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Imagine a world where every country has a surplus of healthy, safe food. Imagine a world where this food comes from an environmental friendly source. Now imagine that all of this food is incredibly affordable for everyone. A world that is growing with more mouths to feed everyday craves the scientific advancements and achievements of agriculture in the near future. In this world, the idea for sustainable and economical agriculture is becoming recognized as the best solution for a hungry population. A fairly new system of agriculture combines aquaculture and hydroponics to form aquaponics. Aquaculture is fish farming where commercial fish are kept in containers, ponds, or tanks; hydroponics is essentially growing plants without the means of soil, using mainly water distribution (Blidariu & Grozea, 2011). These two methods combined form a sustainable and mutualistic system called aquaponics. Separately, aquaculture and hydroponics have negative implications in their systems. However, when fused together in aquaponics, the two systems solve the other’s problems (Blidariu & Grozea, 2011). Aquaponics is an innovative agriculture system that has been implemented from a need to resolve the ailments of the separate systems of aquaculture and hydroponics; this new system has effects that are beneficial to the producer, consumer, and the environment.
The growing population of the world has caused agriculturalists to consider new technologies and methods to feed the earth. The population is estimated to “double” by the year “2050”, creating an urgency for these agricultural breakthroughs (Veludo, Hughes, & Le Blan, 2012). This has been an underlying cause for the outbreak in the use of aquaponics. Some large causes of the integration of aqua...
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...s, aquaponics is a friend to the environment; it creates a sustainable system that conserves water as well as preserving nature. The combination of aquaculture and hydroponics creates a benevolent system of agriculture called aquaponics; consequently, this system brings prosperity to the producer, consumer, and the environment when implemented into the agricultural world (Blidariu & Grozea, 2011).
Works Cited
Blidariu, F. & Grozea, A. (2011). Increasing the Economical Efficiency and Sustainability of
Indoor Fish Farming by Means of Aquaponics-Review. Blidariu F. et.al./Scientific
Papers: Animal Science and Biotechnologies, 44(2), 1-7.
Childress, V. W. (2002). Promising Alternatives in Agri-technology: Aquaponics.
Technology Teacher, 62(4), 17.
Veludo, M., Hughes, A. & Le Blan, B. (2012). Introduction to Aquaponics: A Key to
Sustainable Food Production. IKED.
As Jensen points out, farming and industry accounts for the vast majority of total water usage in the world (477). The increasingly scarce resource is a necessary ingredient when growing food. Technology continuously improves to make it easier for farmers to grow crops while using less water. Scientists at the University of Georgia utilize what they term “variable rate irrigation” to let farmers automate the current systems of irrigation to water only the crops that need it (Gies). This is an example of retrofitting current farms, but there is a new way of farming coming to cities that reuses practically all of its water and stakes claim much less acreage in the process. The future of agriculture belongs to vertical and urban farming. These types of farms reduce the use of water, chemicals (such as pesticides, herbicides and fungicides), soil and space (The Economist). These farms are so cutting edge that they are mostly in the experimental stages. Firms like Famgro farms are testing “stackable” farming systems that can scale with demand, even further reducing waste. Famgro’s stackable farms are ideal for cityscapes where land is at a premium; furthermore, reaping the added benefit of being in close proximity to the customers that they serve. Customers will enjoy high quality, fresh produce at only a slightly
One of the sectors facing the largest impact is the seafood industry. Fish products are prevalent in pet food products as well as human diets. Given such a high demand on the seafood industry,
Many people love eating fresh fruits and vegetables because they are delicious and cheap. When making laws that change the use of water, it forces farmers to grow a smaller amount of food. If there are not a large amount of fruits and vegetables,
she is feeding 129 people across the United States. Organic farming and conventional farming produce the same yields as crops and animals. The large scale organic system could be beneficial if the standards are changed and made better for the environment. It is argued by many that organic farming is still a benefit to animals and the environment, even when it is done in the industrial setting.
With the rapid growth of our global population pouring into the next millennium, we will witness an ever-growing hunger rate around the world. That is unless we call for a revolution on the global scale. The Green Revolution which already sprouted in the early part of the century only need to add a bit more momentum and we will see a bright future for the human race, a future without hunger and starvation ¡V hopefully.It is becoming increasingly difficult for the planet to support its overwhelming population. And since the amount of arable land available is becoming scarce, we must seek ways to dramatically improve crop yields of existing cropland.
In order for us to maintain our lives, we need to consume food to supply nutrient-needs for our bodies. As the global population increased, the demand for food also increased. Increased population led to mass production of foods. However, even with this mass production, in under-developed countries, people are still undernourished. On other hand, in developed and developing countries, people are overfed and suffering from obesity. In addition, the current methods of industrial farming destroy the environment. These problems raised a question to our global food system. Will it be able to sustain our increasing global population and the earth? With this question in my mind, I decided to investigate the sustainability of our current global food system.
