igbobuigbo:

I gave you the USA example because in Nigeria there are hardly any data on what caused most illnesses or deaths, in this case of farmers. Water borne diseases would affect Nigerians in different ways (1) directly and (2) via domestic or even wild animals in contact with the water in rural farming areas. You do not have any data to prove me wrong, only conjectures. Farmers in Ebonyi, Benue and other states in the middle belt who still grow paddy rice are prone to microbial and worm infections from the paddies. Some villagers in the North share drinking water with domestic animals. Ordinarily, such water could be clean enough for human consumption (naija level), but owing to defecation by already infected cattle into the water you could get zoonotic infections passed on to human.

By the way, E. coli (not Ecoli) is not a disease. It is a bacterium of different strains such as EHEC , EPEC and ETEC causing haemorrhagic colitis, food poisoning and diarrhoea. And Guinea worm is not the only infectious worm. Do not let me be teaching you stuff for free

Again I ask, what are dams for? I have asked you this question but you keep skirting around it? Do you still disagree that the main thrust of the Minister and his award was water for agriculture via Lake Chad, Niger River Basin and Dam construction?

I know E coli is not a disease, but anytime there is an ecoli outbreak public health experts usually refer to it as an "e coli outbreak," so I do not what know what your issue is. And I never said Guinea Worm is the only infectious worm. Dams are for storing water, and, the Minister said, "the recognition was a testimony to the government's commitment to providing safe and clean drinking water to Nigerians."
What do you have to say about that statement?. And I disagree with you that the main reason why Nigeria won the award was that the water used for agriculture via Lake Chad; it is just part of the reason. I also have data to prove you wrong, and I am not relying on conjectures. Please read the article in the below link. It specifically stated that the diseases are primarily spread from direct contact.
You don't know what you are talking about

http://www.groundreport.com/Health_and_Science/Nigeria-The-lack-of-drinking-water-and-dangers-of-_3/2920544

Please speak about what you know.

Princek12:

I know E coli is not a disease, but anytime there is an ecoli outbreak public health experts usually refer to it as an "e coli outbreak," so I do not what know what your issue is. And I never said Guinea Worm is the only infectious worm. Dams are for storing water, and, the Minister said, "the recognition was a testimony to the government's commitment to providing safe and clean drinking water to Nigerians."
What do you have to say about that statement?. And I disagree with you that the main reason why Nigeria won the award was that the water used for agriculture via Lake Chad; it is just part of the reason.  I also have data to prove you wrong, and I am not relying on conjectures. Please read the article in the below link. It specifically stated that the diseases are primarily spread from direct contact.
You don't know what you are talking about

http://www.groundreport.com/Health_and_Science/Nigeria-The-lack-of-drinking-water-and-dangers-of-_3/2920544

Please speak about what you know.

The article you gloat about discusses one single aspect-direct infection from drinking water (something I have harped on already). It has nothing to say about other routes of bacterial/worm infection in water-based systems. Do you even know that you can contact bacterial infections via eating fresh vegetables? Is that also directly from drinking water? The fact that you refer to E. coli as a disease and support your ignorance by such an idiotic statement as ''anytime there is an ecoli outbreak public health experts usually refer to it as an "e coli outbreak," shows you are an illiterate in this matter. You are too simplistic and I hate simplistic arguments. You could not even read my own links to educate yourself. You need a lesson in non-mainstream thinking.

igbobuigbo:



The article you gloat about discusses one single aspect-direct infection from drinking water (something I have harped on already). It has nothing to say about other routes of bacterial/worm infection in water-based systems. Do you even know that you can contact bacterial infections via eating fresh vegetables? Is that also directly from drinking water? The fact that you refer to E. coli as a disease and support your ignorance by such an idiotic statement as ''anytime there is an ecoli outbreak public health experts usually refer to it as an "e coli outbreak," shows you are an illiterate in this matter. You are too simplistic and I hate simplistic arguments. You could not even read my own links to educate yourself. You need a lesson in non-mainstream thinking.

you are a fool. I never said that you cannot contract bacterial infection from other sources. I said the primary source of contamination is directly from water; it only follows that the other sources are secondary, and the minority. You are a big fool who cannot comprehend that simple logic; you only focus on the other sources of contamination while ignoring what percentage of people get sick from the other sources. You are brain dead; people like you will fail a simple exam because they ignore the simple stuff. .

