Feeding Worlds

[GrayPennell]

it has been written that planet A needs the agricultural goods from planets X, Y, Z.

1. How much is that?
2. How do they farm that?
3. How do they transport that amount?

 

[rancke]

it has been written that planet A needs the agricultural goods from planets X, Y, Z.

1. How much is that?
2. How do they farm that?
3. How do they transport that amount?

1. T tons.
2. With TL-appropriate methods.
3. In starships.

Your questions are a tad too vague to give any meaningful answers to.


Hans

 

[Carlobrand]

Focus questions:

What is the population of planet A? How much food is planet A producing for itself? You can guesstimate consumption, but you're going to need to know how much the world produces for itself. At sufficiently high tech levels, it could conceivably produce tolerable calories even if it were a vacuum world with no agricultural land at all, either entirely artificially or by creating enclosed artificial environments that support agricultural production. There's some exploration of the possibility of using of 3D printer technology to convert nutrient solutions - which could be produced artificially - into palatable solids. At lower tech levels, arrangements like hothouses and hydroponics can be used to produce food. The question becomes how much effort is planet A putting into meeting its own needs, and how much has it become dependent on external sources; those are questions that will be answered by planetary characteristics, population, culture, economics and technology.

As to planet X, Y, and Z, you've got big problems. How much surface area is suitable for farming, how long is the growing season, how many people are involved in farming and what tech are they using - many, many questions which aren't going to be easily drawn from available data. You could draw on real-world Earth data, calculate from that based on the available surface area, but that assumes that X, Y, and Z are very earthlike and using tech consistent with Earth history. Past about TL8, it's pretty much anyone's guess.

 

[rancke]

As to planet X, Y, and Z, you've got big problems. How much surface area is suitable for farming, how long is the growing season, how many people are involved in farming and what tech are they using - many, many questions which aren't going to be easily drawn from available data. You could draw on real-world Earth data, calculate from that based on the available surface area, but that assumes that X, Y, and Z are very earthlike and using tech consistent with Earth history. Past about TL8, it's pretty much anyone's guess.

We do have some clues. A recent event showed that at prototype level, artificially produced meat takes half the energy and 1% of the space it takes to grow meat naturally:

http://www.travellerrpg.com/CotI/Discuss/showthread.php?t=30777

I'm fairly sure there must be some figures for hydroponics available, although I haven't searched for them.

Note that the space needed for carniculture and hydroponics can be constructed in any environment. So one of the questions about Planet A that needs to be answered is why it isn't producing the food it needs at home.


Hans

 

[SpaceBadger]

Note that the space needed for carniculture and hydroponics can be constructed in any environment. So one of the questions about Planet A that needs to be answered is why it isn't producing the food it needs at home.

In many SF stories, food produced by carniculture or hydroponics "just doesn't taste right" even though identical to foods produced by older traditional means. So although ships, space stations, or facilities in extreme environments may feed themselves with these products, there is brisk trade in "real food" from elsewhere. (Not saying this especially makes sense, just that the trope is out there.)

 

[rancke]

In many SF stories, food produced by carniculture or hydroponics "just doesn't taste right" even though identical to foods produced by older traditional means. So although ships, space stations, or facilities in extreme environments may feed themselves with these products, there is brisk trade in "real food" from elsewhere. (Not saying this especially makes sense, just that the trope is out there.)

That makes perfect sense if people are used to 'real food'. A complementary SF trope is people who are raised on artificial food thinking that real food just doesn't taste right. Which likewise makes perfect sense. But people who are raised on artificial food preferring real food only makes sense if the artificial food is really bland and uninspiring. Which is a third SF trope.

Of course, the bland and uninspiring artificial food is normally justified by being cheaper than tasty artificial food (which in turn is cheaper than 'real food').

BTW, I didn't mean to imply that one couldn't come up with reasons why Planet A didn't grow/manufacture all its own food. I just think it's a non-obvious situation and therefore warranted a specific explanation.


