As I was discussing in the comment section of another post, I had just watched the new documentary called something like, The Future of Food. It was very good and presented minimal bias while providing a bunch of information I didn't know about... Again, I'd like to credit Netflix for this. I feel like I won the lottery and I get to watch every documentary ever day-in and day-out. I'm sure you may have been frustrated in the past by how elusive they are at video stores.
Anyhow, in the end of the series (3-part documentary), they discussed aquaponics. Here is the definition: The integration of hydroponics (growing plants without soil) and aquaculture (the cultivation of the natural produce of water such as fish or shellfish). So in the documentary they were discussing adding livestock to the mix.
So this is how I took the whole thing. We should set up perfect micro-ecosystems where we grow our food. Micro? Can't we look at the whole planet as one giant aquaponic+animals ecosystem? Like, I was holding my hand on my forehead thru-out the whole thing. I get this would help certain people grow food with better results, but I feel like the entire documentary just missed the larger point. The way they presented the argument is that when you introduce fish to plants they provide nitrates, white yields better crops, which could support healthier animals..... No shit. The next thing you are going to tell me is that you are going to seal it all up and the plants will clean the air and convert the animal expiration back into clean oxygen and there will be no pollution. By all means we should do this where we grow out food, period. What a novel idea. If there were anyway we could use this study to help the planet at large.
One great thing about this documentary that I had never seen before is how we are exporting water with our produce. How much water was taken from the environment that grew your corn, apple, or whatever else. If you look at produce as packaged water it makes sense that our farms are drying up all over the world, especially in the Punjab. Their water table is dropping like a meter a year for over decades. I like the argument they brought up that said we should only eat food grown in our community. They even featured a town in Britain somewhere that is growing vegetables and fruit on city grounds, like downtown, roadside, at schools, in parks and they are aiming at becoming self sufficient in less than 10 years. It was quite inspiring.
Link to the official website. Edit: I just watched the trailer at the website and found out this is a different documentary than the one I watched. This one looks to be about GMO's and legal questions. The one I watched was about environmental science not genetics.