This has been a very funny conversion. Roflmao!!

Princek12:

you are a fool. I never said that you cannot contract bacterial infection from other sources. I said the primary source of contamination is directly from water; it only follows that the other sources are secondary, and the minority. You are a big fool who cannot comprehend that  simple logic; you only focus on the other sources of contamination while ignoring what percentage of people get sick from the other sources. You are brain dead; people like you will fail a simple exam because they ignore the simple stuff. .

You need a lot to learn outside the box. I see you are too straight-jacketed in your thinking. FYI, I do not take exams. I teach and rate examinees, not in Nigeria, but in the greatest country there is on earth. Does that tell you anything?

igbobuigbo:



The article you gloat about discusses one single aspect-direct infection from drinking water (something I have harped on already). It has nothing to say about other routes of bacterial/worm infection in water-based systems. Do you even know that you can contact bacterial infections via eating fresh vegetables? Is that also directly from drinking water? The fact that you refer to E. coli as a disease and support your ignorance by such an idiotic statement as ''anytime there is an ecoli outbreak public health experts usually refer to it as an "e coli outbreak," shows you are an illiterate in this matter. You are too simplistic and I hate simplistic arguments. You could not even read my own links to educate yourself. You need a lesson in non-mainstream thinking.

Princek12:

you are a fool. I never said that you cannot contract bacterial infection from other sources. I said the primary source of contamination is directly from water; it only follows that the other sources are secondary, and the minority. You are a big fool who cannot comprehend that  simple logic; you only focus on the other sources of contamination while ignoring what percentage of people get sick from the other sources. You are brain dead; people like you will fail a simple exam because they ignore the simple stuff. .

Kobojunkie:

This has been a very funny conversion. Roflmao!!

They are both intelligent but their egos won't let them see reasons in each other.

igbobuigbo:

You need a lot to learn outside the box. I see you are too straight-jacketed in your thinking. I do not take exams. I teach and rate exams, not in Nigeria, but in the greatest country there is on earth. Does that tell you anything?

It tells me that I feel sorry for your students. You, perhaps, teach kindergarten or 1st grade or mentally challenged children. I also do not take exams, and I litigate cases and go against the best on the greatest country on earth. And for your info, I win the majority of my cases, both in state federal courts. I hope that tells you something, too. I hope you learned something today, that there is a difference between primary and secondary causes; and the existence of primary causes does not abrogate the existence of the secondary causes.

Princek12:

It tells me that I feel sorry for your students. You, perhaps, teach kindergarten or 1st grade or mentally challenged children. I also do not take exams, and I litigate cases and go against the best on the greatest country on earth. And for your info, I win the majority of my cases, both in state federal courts. I hope that tells you something, too. I hope you learned something today, that there is a difference between primary and secondary causes; and the existence of primary causes does not abrogate the existence of the secondary causes.

You want me to talk about some ranking (direct versus indirect/primary versus secondary) on the basis of some vague notion, when there is no scientific data to support such that you have provided? Do you know how scientific data are obtained? You think it is like the questionnaire stuff that you guys in Arts do? In science, you have to compare the two sources to see which is primary and which is secondary. To that end, you investigate on the basis of location: urban or rural, and you evaluate farming/animal husbandry versus and non-farming populations. Only after those and more can you arrive at a comparative ranking that can stand stringent peer reviewing. That is why I insist you dwell on conjectures or mainstream unscientific information.

BTW, what are you litigating on, Mr. E. coli is a disease? Are you working from a microbial court room?


The quote below was what I wrote earlier which you also quoted yet failed to understand. So the trite statement by Mr Pricek12 that I do not talk about direct source of infection from water is what it is: trite.

