HYDROPONICS : A promising step towards food security
Indubitably, whole world accept the fact that agriculture is holding up the world by feeding and admitted as the cornerstone for ceaselessness of human race till date . Unfortunately, unplanned, expansive and immense population led to demolition of almighty gifted finite land .The statement “One in every four kids in US face hunger” clearly elucidates that food security is in jeopardy. Replacement of word “US” by “WORLD” is not very afar if the situation of “Much consumption by limited production” persists. Agriculture expertise concede that traditional method are being absolute and infact modification of them is being mandatory.
Frankly speaking, majority of us astound hearing that crops can be grown without soil .But it’s neither a science-fiction story nor any fantasy indeed a realism; existing since 1000 years ago .Infact “Soil less agriculture” is quite peculiar but innovative , effective, ingenious idea to mitigate the acute food shortage. More explicitly , hydroponics; subset of hydroculture ,is a key process of exposure of plant roots to nutrient rich water or the roots may be physically supported by an inner medium such as perlite ,gravel or any other substrate , allowing the roots to take up necessary elements for growth and production.At present, entire technique,to much extent usage plastic reservoir,though materials like glass,metal,woods are also used barely.Correspondingly, growing indoors is recommended to control air temperature,to disbar intensive sunlight in order to discard over heating of fluid and growth of algae ,fungi in nutrient solution.
Glancing the history, existence of prominent “Hanging Gardens Of Babylon”along Euphrates River when the climate was dry and arid at around 600 B.C.E. were regarded as the earliest record.In the year 1860 and 1861, pronounced outcome i.e. first standard formula for the nutrients dissolved in water for growing plants were obtained through a long research performed by two German botanist ‘Julius Van Sachs’ and ‘W.Knop’ which set the base for modern hydroponics technology.Also,concluded that plants don’t need soil to grow but need the nutrients that are derived from the micro-organisms living in the soil.
Countries like Japan, South Africa, Israel, China, Australia, UK etc have been actually using hydroponics in a lucrative manner.Aside this , Wake Island , a soil-less island in the Pacific ocean ,cultivated fresh vegetables for the entire troops of island by hydroponics and settled the issue excitingly well.In a similar manner, hydroponics produced millions of tons of vegetable during World War II.These accomplishment persuaded military to extend hydroponics .The US army built special hydroponics branch,which grew over 80,000,000 lbs of fresh vegetables during 1952.As most of the hydroponics farms are indoors,food can be produced all year round and even in the middle of large city .In Nepal, in 2069 B.S ,for the first time, NPRP-Khumaltar under NARC flourishingly produced pre-basic seed(PBS) potato. Hydroponics has proven to be a very effectual strategy for production of potato almost augmented by 290% compared to traditional methods. Crops like tomato, lettuce, spinach , strawberries, blueberries,vine crops ,peppers, chilly etc. can be grown simply. Recently,in New Jersey of USA ,the largest hydroponic farm is being built which are to bring 2 million pounds of fresh leafy lettuce per year.
One perceive commencing hydroponics as a exclusively benefitted technology as it offers bountiful advantages. First, soil free i.e.no agitation of possessing a plot of land or having marginal land. One can calmly grow in ones small apartment or spare bedroom. Likewise ,there is no any fret concerning the weed damage, besides no any chemical weed or pest control products are required. Furthermore, water use efficiency is also upsurged by 90%.For eg – to grow 1 kg of tomatoes ,using intensive farming method,requires 400 ltr of water but using hydroponics only 70 ltr is used. On the other hand ,same water can be used reused over and over.Also , predicted that average yield of tomatoe per acre is surpassed by 18 times than conventional method. Comparably, production is augmented by 3 to 10 times in same amount of space. Similarly, farmers can have absolutel control over the hydroponics system ,since the regulation of temperature, humidity,pH ,light intensity etc is on them and eventually make sure that plants are getting exact nutrients they need in recommended dose. Also, growth is faster and many crops can be produced twice in a well managed hydroponics system. Moreover, hydroponics is contemplated as ‘ Farming Of Future ‘ to grow food for astronaut in space by ‘ NASA ‘ .Not only this , realising the manifold benefits of hydroponics, the Food and Agriculture Organization of UN
has been setting up hydroponics farming in those areas that suffer from acute food shortage.
And onto the bad ,there are some downsides to hydroponics like initial investment is high, threats of system failure, sophisticated , experienced personnel are mandatory also constant monitoring is a must . Nevertheless , one can minimize the cons and maximize the pros with some planning and experiences. Viewing over the compatibility and obliged demand, leap towards a secured future can only be acquired by adoption of utterly worth, promising technology like hydroponics.
writer : Pooja Bhusal
Bsc AG , 4th semester College of natural resource and management, Puranchour ,kaski pokhara .
