For the past few years I have dedicated myself to the study, development and promotion of a simple and cheap Hydroponic system that is cost effective on a very small -household- scale.
Since it is a basic, stripped down system, I’ve called it “Naked” hydroponics.
The reason I believe such a system is important is because current and recent events have convinced me that the world is on the brink of not just another major financial crisis, but also a major social upheaval, which will make household and local community self sufficiency -at least in water and basic food staples- a matter of utmost importance.
In a world where the vast majority live in or are moving to an urban environment, hydroponics is the only possible way these people can achieve any measure of food security.
In short, because I have kids, and I care about them. I want to survive, and I want them to survive. I’d like them to have kids of their own and I’d like those kids to have a life at least as good as mine, if not better.
Can’t see the problem?
Farming has always been a battle. Floods, drought, pests, diseases, the list is almost endless. Even in a year of good average rainfall, farmers can have a really bad time just because the rain fell at the wrong time.
But now, farmers face an even greater, and far more insidious threat.
Credit.
Because farming is so unpredictable, just about every traditional or terrestrial farmer accepts that most years won’t be good ones. Old farmers talked about “1 in 7”; one bumper year to pay for six bad years. For this reason, farmers really need some form of banking system. They need a reliable line of credit to carry them through the bad seasons. After all, isn’t storing food in silos a very basic form of banking? ‘Saving for a rainy day’…
Today, without credit, they stop farming.
And we stop eating.
The world’s debt based monetary system of allowing banks to control the money supply is looking increasingly fragile. Not just the bank bailouts and shonky deals on the stock market -although how anyone could believe that it’s possible to borrow one’s way out of a massive debt crisis is mystifying- but also physically fragile; as the internet becomes more pervasive and the world’s finance is nothing more than numbers in a computer, we’re faced with threats from hackers, computer viruses, solar flares, an electromagnetic pulse with or without a nuclear detonation, and probably threats we haven’t even dreamed of; any of which could stop people from just eating.
Currently in ‘advanced’ countries, the all important task of supplying food for the whole population is left in the hands of less than 5% of the total population, and the percentage is still falling. On top of that -or maybe in part because of it- the food we eat has to travel enormous distances, incurring further costs and requiring ever more expensive -and vulnerable- infrastructure.
Can you imagine anything more ridiculous than a farmer with good land, reliable rainfall, all the stock and equipment he needs, not being able to farm because he can’t pay his fuel bill? Or his fuel supplier can’t pay his bill?
Or because some banker half a world away went nuts and jumped out of a window, after deleting every file on the banks’ computers?
It could happen.
Such a crash would not only affect farmers of course. A financial collapse would affect water and electricity utilities, transport networks, Police, firemen, doctors, nurses, teachers… In the push to create a Global Economy, we have ignored one of the fundamental rules any study of nature should have taught us: “Never put all your eggs in one basket”. Most sensible, educated people have come to accept the need for biological diversity. Is it really such a jump to accept that the need for economic diversity is just as vital to the human condition?
Not to me.
And we haven’t even touched on the other looming crises, like Peak Oil, Peak Phosphorus, Global Warming, Rising Sea Levels, rapid depletion of ancient artesian water basins…
Of course, there’s much more to it than just nutty survivalism, or caring about the environment, or cutting down on the enormous amounts of packaging that just ends up in landfill, or saving fuel and transport costs, or having chemical and pesticide free food to eat, or saving money…
Growing our own food is also interesting and fun.
And growing food hydroponically will always be the only viable option for urban or suburban dwellers.
Learn how to create your own food security, using “the simplest, easiest, most convenient and cheapest hydroponic system”, by clicking here