Water borne diseases would affect Nigerians in different ways (1) directly and (2) via domestic or even wild animals in contact with the water in rural farming areas.

Princek12:

I told you you are an illiterate in this matter. See what you wrote below in the quote, noting the bolded parts specifically:

Water from the rain, from the sea, [/b]or from the pond is sufficient for agriculture. Many farmers rely on rain water anyway for farming. You also said the water has to be "fairly clean,"  but the minister said nothing about "fairly clean" water; he said "safe, drinking" water. From your statement you have never farmed nor know anything about farming. [b]You don't need to treat water to farm; hey, the water goes into the soil. Please reason.

Do they use sea water for agriculture? How will the plants/animals survive the high NaCl content in sea water?
Do you know anything about salinity and crop production?

Do you know that in developed (but also some developing) economies, people actually sterilize their agricultural soil to eliminate harmful soil microbes (bacteria/fungi/oomycetes, etc)? And that after such treatment, you do not expect them to water the same soil with dirty, contaminated water? There is a small immediate disadvantage to soil sterilization but if your soil needs to be sterilized, then you do not care about the immediate disadvantage (just like taking a drug to treat AIDS but with some side effects).

Are you confused or ready to think outside the box that you are in? Okay, Mr water lawyer, you better concentrate on litigating for ''Ecoli'' (E. coli) which is what you know best.

igbobuigbo:

Princek12:

I told you you are an illiterate in this matter. See what you wrote below in the quote, noting the bolded parts specifically:

Do they use sea water for agriculture? How will the plants/animals survive the high NaCl content in sea water?
Do you know anything about salinity and crop production?

Do you know that in developed (but also some developing) economies, people actually sterilize their agricultural soil to eliminate harmful soil microbes (bacteria/fungi/oomycetes, etc)? And that after such treatment, you do not expect them to water the same soil with dirty, contaminated water? There is a small immediate disadvantage to soil sterilization but if your soil needs to be sterilized, then you do not care about the immediate disadvantage (just like taking a drug to treat AIDS but with some side effects).

Are you confused or ready to think outside the box that you are in? Okay, Mr water lawyer, you better concentrate on litigating for ''Ecoli'' (E. coli) which is what you know best.

Yes. They use sea water for agriculture; it is called sea water farming. Let me educate you about sea water farming. Click the link below:
http://articles.latimes.com/2008/jul/10/business/fi-seafarm10
http://www.boston.com/news/world/articles/2008/07/27/scientist_raises_interest_in_seawater_farming/

^^^^^
Lol. Ok I give you 20 % on this one. However:

They do not REALLY use sea water for farming yet. They are only still experimenting the possibility to do so using a (salt-loving) halophytic plant. That was 2008 article and it is not in practice anywhere yet except under experimentation. So you cannot call that farming in the context of our discussion. Or can you show me where they use sea water in farming, practically speaking, and producing food crops, not something still under experimentation with one lone adaptive plant? Thanks.

As far is I know, they will have to deal with the issue of salinity and only after then can they talk of out-of-experimentation use of sea water for farming. Notice from your article that they only experiment with a specific salt-loving plant; meaning the potential to expand is practically non-existent except some other plant discoveries are made? Until then, for how long and how many people can you feed with one salt loving plant? Stop wasting your time with me. This is my turf, ok?

The quote from your link:

Some environmentalists are dubious. Channeling millions of gallons of seawater inland could have unintended consequences for fragile deserts, said biologist Exequiel Ezcurra, a former head of Mexico's National Ecology Institute.

On the basis of this, I strongly believe no knowledgeably government will approve sea water farming on any meaningful scale. Little wonder it is still under experimentation since 08.

[size=13pt]Seawater greenhouses to bring life to the desert[/size]


The planned project would use solar power to evaporate salt water, generating cool air and pure water thereby allowing food to be grown

Vast greenhouses that use seawater to grow crops could be combined with solar power plants to provide food, fresh water and clean energy in deserts, under an ambitious proposal from a team of architects and engineers.


