Farming

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Introduction

This is clearly a massive topic.

Because there are no clear boundaries, this topic will cover not only farming, but all food production and use of the land to deliberately grow things or raise animals.

Growing Things for Food

There is a significant move away from raising animals to eat and towards growing plants to eat, but the issue is not a simple 'plants: good; animals: bad' one.  To give one obvioous example, you can raise sheep on hill farms which occupy land which cannot be used to grow crops.

Growing Things for Materials

There is a great deal of experimentation with new materials, such as using mushrooms to replace plastic or leather.  MycoAudio use mushrooms to build loudspeakers.

Plantd aim to use grass instead of wood to produce carbon-negative construction material, which is energy-efficient and uses 1/9 the amount of land.

Cutting Waste

For as long as we have records of people fishing, pretty much every part of the fish has been used, and most indigenous tribes still embrace this approach.  But modern industrial fishing can use as little as 20% of the fish it catches.  Civil Eats has an article about the 100% Fish project, which develops products from previously discarded parts of Atlantic cod.

 

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