Just as Japan and other regions have built floating airports to deal with the shortage of land, this idea proposes creating massively large floating farms for food production - essentially floating greenhouses.These floating farms would be able to sustain production of food or industrial crops. These floating farms could be entirely self-contained, generating their own energy, food, and water. These farms could harness solar, wind, or tidal energy to power the machinery and other systems necessary to operate the farm.Since they float, they could be moved so as to be within range of nearby populations or transportation hubs. Also, they could be positioned or re-positioned to maximize sun and seasonal exposure, perhaps located in the tropical regions. They could be moved to avoid the path of hurricanes.Being on the ocean, there would be an unlimited suppy of water for crop irrigation. Desalinization facilities located on the floating farm itself could process the salty sea water into irrigation water. Harvests would be transported by ship. Housing facilities for workers would be located on-site, though many aspects could be automated thus reducing the need for human labor. The economics could work, depending on the crop.
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At the moment there are only limited types of plants that live in salt water and are used for human consumption. If genetic engineering could create a larger number of salt water crops it would make this idea more viable and eliminate the complication of a necessary desalination processes for fresh water plants.
Why not put the people/industry on floating or manmade lands, and use precious real land for agriculture.
Inhabited areas require very diverse and complicated connections for energy and communication - much more than agricultural areas.
I read years ago of golf-course grass being engineered to accept salt-water. To modify corn, beans, wheat etc in the same way is possible, or using rain water. Ideally you could build modules that can be linked together, which would be able to exist with little maintenance. These would be carbon friendly, too. You could add free-range chickens & so on. Avoiding pests would be a lot easier, so you would not need nearly as much pesticide. Great idea.
Great idea, and very useful for climate change and global warming problems in the future, perhaps. Did you everhear of floating cities, a concept that some Dutch designers have come up with?
Also, see: polar cities at http://pcillu101.blogspot.com
Danny Bloom
I love your idea. Are there any illustrations of floating farms I can view online?
Maybe if the farm was heavy enough then that could provide some of the pressure needed to desalinate the water, and then to keep the farm from sinking a generator with some power source would be needed to pump it back out to the ocean.