The Sahara Forest project would marry huge greenhouses with concentrated solar power (CSP), which uses mirrors to focus the sun's rays and generate heat and electricity. The installations would turn deserts into lush patches of vegetation, according to its designers, and without the need to dig wells for fresh water, which has depleted acquifers in many parts of the world.

The team includes one of the lead architects behind Cornwall's Eden project and demonstration plants are already running in Tenerife, Oman and the United Arab Emirates.

Plants cannot grow in deserts because of the extreme temperatures and lack of nutrients and water. Charlie Paton, one of the Sahara Forest team and the inventor of the seawater greenhouse concept, said his technology was a proven way to transform arid environments.

"Plants need light for growth but they don't like heat beyond a certain point," said Paton. Above a particular temperature, the amount of water lost through the holes in its leaves, called stomata, gets so large that a plant will shut down photosynthesis and cannot grow.

The greenhouses work by using the solar farm to power seawater evaporators and then pump the damp, cool air through the greenhouse. This reduces the temperature by about 15C compared to that outside. At the other end of the greenhouse from the evaporators, the water vapour is condensed. Some of this fresh water is used to water the crops, while the rest can be used for the essential task of cleaning the solar mirrors.

"So we've got conditions in the greenhouse of high humidity and lower temperature," said Paton. "The crops sitting in this slightly steamy, humid condition can grow fantastically well."

The designers said that virtually any vegetables could be grown in the greenhouses, depending on the conditions at which it is maintained. The demonstration plants already produce lettuces, peppers, cucumbers and tomatoes. The nutrients to grow the plants could come from local seaweed or even be extracted from the seawater itself.

Michael Pawlyn of Exploration Architecture, who worked on the Eden Project for seven years and is now part of the Sahara Forest team, said the seawater greenhouse and CSP provided substantial synergies for each other. "Both technologies work extremely well in hot, dry desert locations – CSP produces a lot of waste heat and we'd be able to use that to evaporate more seawater from the greenhouse," he said. "And CSP needs a supply of clean, demineralised water in order for the [electricity generating] turbines to function and to keep the mirrors at peak output. It just so happens the seawater greenhouse produces large quantities of this."

Paton said that the greenhouse produces more than five times the fresh water needed to water the plants inside so, in addition to producing water to clean the CSP mirrors, some of it can be released into the local environment. This can create a local microclimate just outside the greenhouses for hardier plants such as jatropha, an energy crop that can be turned into biofuel. The ability to create similar microclimates has already been proven in the demonstration greenhouses Paton has built.

The cost of the Sahara Forest project could be relatively low since both CSP and seawater greenhouses are proven technologies – the designers estimate that building 20 hectares of greenhouses combined with a 10MW CSP scheme would cost around €80m (£65m). Paton said groups in countries across the Middle East, including UAE, Oman, Bahrain, Qatar and Kuwait, have expressed interest in the possibility of funding demonstration projects.

He added that using seawater greenhouses could reverse the environmental damage done by the greenhouses already built in places such as Almeria in southern Spain. More than 40,000 hectares of greenhouses have been built in this desert region during the past 20 years to grow salad vegetables. "They take water out of the ground something like five times faster than it comes in, so the water table drops and becomes more saline. The whole of Spain is being sucked dry. If one were to convert them all to the seawater greenhouse concept, it would turn an unsustainable solution into a more sustainable one."

"In places like Oman, they've effectively sterilised large areas of land by using groundwater that's become increasingly saline," said Pawlyn. "The beauty of the Sahara Forest scheme is that you can reverse that process and turn barren land into biologically-productive land."

Neil Crumpton, an energy specialist at Friends of the Earth, said the potential of desert technologies was huge. "Concentrated solar power mirror arrays covering just one per cent of the Earth's deserts could supply a fifth of all current global energy consumption. And one million tonnes of sea water could be evaporated every day from just 20,000 hectares of greenhouses."

