Sulaiman Tejan Jalloh’s “Seawater Agriculture”
By Sulaiman Tejan Jalloh, posted on March 30th, 2009 in Agriculture, Articles, Ecosystems, Essay Contest 2009, Water
Institute of Advanced Management and Technology
Institute of Advanced Management and Technology
Freetown, Sierra Leone, West Africa
Introduction
Most of the dissolved chemical constituents or salts found in seawater have a continental origin. It seems that these chemicals were released from continental rocks through weathering and then carried to the oceans by stream runoff. Over time, the concentration of these chemicals increased until equilibrium was met. This equilibrium occurred when the ocean’s water could not dissolve any more material in solution. Similarities between fossilized sea life and organisms living today indicate that the composition of seawater stopped changing drastically about 600 million years ago.
Seawater Agriculture
It is, however, evidence that as the population of the Earth increases, the production of food becomes more and more of a problem in order to feed this growing number of people. One of the specific problems facing agriculturalists is the need for water. Fresh water is needed not only for irrigation but also for other human activities, and there is no process that is effective enough at desalinization to provide the volume of water human beings need. It is very important to also note that the top five plants eaten by people cannot tolerate salt, and these are wheat, corn, rice, potatoes, and soybeans. Since finding enough land and water to produce the foods needed by the world is an urgent problem, my concern now is how the supply of food can be augmented. My suggestion of one way is to find edible plants which can tolerate saltwater.
My essay is submitted with an intention to address the feasibility of seawater agriculture, which I conclude works well in the sandy soils of the desert environment. Seawater agriculture is defined as growing salt-tolerant crops on land with water pumped from the ocean for irrigation. Desert land is plentiful, and so is seawater. However, only a small portion of available desert is close enough to the sea to make such irrigation worthwhile. My estimates stand that 15 percent of undeveloped land in the world comprises coastal and inland salt deserts.
This is proven on the western coast of Mexico. The team irrigated the plants daily by flooding the fields with high-saline seawater from the Gulf of California. The rainfall in the region averages only 90 millimeters a year. The team flooded the plots with an annual depth of 20 meters or more of seawater. The team was certain that the plants were growing almost solely on seawater. The yields varied among the species, and the most productive halophytes produced between one and two kilograms per square meter of dry biomass. This is roughly the yield of alfalfa grown using freshwater irrigation. However, to show that these halophytes were cost-effective, it was necessary to show that they could replace conventional crops for a specific use. The team thus tested whether halophytes could be used to feed livestock, and this was important in itself because finding enough forage for cattle, sheep, and goats is one of the most challenging problems facing the world today. Many halophytes would serve in that they have high levels of protein and digestible carbohydrates, but unfortunately, these plants also contain large amounts of salt. One of the ways these plants adjust to a saline environment is to accumulate salt. Salt has no calories.
15 Prior Responses to “Sulaiman Tejan Jalloh’s “Seawater Agriculture””
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This is population vasus food production. Anyway let us explore the seawater method as advanced by Sulaiman
Thank you ABC, it indeed a very expensive method and we need the support of the international community, NGOs private sectors etc. to justify our cause
Excellent I like such a wonderful and educative presentation/essay
keep on the good work
Sulaiman I have no doubt that you always strive for justice to be done to our environment I read about your presention to the Volvo Environmental Award programme in 2004 with a lot of ideas to addressing issues relating to the environment and now you are at earthzine. I have no doubt that online environmental groups will sooner or later request your service relating to environmentally related issues.
Dont relent keep it up
This is an interesting topic nice one
Bravo STJ
This type of agriculture can hadly be practice in Sierra Leone,
but with appropriate technology we can.
Good idea from you Sulaiman keep it up
Wonderful when my brother always write, he will continue to write and write for the world I have no doubt that he can always do good things and I know him for his strong position towards isues.
I am proud of you brother.
Tejan,
I must say well done again. I think it is a good attempt and an interesting suggestion.
I shall start off by perhaps contradicting your statement that ‘…production of food becomes more and more of a problem….’ The truth is that about 20% of the world’s population consumes 80% of the world’s resources. This technically means that more than enough food is produced in the world. The issue here is unequal distribution of the resources.
Back to your essay, you mentioned that the system worked well in Mexico. It is good to know that you have a follow-up case study. However, you may want to bring us closer home, to Africa and probably show us examples of where such methods could apply on Africa’s extensive coastal lands. This would perhaps make your suggestion more feasible.
