From the article "All it requires is a little power, and fish food."

I think this means that he is cheating, fish food is made out of ground up fish and grain typically. If he could grow his own fish food it would mean something, and perhaps with fish byproduct use he really is producing more than he is consuming, but I'd need to see evidence of that first. Also there is a solid body of evidence that mariculture (growing fish in ocean pens) does impact wild populations, the statistics in the article lump mariculture and aquaculture together when it is convenient and split them when it is not.

That all said I think that GM crops should be allowed and that growing fish in inland pens and growing produce in aquaculture setups are both very good ideas.

There are several people in mid Michigan doing this as well as numerous others around the country. However, the operations are energy intensive, large amounts of electricity are required to operate the pumps that circulate the water.

The article was interesting and had good ideas maybe a little farfetched on the production numbers

But I was mostly surprised at how anti-green the paper was in all its articles completly anti organic,composting,recycling,ect..

Hi
Wouldn't it be fantastic to come back in say a hundred years to see what the world looks like?? The most interesting would be farms?? What they are growing and how?? Wouldn't even venture a guess, but I'd bet it's nothing like being done today. Most interesting would be China ,Marginal S. America and Tropical Africa.
How about farm labor?? Is it really possible to cut labor less than 1 percent and yet increase production by at least 50 percent.?? What product made this possible and last and most important "What's for dinner??"
Fish! Fish and more Fish lol gary

Fish farms are a very good idea until heavy rains come and some of the fry wash into nearby streams. This is one of the reason that there are problems near Chicago with certain types of carp. You can take every precaution but mother nature wins.

Meh, leave a ring of mesh around the top of the tanks, cost a bit more, but you need more than heavy rains to have em dump out any fish.

Also from the National Post...

The 100-mile myth

and

Rethinking Green: Fuel for debate

Lloyd

Hi
I use screened overflow pipes wich empty into bog or marsh gardens. Only major problem was a 31 inch rain. Found some of my fish 3 blocks away as well as swimming around the kitchen lol.
Check out the list for established Exotic species in florida some time?? We drained a pond and counted every fish. Found 80 species 3 native. Might mention that a couple of the "Exotic" species are considered as extinct or severely threatned in their habitat. so there is an "upside" to this??? gary

I'm guessing this article from The Globe and Mail will make the manual labor proponents shake with rage...

A farmer's ultimate ride

I got sweaty palms just reading about it!

Lloyd

Lloyd -- I read the "100 Mile Myth" His closing paragraph sticks in my craw.
The 100 Mile Myth writer said: ""What I really do see ... is that buying local is a political act. It's a gesture that, in essence, thumbs its nose at globalization," he says. If left-wing posturing and green-posing is your priority, then stick with your 100-mile diet. Leave it to average consumers, buying the globally sourced groceries at their local, corporate, big-box retailer, to do genuine good for the planet.""

Horse Twackle! Buying local is far more than petty, smug, politically polarized "green-posing". YIKES! Keeping food production close to home brings fresher [vitamins] food to our table. Here in CA, if/when "the big one" hits, delivery [even of canned/frozen] infrastructures may be tied up for months. It would be nice to have food production near at hand. In addition, local [even regional] producers contribute to our tax base, which affects everything from schools to sewers. PLUS since something less than 1% of food imports are inspected, as little trust that I have in our own slack inspections, I have even less in foreign-based inspections to weed out harmful substances/practices. None of these REAL concerns have anything to do with carbon footprint or "going green". BTW, though a tree-hugger, I am as right-wing as they come, so turning this into a political issue is.... well, it's smug, petty, polarizing, yellow rag-weed journalism. Bleh!

The National Post began as, and remains, a right-of-centre alternative to the centre ('liberal' in USA-speak) newspaper, the Globe and Mail. They're the two Canadian newspapers with national distribution.

Barb, that closing paragraph is a quote from one of his sources, a "James McWilliams, an environmental and agricultural historian at Texas State University". The writer is not the author of that quote.

And I believe the premise of the article is to make one think of the bigger picture of food production versus the one aspect of proximity. His article raises some very valid points that most people do not consider. If it doesn't make one think then I guess their minds were made up before and no amount of "on the other hand" will change it.

I actually did notice the author did not seem to place any importance on food safety as you mentioned. Nor did he mention the gathering of food "in season" for canning purposes. Lots of people buy local produce "in season" and preserve it for later use. It certainly is something he should have given some time to for sure.

As far as when the big one hits, I suspect that having a way to protect ones assets (food) will be more important than how close you are to the producer.

