There is one option for meat that is being researched and developed. No this isn’t any animal on Old-McDonald’s farm that you sang about during your childhood. The source of this meat is a lab, yes a lab. Now in all reality this isn’t a terrible concept, as it could probably be mass produced and would free up the valuable fertile land to be used for crops. It would also take significantly less water over time, which would also free up the highly valuable fresh water supplies.

So Why Aren’t Lab Burgers a Thing?

If the idea is so beneficial to the human race and our planet, then why aren’t we eating lab burgers at the bar? Well, Since this technology is relatively new and underdeveloped, the cost associated with growing a lab meat is around $37 a pound. That’s a far cry from the country average of beef as $3.28 a lb (Peters, 2018.) Thus why it hasn’t hit the main stream market yet, and why most of the general population doesn’t even know it’s a real thing. Plus, the technology now isn’t too the point where it can be massed produced but rather they are still looking into how they can cut the costs down to make it much more affordable.

While one of the students, who are taking this class as well, believes that this will be a possibility in the near future to be a cheaper alternative to other meat products. Keith Cassot’s blog Are we really starved for food? He speaks about how the cost of this meat has dramatically decreased. This is completely true since the first lab grown hamburger costed nearly $325,000. However, I don’t necessarily believe this will be true if the public is in a full awareness of what they are eating. Especially, since there has been a large movement towards more organic products as well as people are becoming more conscientious of what they are putting in there body. Since there is no information on how this will affect us in the long run in terms of health nor has there been any surveys done to see how the public even views this product.

Lab Meat? Is That a Real Option? was originally published in Future Farming on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

If we are running into a situation where we currently running out of land, what are our options for the future? Currently there is a new proposal that is gaining a huge amount of traction in the agricultural industry, interestingly the proposal doesn’t have anything to do with land at all but rather the cheapest real estate in the world, the world’s waters. One of the biggest problems with modern day farming revolves around irrigation systems and efficiently getting water from the source to the crops in the most efficient manner possible. So what if we move the crops to the water on a floating platform or in a structure that is built up from the ocean floor. This idea has two major benefits to our society. The first benefit is, since there is a decrease in the available fertile lands that are available to farm, you are creating a new method of farming that can be used without potentially harming more lands. The second benefit is now you have a source of relatively unlimited water.

Unlimited Water

Now it is general knowledge that you can’t use salt water for crops, it will essentially burn them causing them to be inedible. However, this by no means is a problem that scientists in this century can’t handle. Through methods such as desalination, you can with ease, pull all of the salinity out of the water making it safe to use in the irrigation of crops. The most common method for the desalination process is by the method of Reverse Osmosis. The process of Reverse Osmosis is quite simple. To begin with a water source is pumped into holding tanks where it is pretreated with certain chemicals to adjust the PH to a normal level, before the start. Then using a very high pressure pump the water is sucked from those tanks and pushed through a permeable membrane made up of polyamide atop a polyethersulfone which separates the water into a very high concentrated alkaline solution and a low concentrated water that is PH safe. Therefore, the later water, is safe to use in the irrigation of crops. Using this process, you will essentially make the irrigation problem nonexistent, leaving you with an essentially limitless source of water which is only inhibited by the efficiency of the Reverse Osmosis Process.

Crops Aren’t the Only Option

So the world doesn’t only consume food of the fruit or vegetable variety. Humans also consume a large amount of meat, sorry vegans. However, the proposal in question, isn’t only for crops. Part of the proposal has already been put into effect at one location. A Dutch company named, Beladon, launched to worlds first floating cow farm in Port of Rotterdam, which holds an estimated 40 head of cattle. These cattle will be milked by a crew of automated robots. Currently, people are trying to use vacant buildings to grow crops in an upward fashion, which frees up space and bring the food close to the people it feeds. The problem with this is that the population is constantly growing, an estimated 70% of this population will be housed within the city. This means that the real estate in the city will be more valuable, thus making the need for an alternative method more appealing. This strive in agriculture is proof that we have the technology to do great things and to make our lives better. It is also proof that this concept isn’t only for crops but can be used for goats, chickens, cattle and more.