Growing food with Aquaponics is more efficient than growing food the traditional soil garden way. In a typical soil garden, growers end up spending hours of their time doing back breaking work on their garden, but not anymore, with Aquaponics the need for any tilling, digging, or weeding is eliminated. Aquaponics combines Aquaculture (Raising fish in tanks), and Hydroponics (Growing plants without soil). The outcome is a working system that provides plants with all the nutrients they need, while using a minimum of space, effort, water, fertilizers, and pesticides. Aquaponics allows farmers to use up to 90% less water than normal farming would use, so instead of watering your soil and having the majority of your water either lost by run off or evaporated by the sun, the water is recycled repeatedly through the system saving farmers hundreds of dollars on their monthly water bills. Also when growing with Aquaponics, much more food can be produced in a smaller space, in some cases growers have produced around twenty times the amount of produce in the same area a soil garden would. In addition, with the closed, controlled environment of the system, the need for the use of any pesticides a basically eliminated. Finally, Aquaponics enables growers to grow bigger, better and more quality produce.
Aquaponics is the combination of both aquaculture, which is fish farming, and hydroponics, which is farming without the use of soil. In aquaponics, plants form a symbiotic relationship with fish allowing for fish to get nutrients from plants, and plants get a supply clean water from the fish. With aquaponics, the plants and fish can grow faster than average due to naturally fortified water from the fish, and nutrient-rich water from the plants. Aquaponics also allows for two types of farming happening at the same time, fish and plants, if the system the fish are in is large enough. Furthermore, aquaponics allows for plants to grow anywhere, without arable land. Many countries are not able to meet the demand for food because of the climate or
As the global population continues to rise, the amount of food needed to feed the people will increase as well. Two types of agriculture systems have been the backbone for crop production for decades if not centuries: conventional and organic agriculture— both methods could not be any more different. Conventional agriculture, a method that uses synthetic chemical pesticides, technologies or additives, and practices that are unsustainable is the leading producer for our food. On the other side of spectrum, organic agriculture generally, performed in a much smaller scale, does not use synthetic chemicals and utilize methods that are environmentally sound. Most conventional
Sustainable agriculture integrates three main goals--environmental health, economic profitability, and social and economic equity. A variety of philosophies, policies and practices have contributed to these goals. People in many different capacities, from farmers to consumers, have shared this vision and contributed to it.
Agriculture is one of the most ancient forms of art and science that ties human development and well-being to natural resources and ecosystems. (Fritz J. Häni, 2007) Sustainable Agriculture is the production of food, fibre, plant and animal products using farming techniques that protect the environment, public health, human communities and animal welfare. (Sustainable Agriculture - The Basics, 2015) Sustainable agriculture is an integrated system of plant and animal production practices having a site – specific application that over the long term will:
Some of the serious environmental tribulations related to food production and consumption consist of “climate change, water pollution, water scarcity, soil degradation, eutrophication of water bodies, and loss of habitats and biodiversity (Reisch L., 2014).” ... ... middle of paper ... ... Works Cited APHA. 2014, February 28.
The philosophy of agriculture to live harmony with nature is deeply rooted in ancient agriculture and still practiced in India, China and the Andes. Organic agriculture reflects this philosophy, but the recent history of concepts such as organic, bio dynamic, natural farming and other related concepts, can be traced back to early in the 20th century. Conventional agriculture differ from organic farming in terms of usage of chemical fertilizers which increase the nutrient of the soil, usage of genetically modified seeds for better crop production as well as the use of antibiotics and hormones in animal farming. In Malaysia, the major agriculture crop productions are rice, fruits and vegetables (including palm oil production). China is in the first ranking for agriculture sector followed by India and United States of America. Since organic farming is practiced by many countries, without further ado, let’s take a look on how it can affect the environment and its implementation.
Sandra Postel, on the other hand, has a different opinion than Danielle’s. She proposed that “without increasing water productivity in irrigation, major food-producing regions will not have enough water to sustain crop production”.
...ocess helps reducing the loss of a large variety of species which is one of the biggest environmental concerns. Many of the vegetables travel in materials such as plastic and cardboard, by the time they arrive at the grocery store they absorb unwanted material and may lose nutrients. Growing your own vegetable garden benefit the environment by reducing the carbon emission and waste created by shipping and packaging vegetables. Environmental benefits of gardens include increasing previous surfaces and allowing for groundwater recharge, improving air quality through the addition of plants to the landscape, beautifying the environment and promoting sustainability. Of course, there are potentially negative environmental impacts associated with gardening the use of power tools uses energy, and water use is rising every year therefor we have to use wells and solar systems.