Hydroponics: The Future Of A Dystopian Future

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Imagine a world with almost ten billion people, thirty percent more than the population of today, the rising standard of living in developing nations causing the global demand for food resources to skyrocket. Now, at the same time, imagine a world that has almost no way to support a population of this size. In fact, this world is slowly losing its ability to support life at all. This scenario is not a pitch for a novel set in a dystopian future, nor is it a prediction made for a time so far in the future that it can be easily ignored. This prediction will most likely come to be within the lifetimes of many alive today, researchers in the ecological field believe that this will become the reality even within the next thirty-five years if significant …show more content…

Hydroponics, literally meaning “water working”, is the method of growing plants in solution comprised of water with all the essential nutrients required by the plants to grow and thrive.(Resh) Due to the very nature of the system, soil cannot be used, the fine particles that it contains clog up the system too easily and the trace minerals in it can upset the carefully managed nutrient and pH levels. The practice of growing plants hydroponically has been done for many years, one of the earliest instances of hydroponically grown plants was during World War II. Small islands in the Pacific that were used as fuel stop for planes making the long journey sometimes grew vegetables in mineral water to supplement their rations. (Donaldson) Interest in hydroponics continued somewhat after the war but never on a large scale because of the large and expensive concrete structures that were required at the time. The real jump in hydroponic interest came about with the new advances in plastics.Now the materials that previously had to be made of glass or metal could now be made quickly for a much smaller price. Because of this, greenhouses began springing up all across the country and with some of them even sporting a hydroponic system. Since then, a large percentage of greenhouse grown vegetables are being grown hydroponically.

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