Saturday, February 9, 2013

Correlation Between Efficient Food Production and Technological Advancement


Most Technological Developments Were Made Possible By the Advancing Efficiency in Land-based Food Production Over the Past Several Thousand Years.  What Role Will Aquaculture and Our Oceans Play in Enabling any Future Technological Advancements?

Technological advancements such as auto engines, harnessing electricity, machines, vaccines, the internet, computers, or cellphones have all been made possible because humans became efficient land-based food producers and this allowed a shrinking few to produce the food for a growing many.  This freed creative minds from constantly contemplating how to obtain food from hunting, gathering, or farming.  Once freed from this all-consuming quest for food, the creative potential of the human mind blossomed to invent all the luxuries and necessities that we take for granted today.  Without this few producing food for the many, we may have never reached our current state of technological advancement where most of us now regard cellphones as absolute necessities.

Humans have nearly maximized the productive capacity of the Earth’s terrestrial resources through domesticating its wild plants and animals and claiming productive land areas for planting crops and grazing livestock.  This has resulted in the supplanting of nearly all the original terrestrial wild species and their habitats.  For humans to continue to advance technologically, the food supply may need to expand.  What roles will aquaculture and our ocean resources play in this?

·       Is it inevitable that humans will come to dominate the oceans (as they have come to dominate the land) by domesticating more aquatic animals and plants and claiming more areas for aquaculture?

·       Is it inevitable that someday ocean aquaculture will supplant wild fisheries much like agriculture eventually replaced land-based hunting and gathering practices?

·       Is it inevitable that our oceans will someday cease to provide windows showing what ocean life was like on Earth before humans became dominant?

Please feel free to add your comments concerning what roles aquaculture and our oceans will play in helping assure that humans remain able to advance technology.