Lloyd

Well it was a short article, the gist of which was to denigrate the validity of reasons to be concerned about the direction that our food production is going. OK, so the author did not "say" those closing words, but he chose them to cap off and close out his article. Maybe I did over react -- but as a **"recovering" political activist and local gadfly -- have seen that kind of damning through fuzzy obfuscation too many times on issues that are of great importance. [** at 73 years, I'm focusing on my garden, and family and to h**** with anything else. [:) yeah, sure] BTW I found the article about raising fish interesting. My in-ground pool went belly up a few years ago and I'm toying with ideas of how to make productive use of the sunniest part of my city lot. A "fish pond" is one idea being considered. adios

This idea of aquaponics/tilapia aquaculture in the same facility has been around for some time. There are several great designs that work, and there are some people who do this successfully, but ..... Its a lot more difficult than it looks and what the article makes it appear.

Tilapia are some of the easiest fish to raise, they are widely tolerant of water conditions and rapid fluctuations in Oxygen, pH, and can take a fairly wild swing in temperature, and they'll eat, digest, and grow given a diet of just about anything. But they won't grow much unless the water is 27ºC, or 80ºF, which in the dead of winter in Alberta might require a bit of energy to keep a couple of large swimming pools at that temp.

Shrimp, by contrast, are astoundingly difficult to raise, particularly indoors in tanks, and require all kinds of precise water conditions and foods to survive and grow. To be sure, if you know what you're doing and can drive into some oil boom town on a Saturday night with a truck full of live shrimp, you'll make some good money.

The best system I ever saw was one that raised pigs, greens, and tilapia. They only fed the pigs. That was in the tropics where year around temperatures were warm and there was no need to heat or cool anything. Several years ago, I read about one system connected to a university in Thailand that was huge, with hundreds of pigs, hectares of ponds, and a high intensity vegetable cropping unit.

Of note, now well over half the fish consumed in the world are farmed fish. China is a traditional leader, has been for thousands of years. That trend will continue as ocean stocks are in such decline.

Fair enough Barb, and as David points out it ain't as easy as the story alludes. Nothing ever is.

The article got me pondering other meat source animals that could be a substitute for the beef that is so input intensive to raise.

The article talks about fish and sure fish is a great meat protein. What about rabbits? They are small, low input, small area animals. Chicken is another that can be raised on a small farm. Goats?

Something a small acreage farmer could sustain with low inputs and maintenance yet acceptable for mainstream populations as a consumable. Something that grows quickly, reproduces easy in larger numbers and could be raised closer to population areas without the NIMBY factor.

Lloyd

Hi
Anybody know what kind of fish Tilapia is and where native. I believe it's a hybrid between at least two species??
I remember reading an article about the use of them in
Africa in "intensive" farms limited to I believe 8x10 feet. And grand total the area had produced over 700 pounds of food in 1 year.
An interesting sidenote that "tomatoes" were used as a "cash" crop .They were unmaketable because none of the locals like the taste of the fruit. They did however LOVE the gigantic worms that they attracted . The value of the crop had quadrupled in 1 season!!!
Sure wish they come and visit my tomato patch they'd have a feast !!! and I would get all the tomatoes lol
gary

Tilapia are a tribe of cichlid from Africa, many of those farmed commercially are hybrids, because you can hybridize for things like higher meat to bone ratio. some filet out to well over 50% live weight.

The whole field of African cichlids is a fascinating and beautiful study of evolution, particularly in the great lakes - Malawi, Tanganyika, Victoria. Google 'african cichlids' for lots of sources.

Most of the tilapia now out and about around the world, including those most often farmed, derive from T. nilotica and T. mossambica. With isolated populations, inbreeding, and what not, they rapidly adapt to their environment. Eg there is a thriving population in Lake Enriquillo in Hispanola, which has a salinity that ranges from 33 - 100 ppt, several times higher than sea water, and big swings in temperatures. Not bad for a fresh water fish. These ones derived from T. mossambica.

T. nilotica is the species origin for most of the farmed tilapia. They're now doing all kinds of things with the species for farming - selective breeding, polyploidy, as the males grow faster than the females, for a while there they were reversing the sex of the females by feeding the tiny fry minute quantities of methyl-testosterone.

Garyfla, someone is pulling your leg - tomatoes are as normal a vegetable all over Africa as they are in the US, and nobody eats tomato horn worms.

Hi
I believe it was in N> Geographic and the location was either the Congo or Rwanda. The tribe was not the famous "pygmies" or whatever the accepted name is now .But were "hunter gatherers" The main purpose of the project was to keep them from eating Chimpanzees and Colobus monkeys. many many cultures particularly in Africa Australia consider "insects " delicacies" In fact it's only Europeans who consider them a negative.
Can't remember the type of worm but given the location probably some type of caterpiller.?? Wouldn't think they'd be bothered by horn worms?? gary

Feeding methyl-testosterone treated food is actually a pretty widely used method of sex-reversing tilapia in commercial hatcheries and fish farming operations. The FDA in the US is even allowing US fish farmers to use it on a "trial" basis, and most of the tilapia from China is treated with the stuff.