He added: "Governments around the world should invest serious money in these solar energy and water technologies and not be distracted by lobbyists promoting dangerous nuclear power or nuclear-powered desalination schemes."

Harnessing the desert sun's rays is already at the heart of an ambitious European scheme to build a €45bn (£35.7bn) supergrid that could allow countries across the continent to share renewable electricity from solar power in north Africa, wind energy in the UK and Denmark, and geothermal energy from Iceland and Italy. The north Africa solar plan has already gained political support in Europe from Gordon Brown and Nicolas Sarkozy. Though expensive, it is in line with International Energy Agency estimates that the world needs to invest more than $45tn (£22.5tn) in new energy systems over the next 30 years.


http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2008/sep/02/alternativeenergy.solarpower

http://www.carboncapturejournal.com/displaynews.php?NewsID=536

[size=13pt]
Economical carbon capture by restoring degraded soils [/size]
Feature Articles, Mar  12  2010 (Carbon Capture Journal)


Poor farming practices have degraded the world's soils causing them to release carbon that should have stayed in the soil. In the past 150 years soils have released twice as much carbon as fuel burning. Dr Rattan Lal of Ohio State University, a leading expert on soil carbon, estimates that the potential of economical carbon sequestration in world soils may be .65 billion to 1.1 billion tons per year for the next 50 years. This is enough to draw down atmospheric CO2 by 50 ppm by 2100. This is a one-time opportunity, however. We must ultimately stop burning fossil fuels.

Man has already degraded about five billion acres of land on the planet by misguided farming practices and overgrazing. In fact, many of the world's deserts were once rich land. Desertification from overgrazing, plowing and growing annual crops has greatly reduced the carbon retained in the earth's soils. Many of our deserts started as forests which were cut or burned down to clear the land and then ruined by overgrazing. If we could reclaim these ruined lands we could restore the carbon balance of our planet.


. . . . . .


Another promising approach to greening deserts is seawater farming. Coastal desert areas lacking fresh water can grow plants like Mangrove and Salicornia along with fish and shrimp that provide the fertilizer.  The first commercial-scale saltwater farm was built by the Seawater Foundation on a barren desert in Eritrea, on the west coast of the Red Sea. Before the project, ecologists found only 13 species of wild birds in the area. By the time the farm was completed in 2002, the count had increased to 200. Here is a movie about that farm.

Another massive farm is planned for Abu Dhabi. Boing and Honeywell are partners in the project which will grow salt-water biomass to be used for making green fuel for jet aircraft. There are 25,000 miles of coastal desert in the world that could be developed in this way. Carbon trading could be the driver for these projects if we can only develop sound verification protocols and measuring instruments.

Kobojunkie:

[size=13pt]Seawater greenhouses to bring life to the desert[/size]


The planned project would use solar power to evaporate salt water, generating cool air and pure water thereby allowing food to be grown

Vast greenhouses that use seawater to grow crops could be combined with solar power plants to provide food, fresh water and clean energy in deserts, under an ambitious proposal from a team of architects and engineers.


The Sahara Forest project would marry huge greenhouses with concentrated solar power (CSP), which uses mirrors to focus the sun's rays and generate heat and electricity. The installations would turn deserts into lush patches of vegetation, according to its designers, and without the need to dig wells for fresh water, which has depleted acquifers in many parts of the world.

The team includes one of the lead architects behind Cornwall's Eden project and demonstration plants are already running in Tenerife, Oman and the United Arab Emirates.

Plants cannot grow in deserts because of the extreme temperatures and lack of nutrients and water. Charlie Paton, one of the Sahara Forest team and the inventor of the seawater greenhouse concept, said his technology was a proven way to transform arid environments.

"Plants need light for growth but they don't like heat beyond a certain point," said Paton. Above a particular temperature, the amount of water lost through the holes in its leaves, called stomata, gets so large that a plant will shut down photosynthesis and cannot grow.

