QUESTION:
Do you think farming the seas is a promising future for
the people on Earth?

        From Mrs. Squicciarini's 5th grade class
        West Babylon, Long Island, New York

ANSWER from Dave Karl, Oceanographer, University of Hawaii
        Thu, 20 Feb 1997 08:33:12 -1000 (HST)

Dear Fifth Graders,

This is an excellent question.  With world population on the rise and with
the impending shortage of land available for farming, we better do
something and do it quickly.  Unfortunately, the open ocean does not
appear to be the answer.  The amount of food produced and it's
distribution makes open ocean farming quite difficult and unlikely as a
strategy for the future.  More concentrated efforts to produce fish and
other marine organisms in pens, or ponds (what we call aquaculture or
mariculture) has a better chance but to date has been used primarily for
big cash crops like salmon or shrimp.  One key to feeding the starving
masses of the world is to eat lower on the food chain.  If we all ate
vegetables instead of the animals that eat those same vegetables we would
have about 50-60% more food available for humankind.  When your mother
told you to eat your vegetables she wasn't kidding!

Thanks for your question!
Dave Karl