Hans

 

[robject]

it has been written that planet A needs the agricultural goods from planets X, Y, Z.

1D6:
1. Because of missing vitamins not present in food from planet A.
2. Because of the extreme bland tastelessness of local food production.
3. Because of all of the hungry mouths to feed.
4. Because of the primitive/wild nature of planet A.
5. Because of a recent disaster that destroyed a significant part of planet A's crops.
6. As #5, but it was sabotage.

...or some other reason?

 

[leo knight]

I've done a little research on this, trying to figure out how big Earth's population might get for my Earth-centric ATU. Getting accurate figures proved difficult, but here's what I came up with.

The rule of thumb I found most often said a 'normal' human (and how many of those are there?) eats about 5 pounds of food a day. I think that might be a little high, but I erred on too much, rather than too little. This works out to about a ton per year. I know, not metric. I admit to my Luddite tendencies. Present agricultural production averages about about a ton per acre. I found labor intensive, organic techniques like "Square Foot Gardening" that claimed to grow between 20 and 40 tons per acre. I could not confirm this.

Another technology, vertical farming, uses 30' high racks to grow vegetables for restaurants in Singapore. The 9 acre site yields 2 tons of produce a day, which works out to about 80 tons per acre per year. This technique allows control of water and nutrients, and almost complete recycling of water. The plants sit in troughs on a motorized chain that raises and lowers them for even sun. This, and water pumps pose the only technical hurdle. I used this as my baseline, since it actually produces a real result, not just claims, and had real numbers, not just guesses.

A video on YouTube claims "One Million Pounds of Food on Three Acres!" using a combination of agri- and aquaculture. If true, this works out to 160 tons per acre per year. Again, I couldn't confirm this, but used it as an upward limit. This uses plastic tanks for fish, water pumps, and greenhouses. I read about a similar scheme in the 1970 called the New Alchemy Institute, but couldn't find much info.

I also found articles on 'pink houses', indoor vertical farms using bright LEDs to provide light. Most plants only need red and a bit of blue spectrum light. The mix looks magenta pink. They claim higher than normal yields. No numbers, but the image of the pink houses appealed to me.

Marshall Savage's "Millennial Project" posits blue-green algae as a staple foodstuff. It grows very fast, and as an added benefit, can process waste and CO2, giving back food and oxygen. He claims it can be processed, colored and flavored, and will provide complete nutrition for humans. Recently, I read that such algae may have subtle toxins that would build up in someone eating them, but perhaps genetic modification could remedy this.

I'm at work now, but I'll try to find and post some links later.

 

[HG_B]

Marshall Savage's "Millennial Project" posits blue-green algae as a staple foodstuff. It grows very fast, and as an added benefit, can process waste and CO2, giving back food and oxygen. He claims it can be processed, colored and flavored, and will provide complete nutrition for humans.

Could be but, I don't know of any real studies where humans have lived on that diet. That being said, There is a lot of breakthroughs being made in the area of growing meat/animal protein that will turn our current assumptions on their head.

 

[leo knight]

Here's a link for the vertical farm:

http://www.amusingplanet.com/2013/08/singapores-vertical-farms.html

The numbers in this article don't match what I had, so maybe I got them wrong, but the images should give you ideas.

The YouTube video:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jV9CCxdkOng

Here be 'pink houses':

http://inhabitat.com/indoor-vertical-farm-pinkhouses-grow-plants-faster-with-less-energy/

The Millennial Project:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Millennial_Project:_Colonizing_the_Galaxy_in_Eight_Easy_Steps

Another version of vertical farming:

http://www.verticalfarm.com/

An optimistic article on the logistics of high population:

http://www.acceleratingfuture.com/michael/blog/2006/09/overpopulation-no-problem/

Bot Inhabitat and Accelerating Future have all sorts of brain candy for futuristic settings, too. Enjoy!