The greenhouses work by using the solar farm to power seawater evaporators and then pump the damp, cool air through the greenhouse. This reduces the temperature by about 15C compared to that outside. At the other end of the greenhouse from the evaporators, the water vapour is condensed. Some of this fresh water is used to water the crops, while the rest can be used for the essential task of cleaning the solar mirrors.

"So we've got conditions in the greenhouse of high humidity and lower temperature," said Paton. "The crops sitting in this slightly steamy, humid condition can grow fantastically well."

The designers said that virtually any vegetables could be grown in the greenhouses, depending on the conditions at which it is maintained. The demonstration plants already produce lettuces, peppers, cucumbers and tomatoes. The nutrients to grow the plants could come from local seaweed or even be extracted from the seawater itself.

Michael Pawlyn of Exploration Architecture, who worked on the Eden Project for seven years and is now part of the Sahara Forest team, said the seawater greenhouse and CSP provided substantial synergies for each other. "Both technologies work extremely well in hot, dry desert locations – CSP produces a lot of waste heat and we'd be able to use that to evaporate more seawater from the greenhouse," he said. "And CSP needs a supply of clean, demineralised water in order for the [electricity generating] turbines to function and to keep the mirrors at peak output. It just so happens the seawater greenhouse produces large quantities of this."

Paton said that the greenhouse produces more than five times the fresh water needed to water the plants inside so, in addition to producing water to clean the CSP mirrors, some of it can be released into the local environment. This can create a local microclimate just outside the greenhouses for hardier plants such as jatropha, an energy crop that can be turned into biofuel. The ability to create similar microclimates has already been proven in the demonstration greenhouses Paton has built.

The cost of the Sahara Forest project could be relatively low since both CSP and seawater greenhouses are proven technologies – the designers estimate that building 20 hectares of greenhouses combined with a 10MW CSP scheme would cost around €80m (£65m). Paton said groups in countries across the Middle East, including UAE, Oman, Bahrain, Qatar and Kuwait, have expressed interest in the possibility of funding demonstration projects.

He added that using seawater greenhouses could reverse the environmental damage done by the greenhouses already built in places such as Almeria in southern Spain. More than 40,000 hectares of greenhouses have been built in this desert region during the past 20 years to grow salad vegetables. "They take water out of the ground something like five times faster than it comes in, so the water table drops and becomes more saline. The whole of Spain is being sucked dry. If one were to convert them all to the seawater greenhouse concept, it would turn an unsustainable solution into a more sustainable one."

"In places like Oman, they've effectively sterilised large areas of land by using groundwater that's become increasingly saline," said Pawlyn. "The beauty of the Sahara Forest scheme is that you can reverse that process and turn barren land into biologically-productive land."

Neil Crumpton, an energy specialist at Friends of the Earth, said the potential of desert technologies was huge. "Concentrated solar power mirror arrays covering just one per cent of the Earth's deserts could supply a fifth of all current global energy consumption. And one million tonnes of sea water could be evaporated every day from just 20,000 hectares of greenhouses."

He added: "Governments around the world should invest serious money in these solar energy and water technologies and not be distracted by lobbyists promoting dangerous nuclear power or nuclear-powered desalination schemes."

Harnessing the desert sun's rays is already at the heart of an ambitious European scheme to build a €45bn (£35.7bn) supergrid that could allow countries across the continent to share renewable electricity from solar power in north Africa, wind energy in the UK and Denmark, and geothermal energy from Iceland and Italy. The north Africa solar plan has already gained political support in Europe from Gordon Brown and Nicolas Sarkozy. Though expensive, it is in line with International Energy Agency estimates that the world needs to invest more than $45tn (£22.5tn) in new energy systems over the next 30 years.


http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2008/sep/02/alternativeenergy.solarpower

Quoting the first line:

''The planned project would use solar power to evaporate salt water, generating cool air and pure water thereby allowing food to be grown''

It is finished. That is no longer sea water as we know it. That is modified water with all the deadly salt removed. QED

[size=13pt]Seawater Farming: A Solution for Rising Sea Levels, Food and Fuel Crises?[/size]


Big problems require big ideas to solve them, but what about two massive predicaments? Is it possible to approach them together with one outsized, ambitious solution?

