[Back to Physical Challenges]

Introduction

This is clearly a massive topic.  If we do not produce enough food, the result is always a disaster - and the challenge is not simply food production: the food needs to be transported to where it is needed, stored appropriately, bought, and then actually used.  At each step, there are challenges and currently a great deal of waste.

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 obvious example, you can raise sheep on hill farms which occupy land which cannot be used to grow crops.  And there is a great deal of scope for using animal waste to fertilize crops in a local and sustainable process which does not rely on advanced engineering and modern technology.

We need to expand the number of things we eat.  There have been significant developments in exploring insect larvae and bacteria.  For example, see the Noema article, 'Making Food Out Of Thin Air’: "On the outskirts of Helsinki, a pioneering factory is harvesting natural, scalable proteins all from fermented bacteria. Could this be the future of food?"

See also A Food Revolution in Ten Ideas, covering several brilliant and proven ideas for improving the whole food ecosystem.

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.