Building by Design: Hydroponics in Developing Countries, Part 1
This article has been adapted from the upcoming book Home Hydroponic Gardens by Peggy Bradley and Cesar Hernan Marulanda Tabares. This installment is the first in a three-part series that will appear in The Growing Edge.
Throughout the twentieth century, hunger and malnutrition plagued large portions of the ever-increasing human population. Concurrently, commercial, soil-based agriculture continued to expand its hold of the land on Earth. By the end of 1999, over half of the food produced was from lands irrigated by nearby waterways.
But somehow, this agricultural expansion didn’t translate into enough food for everyone. The world’s population grew from around 1.5 billion at the beginning of the century to over 6 billion by the end. About 1.2 billion of those people lived in a constant state of hunger and malnutrition. Every day 35,000 children starved to death.
Ironically, throughout this misery, there was--and is--enough sunlight reaching the land to feed the people on the earth many times over. However, people growing plants in soil--the only way much of the population knew how to produce crops--were dependent upon climate and the vast amount of water that is necessary to provide “suitable” growing conditions. Over and over again, drought conditions and lack of access to sufficient resources caused starvation and death of people on the margins of modern society.