University of Arizona atmospheric physicist Carl Hodges thinks so, and his life's work hinges on taming the rising sea into irrigation channels that will transform barren coastal deserts into fertile sea farms that generate food, jobs, and wealth. His work in this field has earned Hodges the role of Frontline Pioneer in Climate Change as part of CNN International's Principal Voices roundtable, which will broadcast on November 22nd and 23rd.

If Hodges' remarkable vision, as outlined on the Seawater Foundation website, doesn't qualify as a big idea, I'm not sure what would. His scope is global, but the basic framework of the plan involves cutting channels to draw the ocean, which constitutes 97% of the Earth's water, into coastal desert areas that need irrigation. The channels will not only help drop rising sea levels, but they will also turn these barren regions into aquafarms for shrimp, fish, and shellfish. The outflow from that aquaculture will, in turn, irrigate and fertilize halophyte crops, or plants that thrive on saltwater. In Hodges' words,

"You cut a channel, but you call it a river, because it doesn't go on to a dead end. Instead the water goes in, and it irrigates things. When you stand at the mouth of it, you feel exactly like you would at the mouth of a river. Except you look down and the water is going in and not coming back. It goes in to produce animals, shrimp and fish, and then with their excrement involved, it irrigates trees that turn into forests. The forests have meadows of crops that provide food and fuel. And beauty. I think that's an important value." - CNN

Such a lofty goal actually has deep roots, both through Hodges' 25 plus years of research at the University of Arizona and his previous seawater agricultural project in the deserts of East Africa in 1999. Seawater Farms Eritrea (SFE) has fallen victim to political instability, but during its heyday in 2003, it provided jobs for 800 people, cultivated a couple hundred acres of seawater-tolerant crops, and produced enough excess shrimp for export. That's no small feat for a part of Africa susceptible to famine.


Descriptions of SFE during its peak describe even more benefits for the region:

"Construction began with a huge channel from the Red Sea. This saltwater river, wide enough for small boats, runs onto the land, providing water to the land-based brick and concrete circles in which we raise our shrimp, fills the three salt lakes that hold the bulk of our fish, nurtures the thousands of mangroves that will shade its shores, irrigates our field crops, and drains, finally, into a sea garden park. This park, forested by several varieties of mangroves, shelters innumerable species of flora and fauna; herons, flamingos, and other shorebirds, marine animals of many kinds, and even allows domesticated animals, like goats and camels, a place to graze." - The Seawater Foundation

At Eritrea, workers planted the powerhouse halophyte salicornia, also known as sea asparagus. This salt-loving succulent is a potential food source and an oil seed crop that can also provide a cooking oil, high-protein meal, and biofuel. Hodges' current project involves salicornia as well, this time in dry, arid Sonora, Mexico near the Sea of Cortez:

"The enterprise recently planted 1,000 acres of salicornia here in rural Sonora, where Hodges has been doing preparatory research for decades. That crop will provide seed for a major venture planned 50 miles north in the coastal city of Bahia de Kino. Global Seawater is attempting to lease or buy 12,000 acres there for what it envisions will be the world's largest seawater farm." - Los Angeles Times

And recognizing that people generally need financial reasons as well as ethical ones to invest in pricey solutions to thorny ecological problems, Hodges started Global Seawater, Inc . This for-profit company is raising capital for sea farms that will produce returns for investors around the world. One potential way to make the sea farms profitable is through sales of the biofuel produced from salicornia.

Feeding the world, reducing the chances of coastal devastation from rising sea levels, creating jobs and wealth, and transforming deserts into farmland is one heady miracle of a vision. Questions about the viability of large-scale seawater agriculture do exist in some quarters, especially in a region whose environment has already fallen victim to previous agricultural operations:

"Some environmentalists are dubious. Wheat and cotton flourished here until farmers pumped aquifers nearly dry. Shrimp aquaculture operations have fouled the Sea of Cortez with waste.

