Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

How an Army of Ocean Farmers Are Starting an Economic Revolution

medium.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

11–20 of 118 posts

Re: How an Army of Ocean Farmers Are Starting an Economic Revolution

#11

Post by thangalin »

We should focus our attention on taking humans out of the food industry altogether. Here's a model I've been thinking about that should make it possible to create a free food society:

http://i.stack.imgur.com/KfGtn.png

Not just free as in no cost, but free also as in liberty. Imagine not having to work for food. Food weaves a recursive economic penalty into all facets of society.

What's especially amazing about 3D vertical ocean farms is that they can provide nutrient inputs to the model illustrated above. Harvested, transported, and delivered automatically, with power from renewable resources.

If people want to grow their own food, that's fine. The point is, we have the technological prowess to create a society where we needn't spend time nor money on food out of necessity. Trading our productive years for food is a huge driving force behind capitalism, which has not proven itself to be the most environmentally-friendly regime (in terms of greenhouse gas emissions).

Think about this.

By the time viable nuclear fusion comes along (50 years?), we could have a self-maintaining, open source, free food infrastructure to solve one problem common to every living human: hunger. The energy consumption required to power the infrastructure could be switched from limited renewable sources to fusion sources to help support the global population (with power left over for some growth).

See also:

http://www.ted.com/talks/caleb_harper_this_computer_will_gro...

http://www.theguardian.com/environment/2016/feb/01/japanese-...

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Automated_mining

Re: How an Army of Ocean Farmers Are Starting an Economic Revolution

#12

Post by strictfp »

thangalin wrote: post #11

We should focus our attention on taking humans out of the food industry altogether. Here's a model I've been thinking about that should make it possible to create a free food society: http://i.stack.imgur.com/KfGtn.png Not just free as in no cost, but free also as in liberty. Imagine not having to work for food. Food weaves a recursive economic penalty into all facets of society. What's especially amazing about 3D ve…

If you solve hunger for the existing population, will it not just expand until scarcity increases again?

Re: How an Army of Ocean Farmers Are Starting an Economic Revolution

#13

Post by jmknoll »

jacobolus wrote: post #6
seabrookmx wrote: post #4

I'd imagine there would be some impact on the native ecosystem. You can't prevent the seed from escaping the aquafarm and (potentially invasive) oysters and kelps growing where they normally would not, displacing local species. That said.. the small footprint of these farms means you could probably localize this impact, or pick areas that are at a lower risk for farming. Potentially the biggest hurdle here would be r…

If there are many thousands of edible sea plants, maybe plants and shellfish local to the region could be used. Seems like you could potentially find places where the farms would do more good than harm, even ignoring the food production aspect: They claimed that the farms make good habitats for various types of marine life, serve as effective storm breaks, etc. I wonder if they might even be able to improve local oce…

The author begins to address one of your questions in the article, although I would like to see this subject treated in a little bit more depth.

"Even the best land-based farms pollute, sending nitrogen into our waterways, so we use our kelp to capture that nitrogen, turn it into liquid fertilizers, and send it back to organic farmers to grow their wonderful vegetables. When the nitrogen then runs back into Long Island Sound, we capture it again."

It seems like, at least in theory, these types of farms can also help limit the damage caused by land-based human activity to coastal ecosystems.

Re: How an Army of Ocean Farmers Are Starting an Economic Revolution

#14

Post by riffraff »

strictfp wrote: post #12
thangalin wrote: post #11

We should focus our attention on taking humans out of the food industry altogether. Here's a model I've been thinking about that should make it possible to create a free food society: http://i.stack.imgur.com/KfGtn.png Not just free as in no cost, but free also as in liberty. Imagine not having to work for food. Food weaves a recursive economic penalty into all facets of society. What's especially amazing about 3D ve…

If you solve hunger for the existing population, will it not just expand until scarcity increases again?

No, population has stopped growing in western society (where the vast majority of population has access to food) a long time ago, and the number of children per family have consistently decreased from "many" to ~2 as wealth, food and healthcare has reached developing countries.

Re: How an Army of Ocean Farmers Are Starting an Economic Revolution

#15

Post by happywolf »

The 3D vertical farm reminds me something a bit tangential, but similar that you can do at your own home. It is called window farms: http://our.windowfarms.org/

The idea is to use recycle matters to build a home garden. Nice and innovative. Also, its build has been open sourced. Worth to take a look.

Re: How an Army of Ocean Farmers Are Starting an Economic Revolution

#16

Post by Smaug123 »

I was a little worried by the following quote:

> New farms are being built in polluted areas like Bridgeport and the Bronx River in order to soak up the nitrogen and carbon, pull out heavy metals, and re-build reefs.

They're pulling out the heavy metals. Where do those heavy metals go? Into the food? I limit my intake of certain foods because of their heavy metal contents; do I have to do the same for their seaweeds?

Re: How an Army of Ocean Farmers Are Starting an Economic Revolution

#17

Post by jacalata »

jqm wrote: post #8

How do you get a lease on a section of ocean?

>Our farmers don’t own their patch of ocean; they own only the right to grow shellfish and seaweeds there, which means that anyone can boat, fish, or swim on their farms

Sounds the same as existing shellfish farms, as far as I know. Here's a story with a couple details on the process, from Maine -http://www.ellsworthamerican.com/maine-news/waterfront/lease...

Re: How an Army of Ocean Farmers Are Starting an Economic Revolution

#18

Post by rurban »

This kind of farmers revolutions crop all the time in history, thanksfully! I'm a bit sceptical about the taste of seaweed having being in Japan already, but of course he is right.

Just see the land farmers revolutions, fighting industrial farming with new methods. Organic farming (the "bio" label), sellers collectives, Community Supported Agriculture (CSA). Previously they had to fight the big mills and banks, now the industry, the government and Monsanto just to keep the nature and ourself healthy.

There's a whole film festival for new farming http://www.mefarms.org/community-kitchen/food-farm-film-fest... with lots of recommendations.

"The Real Dirt on Farmer John" (my favorite) http://www.angelicorganics.com/ and esp. http://learngrowconnect.org/

http://foodforthoughtfilm.com/, ...

Re: How an Army of Ocean Farmers Are Starting an Economic Revolution

#19

Post by _0w8t »

givinguflac wrote: post #5

I wasn't aware of how much more carbon can be trapped or ethanol produced with these plants. Also interesting that beneficial nutrients from fish mainly come from plants as well.

Actually fish do not produce Omega-3 at all, all of it comes from algae or phytoplankton that fish consumes.
Post reply on HN