The global population looks likely to hit 9.6 billion by 2050. To meet the hungry demands of so many, food production will have to increase by a 70 percent. To make matters worse, water scarcity is becoming a real problem. According to the World Resources Institute, one third of our current food production takes place where water is running out. Happy days, eh?
Right now, we’re open to any ideas—the crazier the better—and architect Javier F. Ponce of Forward Thinking Architecture (in collaboration with Jakub Dycha) might have come up with the maddest of the lot. A floating farm.
Smart Floating Farms (SFF) are “automated offshore multi-layer food and energy production platforms,” or to put it in simpler terms, these buoyant beauts could make it possible to deliver food to countries with food and water import and production issues, or even scarcity.
Far from being a gimmick for the future, Ponce was inspired by the past. He tells me that “floating farms as such have existed historically” giving the example of the Mayan agriculture of Chinampas. Some Chinampas still exist today.
So how does this floaty farmy thingy actually work?
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The three-story system is made up of a range of farming facilities. With its aquaculture (fish), hydroponics (crops), and photovoltaics (solar power) mash up, the SFF could produce food 365 days a year regardless of water scarcity, drought, and even natural disasters. Ponce’s design offers a continuous food supply and an estimated annual yield of 8152 tons of vegetables and 1703 tons of fish.
The GLP aggregated and excerpted this blog/article to reflect the diversity of news, opinion and analysis. Read full, original post: A Farm That Floats on Water Could Help Solve Global Food Shortage