What is the cost of our future?

While I am aware of the costs around these concepts, what is the necessities of the people of the earth worth to us? The aforementioned farm created by Beladon, had an end price of around two million Euros. That’s quite the hefty price for food. But at the current rate were going, were going to start having some real food problems.

Works Cited

World’s First Floating Dairy Farm Could Be Wave Of the Future

https://www.nbcnews.com/mach/science/world-s-first-floating-dairy-farm-could-be-wave-future-ncna905521

Floating food- Food from Floating Farms was originally published in Future Farming on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

In some shape or form, the farmer has been around for as long as there has been written history. They provide the nutrients and necessities for human life to exist. While I have the upmost respect for the individuals who choose this career, instead of one that would allow for them to live much more comfortably, it has become apparent that they are becoming unequipped to handle the job. Don’t get me wrong, farming technologies have come magnificently far in the past century, but in the last couple decades the population of the planet, has been increasing exponentially. This has caused a rushing of farming methods that are causing the destruction of the once abundant fertile lands. So what do we do? People obviously need to eat and the population doesn’t look to be stop growing(however the growth rate has been declining). Is the future of farming truly in the hands of our scientists?

The USDA- Americas Future Farmers

Thanksgiving is one of Americas most celebrated holidays, everyone comes together to eat stuffing, green bean casserole, cranberries, and of course the big tasty turkey, how could anyone forget the turkey? Did you know that the turkey that you eat on thanksgiving was developed in a lab? The turkey you eat on thanksgiving, aptly named the Beltsville White after the lab it was created at in Beltsville, MD, was created by a group of scientists in a USDA lab to meet the needs of Americans on Thanksgiving. This is just one instance of the USDA helping farmers meet the needs of Americans, but how would they become the future farmers of America? Simply put, they are the ones that are researching the technologies that are needed to save the planets land whilst still meeting the obligations of human necessities.

Soil Testing From Space

Water is essential to pretty much anything that is alive on the planet, thus it would be apparent that it is also necessary to do any sort of farming because crops are alive right? In order to grow a healthy crop, it is necessary to monitor the amount of water/moisture that’s in the soil. So how do we know how much moisture is in the soil of farmlands that are often times 300 plus acres? Well three U.S. agencies as of 2015 have taken that issue which used to take days to do, and made it something that is able to be handled remotely from Space! The USDA, ARS and NASA have developed a satellite that now orbits the earths atmosphere, that has the ability to measure the moisture of the soil on the earth’s crust anywhere in the world. The Soil Moisture Active-Passive or SMAP is a satellite that gathers the data relating to moisture within the soil and then uses the information that it has gathered to predict when irrigation is needed or when there is droughts that will be inevitable so that farmers can plan their farming techniques accordingly.

This is just one of the ways that the USDA is proving to be a useful tool for future farmers to take advantage of. If not they will most likely become the farmers themselves due to the rapid increase in the technologies that will hopefully be successful in meeting the earth’s populations food needs for many centuries to come.

Works Cited:

THE COMMISSION ON 21ST CENTURY PRODUCTION AGRICULTURE(1996). Directions for future farm policy: The role of government in agriculture. Washington D.C.

https://permanent.access.gpo.gov/lps13576/lps13576/report.pdf

Are Scientists the Future Farmer? was originally published in Future Farming on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

Urban Sprawl

Over the years, it has been troubling to see the destruction of lands that were so beautiful, peaceful, and providing, to be sold to contracting companies to be made into developmental communities for individuals from the city. With recent technological improvements in the communications and transportation industries, the sprawl of population from the cities has become more frequent. According to a study by Terando, AJ(2014),we are projected to lose about 35,0000 square miles is projected to be lost in just south east America. From this the expected loss of 21% of fertile farmlands, 17% of graze-able grasslands, 12% of Forestlands, all followed by 7% of wetlands.

So Why Should We Care?

