions
Experts estimate that the world population will increase from 7.5 billion to somewhere around 10 billion by 2050. With water and food in short supply to feed this increasing population, Nations need to begin the process of providing for all these people. Already many areas of the planet simply do not have access to good water and an adequate supply of food. What can be done?
The folks at Carnegie Mellon University in nearby Pittsburgh have come up with a possible solution for dirty contaminated water. It is called a scientific coffee filter and looks like a book of coffee filters. Each page of the book is a filter you tear out and pour contaminated water through and out comes pure drinkable water. According to the university, the filter kills 99.9 percent of the bacteria and equates in safety to tap water in most of our cities. Each page lasts about a month with daily use and one coffee filter book should meet one person蘑菇视频 drinking water needs for a year and costs just pennies to produce. In fact, one filter can clean up to 26 gallons. Field tests are being run in Ghana, Haiti and Kenya.
Another possible solution to our dwindling supply of water is vertical farming. Most of the water used in our own country goes for agricultural and farming uses. It takes 200 gallons of water to produce a pound of wheat. Every ton of animal food that we consume requires six tons of plants and a pound of beef uses 12,000 gallons of water by the time it is consumed as part of our diet. The inefficiency of the system is staggering. If we are to provide food for the future, we simply must look at what we are doing and come up with better solutions.
New Jersey is known as the Garden State and produces a lot of truck garden types of crops. The city of Newark has a long history as an industrial area, but that is changing. 212 Rome St. in Newark for decades has been a steel plant. Today, that same location is leased to Aero Farms and they operate a farm that grows kale lettuce and other crops. A modern vertical farm several stories high uses a process that requires no soil, no pesticides and 95 percent less water than traditional farming. The farm also produces no runoff or pollution. The process uses a cloth soil made from recycled plastic water bottles. The cloth holds the seeds and roots extend below the cloth where they are misted with water and nutrients. Crop rotation takes just 16 days and can be grown all year. Energy is provided via a photosynthetic lighting system.
National Geographic Magazine this month has a great article on how a tiny country like The Netherlands is changing the way we will feed the world. They also use indoor farming techniques that allow for a climate controlled building to produce crops all year. They have become the leading producer of tomatoes for the world.
In Pittsburgh, an abandoned housing project with 23 acres of land is being converted into an urban farm. It is to be called Hilltop Urban Farm and with the help of a $10,000,000 investment will have greenhouses as well as chickens and small livestock in the middle of the city.
Massive increases in agricultural yields and massive decreases in the use of water are a must if we want to stave off catastrophic famine and provide food for the world of the future.