Growing food in the desert… a solution to the world’s food crisis?

Agriculture uses 60-80% of the planet’s scarce fresh water, but what would happen if food production used no water at all? That is what is happening right now in South Australia, and soon in Qatar.

A group of international scientists is using the sun to create something-from-nothing — fresh water for irrigation, from condensation; electricity for heating and cooling greenhouses, from a solar thermal system — all integrated to grow high-quality, delicious, pesticide-free vegetables in greenhouses year-round.

So far, the company, Sundrop Farms, has grown commercial quantities of tomatoes, peppers and cucumbers, using the same proven technology and close to zero fossil fuels. Salty seawater is abundant like the sun, especially with our ice caps melting away, so the venture is ready to scale up in a big way. A a 20-acre greenhouse is being built that will grow produce for supermarkets now clamoring for an exclusive contract, reports the Guardian.

“They are making food without risk, eliminating the problems caused not just by floods, frost, hail but by lack of water, too, which now becomes a non-issue,” says the head of Australia’s government-funded desalination research institute, Neil Palmer. “Plus, it stacks up economically and it’s infinitely scalable.”

Typical horticulture is highly water and energy intensive. These inputs are finite, getting more scarce and rising in price. In some regions energy and water costs represent up to 70% of total farm expenses.

In light of these supply constraints facing our horticultural system today and the need to grow more crops closer to where people live, Sundrop Farms has developed technologies that rely mainly on renewable inputs, namely seawater and sunlight to produce the same quantity and higher quality food.

The Sundrop Farms System™ harnesses the sun’s energy to desalinate seawater to produce freshwater for irrigation, produce electricity to power our greenhouse and provide the energy to heat and cool our greenhouse. Our seawater drenched greenhouse ventilation cleans and sterilises the air, making it possible to grow crops without chemical pesticides. The Sundrop Farms System™ system relies mainly on renewable inputs to achieve the best possible outcomes for our planet and the best possible produce for our customers. To learn more about our greenhouse solutions for arid climates, please contact us.

Therefore, instead of extracting groundwater at unsustainable rates, we produce fresh water from seawater. We don’t consume fossil fuels to control the climate in our greenhouse, but substitute them with the sun’s energy to do that for us. The salt and nutrients won in our desalination process are re-used to either fertilize crops or the salt is sold on to other agricultural producers. Moreover, we can locate Sundrop Farms on degraded land and in arid climates, which typically would not be considered suitable for agriculture, let alone horticulture, thereby conserving valuable farmlands and soil.

The Sundrop Farms technologies and farming practices are positive for the planet, our customers, and our communities and also our business.

http://www.sundropfarms.com/

http://www.seawatergreenhouse.com/

From GoodNewsNetwork.com and the Guardian