 

[Carlobrand]

"Blue green algae" apparently refers to many different species of cyanobacteria, including some that produce toxins and create fish-killing algae blooms in water. I guess the nutritional and/or toxic characteristics depend on what specific species you get.

 

[simonh]

A few other factors. I'll simplify to a single Planet B supplying the food as IMHO that's easier to develop plots for.

Opportunity Cost
Planet A may well be perfectly capable of producing all the food it needs if it wanted to but any energy, personnel, space and other resources it expended doing so wouldn't be available to engage in some other far more desirable (profitable, necessary, religiously imperative, etc) activity.

e.g. Planet A is the only world for dozens of parsecs where you can mine particularly desirable raw materials and all it's industry is devoted to mining and refining.


Plot hooks:
* Being so dependent can be exploited. Growers on planet B might form a cartel to artificially constrain supplies to drive up prices. A shipping firm might dominate transport and attempt the same effect.
* An enterprising business ships several huge containers to Planet A packed with the latest in intensive artificial food production technology, at a stroke satisfying 30% of Planet A's basic food needs. The bottom drops out of the market for Planet B's produce.
* A sever drought/plague on Planet B causes a failure of the harvest/fish stocks, etc. Planet A sends an expeditionary force, or hires mercenaries to ensure it gets the food supplies it has already paid for in long term contracts, even if the farmers have to starve.


Delicacies
Maybe Planet A does produce all the food it needs, but not all the food it's residents desire. Perhaps Planet B is a source of fine, rare, specialized foods that it is not (yet) possible to grow artificially.

Plot hooks:
* Planet B has several particularly delicious local life forms. It's inhabitants have a vested interest in preventing these life forms from being transplanted to other worlds or grown artificially, but a biotech company is developing just such technology. An activist faction on Planet B attempts to sabotage the research.

Simon Hibbs

 

[rancke]

Opportunity Cost
Planet A may well be perfectly capable of producing all the food it needs if it wanted to but any energy, personnel, space and other resources it expended doing so wouldn't be available to engage in some other far more desirable (profitable, necessary, religiously imperative, etc) activity.

e.g. Planet A is the only world for dozens of parsecs where you can mine particularly desirable raw materials and all it's industry is devoted to mining and refining.

Comparative advantage. Yes, that's an excellent explanation. Many outposts would fall in that category.

Delicacies
Maybe Planet A does produce all the food it needs, but not all the food it's residents desire. Perhaps Planet B is a source of fine, rare, specialized foods that it is not (yet) possible to grow artificially.

I don't think there is ever any need to explain luxury imports. They're a natural phenomenon, so to speak. But they are by their very nature not very large compared to ordinary food.


Hans

 

[HG_B]

Comparative advantage. Yes, that's an excellent explanation. Many outposts would fall in that category.

I wouldn't count on that for established worlds near a frontier where being cut off could happen. For safety they would develop enough to feed themselves in event of war or what not. Unless they are the center of an empire...

 

[shield]

whilst individual demand for luxury items may be low / seasonal / or linked to the top 1% of earners etc, when you scale that up to a world with a billion plus people on it that is a lot of luxury items. Just look at earth, lots of people involved in producing cartier watches, scottish whiskey etc.

Also don't forget fashion fads, they can cause a massive increase in the sales of insignificant items. We had a celebrity chef here in the UK that recommended a specific ingredient in her show and the supermarkets could not keep the stuff in stock for months there was so much demand.

 

[Carlobrand]

With respect to the original post, we're still left with wide variation in terms of what and how much comes in, even for identical populations with identical circumstances. GURPS will give you an idea of overall trade volume, CT will give you an idea of what's profitable, but I don't recall the details of the various trade systems to know whether any of them break things down sufficiently to tell you how much grain or meat or whatsits a given world imports or exports.

Honestly, I think it's one of those cases where the game master decides for himself based on what he wants that world to be like.

