The Future of Farming

Rebecca Hoskings "Farm for the Future"

I was browsing the videos posted at Tricycle Gardens media library and came across this 48 minute documentary by Rebeca Hosking, a wildlife photographer who grew up on a farm in Devon, England.

Its a visually lovely and compelling look at the predicted peaking of the fossil fuel boom, and the effect of declining availability of fossil fuel on current methods of farming. The idea is that we will transition from fuel surplus to fuel shortage sometime in the next 2-10 years, with the fossil fuel age slowly declining over the next 100 years, about the period of time over which weve enjoyed the burgeoning of the fossil fuel age up to now.

I enjoyed the early bit where Rebecca looks at a sandwich, the kind you buy for a couple of bucks at a convenience store. She explains how fossil fuel is necessary to production and shipping of each bit of that sandwich, and doesnt even point out the fundamental petroleum origin of the plastic packaging.

This brings me back to the reason why I want to figure out a system that almost anyone could set up - to make it possible for millions of folks (specifically Americans) to create millenial "victory gardens" from readily-available materials.

As for supplying the needs for fuel for vehicles, I enjoyed this video on production of algae, which in open pond culture can produce an astounding 20,000 gallons of oil per acre per year (compared to a mere 18 gallons per acre per year for corn). The vertical grow system seems like it could be much more productive than open pond culture:


Culture of algae to be refined into carbon based fuels

I look forward to seeing how all this evolves over the next decade. I predict many will be taken unawares - living at the edge of their finances and relying on modern conveniences to meet the requirements of their lives.

But I doubt there will be world-wide apocalypse as sometimes projected. Personal discomfort, but not collapse of civilization.

Read More..

Aquaponics Yabby farming

Id really like to be able to grow yabbies for the plate, but they are a little too cannibalistic and need a lot of space.

After a lot of running stuff through the invention engine, I came up with an invention to save people who have fallen through ice.

But thats another story.

The stuff that came out on crustacean farming was a lot more interesting because I dont have the falling through ice thing to worry about where I live, and like eating yabbies.

I think Ill patent the ice thing after a little development.

In the mean time I think theres a way to grow a lot more yabbies in a lot less space.

In the past I mentioned a few ways this might be achievable based on some observations, and one was that if food came to the yabby, it would sit in its hole all day and wait.

A yabby waiting in its hole all day hardly ever eats another yabby also waiting in its hole. The result is yabby utopia.

They would be free to move around if they felt like it, but wouldnt do quite so much of it.

Much more like cows in a rich pasture full of 20cm high green grass rather than a hen in a 30cm cube cage.

Or at least thats what I think.

So heres what you do...

You create a shallow tank that holds PVC tubes slightly longer than the crustacean and wide enough so that they feel safe and perhaps set at 45 degrees or vertical, or whatever it turns out yabbies like.

Not too wide. 12mm black poly pipe for new borns, 18mm black poly for when they are around 2cm-6cm, then thin PVC until maturity would be a guess. Actually thicker poly irrigation would probably cost less.

You set them in a gravel/scoria/clay ball media making sure there is a few feet thick of the stuff under the PVC tubes.

The more tubes you want to set per square area, the more depth of media you need. 500L of media can support around 12kg of life. (depending on how much you feed it)

Put something under the media or run a stack of PVC pipes with slots cut in them so you can collect water from all over the bottom.

Add a pump to collect water from the bottom. An air lift would be better because its a zero head lift and they run at a tiny percentage of the cost of a water pump.

Next you add enough water so that your tubes are covered by only about 4cm of water, plus half the length of your crustaceans at the stage of life they happen to be. Adjust as required, but this can be pretty vague.

You fill the tank with duckweed and pump so it draws water from the bottom of the media and expels it above the media pointed in such a direction as to set up a gentle movement all through the tank.

A round tank would probably be best, but square would work.

Add yabbies.

The yabbies sit in their holes.

The duckweeds 3-4cm roots float past.

The yabby grabs one, pulls it down and eats it.

The yabby grows. And excretes stuff that is either ammonia, or becomes ammonia.

I eat the yabby.

Duckweed can eat ammonia directly which is probably why it can choke rivers and lakes so brilliantly.

Duckweed has crazy mad Fu.

Most plants require bacteria to turn the ammonia into nitrites, then another bacteria to turn the nitrites into nitrates which the plants then consume.

When a plant can eat ammonia, it will always get first crack at the available nutrient. It also floats so it causes a blanket of shade at all the plants that live underwater. So duckweed gets the double advantage of all the sunlight, and all the nutrient.

The tank would definitely need a glass lid because yabbies love to escape, and a glasshouse would make both the yabbies and the duckweed grow well.

You would need to supplement the nutrient by adding duckweed from another source if you had a lot of yabbies, or adding some peas or brussels sprouts or something. Yabbies eat everything.

Well...

Thats it.

Im pretty sure it will work.

Read More..