Channeling millions of gallons of seawater inland could have similar unintended consequences for fragile deserts, said biologist Exequiel Ezcurra, former head of Mexico's National Ecology Institute. "We have had catastrophes in the past, so we have reason to be concerned," he said." - Los Angeles Times

Elsewhere in the world, saltwater irrigation can't be introduced beyond coastal land already exposed to high salt content:

"Unfortunately, Seawater agriculture can only be confined to coastal deserts because if seawater were brought inland, it would ruin the land unaccustomed to the high salinity. Saltwater agriculture further inland would be a disaster" says Emanuel Epstein, a professor and highly respected researcher of plant biology at the University of California, Davis. - EcoWorld

http://www.celsias.com/article/seawater-farming-solution-rising-sea-levels-food-a/

Problem of salt water in farming

http://www.rurallaw.org.au/handbook/xml/ch02s08s14.php



''Only countries that MUST do so owing to intense desertification will invest on massive salt-removing technologies in order to obtain good enough water for farming. Once the salt is removed, it is no longer sea water farming. May be modified sea water farming'' Igbobuigbo 2010

Kobojunkie,
Read the articles you are posting thoroughly and if you are an environmentalist come tell me your opinion - pros and cons.

Feeding the world, reducing the chances of coastal devastation from rising sea levels, creating jobs and wealth, and transforming deserts into farmland is one heady miracle of a vision. Questions about the viability of large-scale seawater agriculture do exist in some quarters, especially in a region whose environment has already fallen victim to previous agricultural operations:

"Some environmentalists are dubious. Wheat and cotton flourished here until farmers pumped aquifers nearly dry. Shrimp aquaculture operations have fouled the Sea of Cortez with waste.

Channeling millions of gallons of seawater inland could have similar unintended consequences for fragile deserts, said biologist Exequiel Ezcurra, former head of Mexico's National Ecology Institute. "We have had catastrophes in the past, so we have reason to be concerned," he said." - Los Angeles Times

Elsewhere in the world, saltwater irrigation can't be introduced beyond coastal land already exposed to high salt content:

Who wan try?

This is a double tragedy as we all know we do not have clean drinkable water nor a balanced agricultural sector that commands better irrigation farming, Nigeria has taken its bribery and corruption to the UN gathering again!! How would they have won such a prestigious award?? Just want to know how they did it, i am perplexed!

this event was a joke!!!! was supposed to attend but was too busy at the office. . .

and it was attended by close to 40 nigerian government officials, .this guys just love to travel for the sake of per-diem. . .nothing more!!!!


#Javalove. . .unless otherwise stated. . .!

@Poster
I don't know where you live.
Public taps run 24/7 in Calabar, honestly.
Anybody that lives here will testify

Water resoruces minister

This award is very funny. Even the Federal Capital, Abuja cannot boast of 24/7 water supply in all local government areas. In most of the local government areas (apart from AMAC), residents drilled their own private bore holes for water.

ha ha ha ha ha I laff in French. LWKMD ha ha ha ha ha ROTFLMAO ha ha ha ha ha

this is perplexing to me. do we even have 20 percent of homes in nigeria with constatnt supply of water?

there is water everywhere can you seeeeeeeeeeeeee lagos island

Oluwabee:

ha ha ha ha ha I laff in French. LWKMD ha ha ha ha ha ROTFLMAO ha ha ha ha ha

i laugh in spanish, que pasa amigo
very soon we will win electricity leadergoats award.

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Water is present in almost parts of the earth, from the atmosphere to the ground and covers about 70% of the earth (Amah, 2002). It exists in three (3) states; solids, liquid and gaseous (Symons et al, 1998). One of the most critical and indeed fundamental problem facing Nigeria and other developing countries in


http://www.scharticles.com/evaluation-selected-heavy-metals-boreholes-rain-water-domestic-use/