Abundance: The Future is Better Than You Think

by Peter H. Diamandis

On a smaller scale, Asian rice farmers use fish to fight rice pests such as the golden snail, both boosting rice yields and protein consumption (as they also get to harvest the fish). In Africa, farmers are installing fish ponds in home gardens, as the mud from the bottom of the pond makes a great mineral-rich fertilizer. On a larger scale, the most exciting innovation may belong to Will Allen, the MacArthur Genius Award–winning force behind Growing Power, a Milwaukee-based organization building one of the United States’s first vertical farms. Allen, a pioneer in urban aquaculture, aims to devote the first floor of his vertical farm to the process. Some 110,000 gallons of water will produce 100,000 tilapia, lake perch, and, possibly, bluegill a year. The fish feces will be recycled to fertilize plants on higher levels of the greenhouse. But this is just a starting point. If we’re really serious about protecting our oceans and preserving seafood as a source of protein, integrated aqua-culture needs to be a significant part of our entire food chain. “If we value the ocean and the ocean’s health at all,” continues Earle, “we have to understand that fish are critical to maintaining the integrity of ocean systems, which in turn make the planet work. We have been so single-minded about fish, thinking that the only good fish is a cooked fish, rather than recognizing their importance to the ecosystem that also has a great value to us.”