With a rising global population, the struggle to provide food that can sustain the people is getting harder and harder. The need to provide affordable food supply is critical for the survival of the world as farming gets harder and harder. Companies and industries are coming up with new ways to come up with food solutions that can, match the global demand like genetically modified foods, intercropping among many more but the demand for agricultural produce is still high. This has caused the creation of an agricultural technique called hydroponics.
Hydroponics is an Agricultural technique where crops are grown in nutrient enriched water as a media devoid of soil. Since soil is not included for the growth, sand or gravel is sometimes used to create an area where the roots can attach themselves for the crop to stand erect. With time the technique has been improved yielding impressive results, the major one being faster growth and production of the crop in question. This is often attributed to the fact that since water is a nutrient rich media solvent is often used, plants do not use up as much energy to absorb nutrients as they would if they were growing in a soil medium. This reduced energy requirements leaves the plant with energy that can be used in flower and as a result fruit production ("What is Hydroponics", n.d.) . This makes this technique the most favorable for global food production.
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As the we face the struggle to provide solutions to questions revolving around sustainable living, the production of food through hydroponics appears as the most favorable and cost effective choice. The rapid growth of crops under hydroponics ensures that food production will be sustained as well as rapid to match its demand. Another reason that makes this the best alternative is because as the global population rises, so does the availability of farm land. Techniques such as hydroponics make use of little land to maximize production. This makes it a suitable choice for sustainable living. Furthermore, through the use of hydroponics as a framing technique, as a result of global warming, water levels are projected to rise and this poses a problem for arable land. With hydroponics however, even swamp land can be utilized to produce quality farm produce.
Moreover, hydroponics uses enriched solvents as a media for nutrient provision for plants. Methods like the wick system used in hydroponics utilize readily available materials that are recycled. From the use of bottles or other forms of containers, to towels or cloth that are used as wicks to facilitate the capillarity, the theme of conservation which is reuse and recycle can be applied ("Hydroponic Wick Systems", 2018) . This is one way of ensuring sustainability not just in food production but in pollution control as well.
From the days of the Aztecs to the Chinese, historians have recorded floating farms that show that this technology is not new. As time went by it has been improved and introduced as urban farming with its use rising exponentially in recent years. In the year 2013 alone, a UK company called Thanet Earth produced millions of crops, ranging from tomatoes, to peppers, to cucumbers. 8% of Britain’s population was fed on these crops ("Big Picture", 2018) . This has made hydroponics a valuable franchise in the country.
As technology advances and population grows the need to provide food is also growing. In order to achieve this goal companies are experimenting on new techniques to do so. One of the most favorable one is hydroponics and it promises to provide food for the global population long into the future.
References
Big Picture. (2018). Retrieved from https://bigpictureeducation.com/hydroponics-and-future-farming\
Hydroponic Wick Systems. (2018). Retrieved from https://www.powerhousehydroponics.com/hydroponic-wick-systems-for-beginners/
What is Hydroponics. Retrieved from https://www.maximumyield.com/definition/70/hydroponics
