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Farming in cities could help feed the world : Comments
By Lucía Atehortúa, published 16/12/2010With traditional food production under threat from climate change, we should switch from agriculture to cell culture.
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Posted by Beef, Monday, 20 December 2010 10:28:39 PM
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Research into food production systems during long term space travel shows that they can produce at least 40 tonnes per hectare of wheat, compared with our 5 Tonne Club producers, who, you guessed it, produce just 5 tonnes per hectare (yields in the Saudi Arabian desert reach 10 tonnes per ha). We could do the same here by simply recycling the transpired water, and, like those space systems, use virtually NO water at all, since the peak crop water content of about 20 tonnes per tonne of wheat is recovered at crop maturity. Yes, of course we could do it – but at what cost? There is no problem feeding the World at all – it only takes money; we just need to decide how much we can pay. We’ll leave variety and standard of living to another day.
Cellular systems would need even more money than that simple ‘space’ exercise. I suspect that the cost of cellular systems will be several orders more costly than plant photosynthetic systems; the chlorophyll in green grass, green crops and green trees will be far cheaper for a long, long time. And those sources of chlorophyll will still be readily available during Global Warming.
The final issue, of course, is that of limiting inputs - like phosphorus, which cellular systems will still need. We have 300 years of phosphorus reserves available but its cost will escalate within say 50 or even 20 years. We can recover it from seawater or other plant and animal tissues - but at phenomenal cost – and again, of course, only the wealthy and powerful will get the food it facilitates.
Yes, please intensify research into cellular food production systems, just in case we need them. In the meantime, let’s strive toward more efficient agricultural systems, better distribution and less waste.
However, above all else, constrain World human family fecundity to two.