Daniel Webster a once, prominent statesmen in the northeastern U.S., who served under three sitting presidents as a Secretary of State, believed strongly in the farming community. Once he was Quoted saying, “ When tillage begins, other arts follow. The farmers, therefore, are the founders of human civilization.”. From this we can understand just how important agriculture is a largely influential figure from the origins of the country. In this quote he is projecting the idea that without farming we would not have the civilizations that existed over the years, and those that we have today. Since food is a necessity of human life, he is stated that people will follow the food out of necessity, thus exemplifying the importance of those who tend to the agricultural needs of society. So why should we care about the destruction of fertile lands? Simply put, if we don’t there will become large food shortages in the near futures.

An Unexpected Quandary

An interesting thought to think about is what makes people move to the rural country side, which then because of the movement of so many people it becomes suburbia? Based on an article from The Vice called “Young People Explain Why They Ditched the City for the Country”, It seems to have a lot to do with people wanting to get away from the busy lifestyle of the city, to take in the view of the beautiful landscapes, or to live a more simple and majestic lifestyle, more and more less-than-thirties are making the move to the countryside. But here comes the complication with this movement. As more and more people move to the country side, contracting companies see dollars signs so thus they follow. They offer a price so large,that these farmers whom are living in poverty, can’t turn away because they see a better future for their families. So a portion of fertile land that was farmed and handed down through families for centuries, is now being destroyed filled with concrete and cement, and houses that are worth a quarter to half a million dollars are being built on them. All so the people who wanted the picturesque lifestyle of the country, can have their luxury in this farmland. All of this is happening while there is a multitude of buildings being left vacant and to decay in the city.

A Moment of Clarity was originally published in Future Farming on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

The population of the world is growing at an alarming rate, While the rate is slowly decreasing( 1.16% in 2016 vs 1.07% in 2018) there is still 7.7 billion people in this world. Isn’t that something crazy to think about? Think about how much food your family eats on a daily basis, can you imagine how much it would take to feed 7.7 billion hungry mouths? Thanks to some research done by some statisticians, we estimate the world eats about 11.5 million pounds of food each year. Now everyone, at least I believe, deserves 3 square meals a day but this large amount of food comes with some unfortunate collateral.

The Unfortunate Truth

Unfortunately, because the population is growing at a faster rate than the agricultural industry can keep up, there are some poor methods of farming that are being used to keep up with the demand of food that is necessary to sustain the population. Did you know that in the last 40 years the earth has lost a third of its arable fertile land? Most of that loss is due to soil erosion due to poor farming methods or from human pollution.

For example, take a cattle farm that used to raise approximately 40 head of cattle according to the USDA average family. Now these farms are raising hundreds of head of cattle to keep up the demand. This sounds great but it is causing havoc for the soil, because these cattle are being allowed to overgraze since it is harder to rotate fields when there is little space. When cattle overgraze the earth starts to erode due to lack of grass and nutrients to hold the soil together.

Kill The Pests, Kill The Soil

Who likes bugs in there fresh delicious fruits and vegetables? Certainly not me. You can thank pesticides for the fact that you don’t have a fair amount of protein from insects in your fresh fruits and vegetables. Pesticides have also improved the yield of crops by 30% over the years but does the benefit outweigh the costs? Sure, pesticides kill the bugs to give a better quality product, but it also has many side effects that is causing the soil predicament. Pesticides can seep into the water tables when irrigating crops which can mess with the alkalinity of the soil, or kill areas of foliage that aren’t the crop that it was intended for.

Big Bad Insect?

Along with that it can also kill the life forms that are helping to create the land that you farm. This can be from honey bees, to birds, to certain mammals, and yes, even insects too. Insects play the largest role in creating arable land, believe it or not. About 85% of arable soil is created by arthropods such as ants and termites, that by activities such as burrowing which increases soil aeration. They also help by breaking down particles into forms that are simpler to absorb thus increase soil fertility.

Kick Out the Overproduction Mindset

Thus, in conclusion we as humans need to break away from the mindset that more is always better. We need to move away from promoting ways to increase overproduction because that is what is creating this decrease in the land that is available to farm. We need to focus on alternative farming methods and methods that are laden with negative consequences for the future of our lives and the future of our children's’ lives.

Unfortunate Collateral was originally published in Future Farming on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

Future Perspectives was originally published in Future Farming on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.