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Earth Beat - The future of farming
On air: 12 November 2010 2:00 (Photo: Seawater Greenhouse Australia)
This week on Earth Beat: by the middle of this century, there will be nine billion of us on the planet. That's a lot of mouths to feed. So how should we do it? Some experts say we should keep farms small and sustainable and grow and eat locally. Others say farms need to scale up to meet the needs of the millions of people squeezed into mega-cities. To find out how farms are changing we visit urban farms, ocean farms and desert farms.
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The future of farming
Host Marnie Chesterton visits a conference in The Hague and meets agronomist David Howlett from Leeds University, who explains how climate change will affect what food we produce.
Vertical farm
If there isn’t enough room to continue farming the way we have been, we’ll need clever new ideas to get more food from the same piece of land. One idea wants to turn the old system on its head, or rather its side. Kevin Frediani, curator of plants at Paignton Zoo in England, has set up a vertical farm filled with stacks of plants. He talks to Marnie about how it works. The vertical farm is manufactured by Valcent Products. Video: Paignton Zoo's Vertical Farm
Multi-tiered aquaculture
A different sort of fish farm – integrated multi-trophic aquaculture, or IMTA, has been modernised off the east coast of Canada, and has been producing fish, mussels and seaweed symbiotically. Dr Thierry Chopin of the University of New Brunswick and Nell Halse of Cooke Aquaculture join Marnie to discuss how it all works.
Self-propelled fish farms
There’s more than one vision for the future of fish farming, though. This one is a bit more hi-tech. A few years ago, Cliff Goudey, then the director of MIT Sea Grant’s Offshore Aquaculture Engineering Center, helped develop fish cages that can be moved with electrically-powered propellers, bypassing the usual downsides of anchored cages and getting fish closer to market.
Seawater greenhouses
Alongside new ways of farming the sea, it may also be possible to use seawater to farm other things. Charlie Paton is the man behind Australia’s first seawater greenhousewhich converts salt water to fresh water which is used to grow tomatoes. Correspondent Nicola Gage went along and told Marnie about the tomatoes growing in the greenhouse.
Homegrown in Mumbai
There are also smaller-scale solutions for feeding the world and many individuals making their own contributions. Jyoti Bhave lives in a ground floor apartment in Mumbai and started growing organic fruit and vegetables after taking part in workshops and volunteering at a community garden. She talks to Marnie about her plant pot allotment.
Debating the future
As the world’s population soars, demand for food will grow – is the only solution an industrial approach, or can small-scale organic farms meet our needs? Séan Rickard, a lecturer at Cranfield School of Management and Peter Melchett, Policy Advisor for theSoil Association, debate what’s in store for the future of farming.
Envirominute
Takes a 60 second look at which of your veg is best to buy organic and which isn’t worth the extra cost. Link - The world's heathiest foods
Click on image for slideshow
Valcent's VertiCrop system
A different sort of fish farm – integrated multi-trophic aquaculture, or IMTA off the east coast of Canada
IMTA site in the Bay of Fundy, New Brunswick, Canada
How the seawater greenhouse system works
Peter Melchett, Policy Advisor at the Soil Association
