Growing Crops in the Desert with Seawater | Freethink

Water is in short supply in much of the world - but what if we use seawater? It's been a dream for many years, but now technology is making it possible. This new seawater greenhouse uses a clever cardboard design to distill fresh water from salt water cheaply and efficiently. It's helping grow crops in Somaliland, and could help stop the water crisis in Africa and other parts of the world that are susceptible to drought. The founder of Seawater Greenhouse, Charlie Paton, explains how unlike traditional greenhouses - which are hothouses - this one is a "cool house" that is ideal for growing temperate crops in deserts or other hot, arid regions.

What do you think? Will this succeed at turning desert into farmland? What other projects have caught your eye? Let us know in the comments and subscribe for new videos every week.

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[ahmedopone]

As a Somali i am greatly interested in these technologies that deal with food production in whats considered unsuitable environments. I research a lot, specially the use of sea water. I can't say how happy I am to see such a project in Somaliland.
Hore u socda walaalayaal oo guuleysta manshallah!!

[burnyizland]

I came on here thinking you were going to show us a magical new way to water crops with saltwater and you STILL didn't disappoint. This is incredible!

[bardigan]

This is exactly the kind of human ingenuity that's allowed us to expand to all corners of the globe. Fantastic!

[tomkelly]

I live in Canada so we have a lot of water here but I understand how big of an issue water is in much of the world. This seems like such a great plan, I am so glad to hear about this new ability to turn more of our deserts back into fertile, productive land again!

[rebeccaji]

Glad to see Charlie here :). I am so glad to supply the evaporating pad and solar power system to this project, your team are honorable, made a great effort in it, overcome many difficulties, good luck to your team!

[adengbuhaybukidinAustralia]

Port Augusta in South Australia uses seawater in a green house to grow tomatoes in the desert.

[roberth.schweitzer]

What happens to the card board walls after they salt up? How often do they need to be replaced? How does this affect the cost? How do you dispose of the salty card board material in a closed cycle way?

[samjones]

I love to see technology and innovation being used to help mankind....especially poor than for weapons and destruction!

[AliRavencoreAdam]

so basically they are using a swamp cooler to grow crops. Genius imo.

[samuelpezzetta]

Awesome invention! I am an environmental scientist myself and I would love to see how financially sustainable this project is. It looks very promising to me.

[dayibhamza]

Good job welcome to our country republic of somaliland thanks for helping to our people

[andrewvoya]

Oh my goodness !!!
Something positive and so useful for masses of people on the planet, why isn’t this talked about to the same level as the doom and gloom we get every day ?

[combativeThinker]

This is Nobel Prize material, right here. I hope this system is widely adopted and used.

[davidtangitau]

This is what we need to spend money on. Not countless useless social programs that tend to drain resources while allowing them to be abused. Science can literally lead humanity to no longer take so much from our planet while giving back nothing

[Knee-Lew]

I didn't even think about usint seawater to humidify the crops... But this guy showed us the way to combine evaporator and seawater to cool down the crops, and they might even change the climate somewhere in the future!

[special]

Been using the gravity fed water closed loop system and fan cooling in greenhouses for cooling and humidity control since the 1970's that I know of. These cool houses were old then. Probably built in the 1940's. Used to cool plants before flowering to get them to have larger buds and then move them to hot houses to force the bloom all at once for sale. The plants would gradually bloom without this process. The full blooms at once obtained a better market value. The system I worked with used 4' x 4' vertical filters like green scrubber pads with larger openings. They were easily cleaned and reused.

[GoddessRubyJade]

Honestly love this, I truly hope this can change the world!

[jadeyes]

I've been working on something similar using solar desalination to produce salt while providing water to my plants. Good to see this. I started from the perspective of resources at hand and potential salable commodities. The value of the recovered salt offsets the water production . Before going solar it cost me 72 cents a kilo for the salt and this included the waste by product of 15 liters of free water

[jerrypowell]

This is dated 2018... what is the status now? How about an update video? Great idea!

[groblerful]

What a great Idea. In Holland Duch farmers in Freezland have developed crops which can be irrigated with dilute salt water 50/50. Some can even be irrigted with salt water alone apparently. All done by years of natural selection for salt tolerance.Good crops of potatoes are now being grown on land in Pakistan formally too salty to support normal plants.