13/10/2023
Hydroponics: The power of water to grow food 🌱!!
The United Nations (UN) has projected the global population to reach nearly 10 billion people by 2050, with “roughly 83 million people being added to the world’s population each year until then.” In 2019 alone, an estimated 124 million people faced acute food shortages from climate-related events such as flooding, irregular rains, droughts, and high temperatures. Given that hydroponics can grow food in a controlled environment, with less water and in higher yields, the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations has been implementing hydroponic farming in areas of the world that suffer from food shortages. There are currently ongoing projects to establish large hydroponic farms in Latin American and African countries.
The technology used in hydroponic systems being implemented in developing countries around the world are largely based off hydroponic systems that were designed at NASA. In the late 20th century, physicists and biologists got together to figure out a way to grow food in one of the starkest climate known to humans: space. Aerospace plant physiologists at NASA began experimenting with growing plants on the International Space Station using hydroponics technology because it requires less space and less resources than conventional farming. After extensive tests, astronauts ate the first space-grown leafy vegetables in 2015. How did NASA get the idea to use this technology in space? It was from a century of work by scientists who found that plants were surviving–and thriving–while being grown in water.
Source:
https://sitn.hms.harvard.edu/flash/2019/hydroponics-the-power-of-water-to-grow-food/