Also, think about large scale seawater agriculture. If the method so happens to work, is it possible that the output would be able to feed the over 5million people in Africa affected by malnutrition due to climate change?
Thank you.
Benjamin my landed friend,
thanks for you interest in my essays, I really appreciate you and I think we can work collaboratively in other programs I suggest.
Now to topic,Note that the higher the population the same size of land we still have. if for any reason land that were utilized by few people is now shared amongst many, then production becomes a problem considering the need and quest for food. This can be assertined by the growing concern for the Un call to fight hunger.
Our seawater levels is gradually rising and for this reason land instead of remaining the same size is now becoming smaller in size.
Seawater agriculture Benjanim can be best practice along the coast of Sierra Leone and believe to be the same ealsewhere in Africa.
If and only if we make a tryout venture, I am very confident that it will work well for us.
Thanks Benjamin and send me an email to my inbox at stjalloh@yahoo.com so we shall start good things together and sahre our potientials.
Dear Tejan,
Very interesting reading your essay! Thanks to you for bringing to us these complex realities in a simplistic way.
To add upon your already true information, I may say that desertification and the associated loss of vegetation, causes biodiversity loss and contributes to climate change through reducing carbon sequestration. As you have genuinely said it, Lester Brown too points out in State of the World 1990 that ‘the environmental degradation of the planet is starting to show up at harvest time. The cumulative effects of losing 24 billion tons of topsoil each year are being felt in some of the world’s major food-producing regions.’
However, as Benjamin mentioned it, allow me to remind you that it must be noted that in several cases, such as Mexico and India, Green Revolution agriculture did exactly what it promised to do, namely, to increase agricultural yields. Unfortunately, however, more food in the world does not necessarily mean less hunger.
Are you also aware that agriculture uses so much water in part because it uses water wastefully? In fact, more than half of the water applied to crops is never taken up (Van Tuijl, 1993). Instead, this water either evaporates or drains out of fields. The point is that some wastage of water is just inevitable, but a great deal of waste could be eliminated if agricultural practices were oriented toward conservation of water rather than maximization of production. Agriculture accounts for more than two thirds of global water use (Gliessman, 2007).
In the end your critical viewpoint is somehow lacking; you said that one of the ways these plants- halopythes- adjust to a saline environment is to accumulate salt. Salt has no calories.What is your way forward?
Otherwise, I thank you so very much for such a significant attempt.
David
Thank you David,
from all indications, your points, concerns and comments are well noted. Mexico and India are just two out of the lots.
Absolutely more food in the world does necessarily mean less hunger and that food can can be marged with the daily diet and staple food of the terget population; if that is the case, it is crister clear that more food in the world can mean less hunger.
With your help in hilighting the truth here, if seawater agriculture is widely practiced, then water wastages will be minimized.
Thanks.
Dear Tejan,
Of course in som instances that are well revised more food would lead to less hunger. My point here was to bring the issue of fair distribution of the available food on the table.
I still beleive together with many others (such as Gliessman)that a sustainable food system should develop or evolve from the balanced ecosystem. My sole concern is to mind the fact that there are some organisms contributing to the balance of the ecosystem and that need not to be forsaken in the practice of seawater agriculture.
Cheers,
Dave
Hi David,
absolutely so, there are some organisms indeed contributing to the balance of ecosystem, this I am aware and agree to it. All together they should not be forsaken however in the practice of seawater agriculture as they are very key player and stakeholders as well
Thaks Dave.
Dear Tejan,
If that is the case we both agree upon, then may I get from you some of your ways forward to the ecological protection of seawater besides the practice of agriculture that might/will be going on?
Here, I believe that a more pragmatical and feasible attempt is highly needed rather that a simplified idealization and/or theorization. Otherwise we would got to leave the whole approach and think along other lines else where.
Cheers,
Dave
Thanks Dave,
legislation does not regard the coastal zone as an integral, natural “land-sea” complex. A peculiarity of the current legislation is that the use of natural resources is regulated by specialized legislation resource by resource. State control of conservation, protection, registration and use of resources lies in the hands of various government and other bodies; this means that it is impossible to conceive of, never mind implement, integrated management and planning for seawater. If economic activity in the coastal zone is to be regulated, a system of zoning needs to be developed that takes account of the environment and existing ecosystems when designing industrial, recreational, commercial and reserved zones
Hence ecological protection of seawaters.
cheer
Sulaiman