 

[Selandia]

I wouldn't count on that for established worlds near a frontier where being cut off could happen. For safety they would develop enough to feed themselves in event of war or what not. Unless they are the center of an empire...

make sense...until the protectionist policies implied run afoul of peoples that want to have it cheaper at the expense of strategic cautiousness. Your proposition mean peoples can't buy cheap imports (i.e. at dumping price from producers with huge economies of scale), forcing them to purchase expensive local products (low volume, adverse conditions).

A "strategic food program" would be possible with subsidies and/or economic inefficiency and may insure a survival diet in an emergency, but trade differential remains a good excuse (if one is needed) to justify some food trade. Of course some maniacal isolationist doctrine requiring total autarchy may prevail, but that would be red zone.

This debate have shade of the Rethe debate (my T5 land grant as Count): 26billions living "on" a desert vacuum world... (or under or above, in space habitats, tunnels, domed cities...).

When the 1% "filty richs" are 260 millions persons, there is a huge trade in luxury items, if only as status symbol (why the hell is french champagne sold in California?). When a water world and an agriworld are J2 away, vat grown local fish or meat flesh face stiff competition from imports in the market segment of a billions strong middle class that can afford some "real food" on occasions.

Short extract of my work on Rethe

MOUGHAS/Regina 2406 C A5A588 B, Ni Water world
J2 away from Rethe, this non industrial world focus on seafood production and takes Rethe’s manufactured consumer goods in exchange for sea life based food. They are often canned but regular traders take frozen cargo. The industrial world of Enope try competing against Rethe but is at a lower TL. Workshops and wet shipyards based on Moughas also buy basic materials, tools and machinery. ...

INTHE/Regina 2410 B 575776 9, Ag,
J2 away, the bread basket of Rethe and many other world within J3. It also produce whatever Crude oil is imported by Rethe. On their way in, the Large OBO bring the huge amount of nitrate and potash that its intensive agribusiness require. Rethe also sell manufactured consumer and industrial goods, including lower tech component for its mechanised agriculture.

How much food that is actually? Well, you decide for that depend of market conditions that you are free to control as the creator of your TU. That does not help much if you expect me to provide a math formula, but since those formulas are abtracting so many thing anyway, you may as well have it your way.




have fun

Selandia

 

[HG_B]

make sense...until the protectionist policies implied run afoul of peoples that want to have it cheaper at the expense of strategic cautiousness. Your proposition mean peoples can't buy cheap imports

I can see that you have never thoroughly studied the US Gov expenditures.

Have fun

 

[Carlobrand]

...This debate have shade of the Rethe debate (my T5 land grant as Count): 26billions living "on" a desert vacuum world... (or under or above, in space habitats, tunnels, domed cities...).

When the 1% "filty richs" are 260 millions persons, there is a huge trade in luxury items, if only as status symbol (why the hell is french champagne sold in California?). When a water world and an agriworld are J2 away, vat grown local fish or meat flesh face stiff competition from imports in the market segment of a billions strong middle class that can afford some "real food" on occasions.

Short extract of my work on Rethe

MOUGHAS/Regina 2406 C A5A588 B, Ni Water world
J2 away from Rethe, this non industrial world focus on seafood production and takes Rethe’s manufactured consumer goods in exchange for sea life based food. They are often canned but regular traders take frozen cargo. The industrial world of Enope try competing against Rethe but is at a lower TL. Workshops and wet shipyards based on Moughas also buy basic materials, tools and machinery. ...

INTHE/Regina 2410 B 575776 9, Ag,
J2 away, the bread basket of Rethe and many other world within J3. It also produce whatever Crude oil is imported by Rethe. On their way in, the Large OBO bring the huge amount of nitrate and potash that its intensive agribusiness require. Rethe also sell manufactured consumer and industrial goods, including lower tech component for its mechanised agriculture.

How much food that is actually? Well, you decide for that depend of market conditions that you are free to control as the creator of your TU. That does not help much if you expect me to provide a math formula, but since those formulas are abtracting so many thing anyway, you may as well have it your way....

This is a good case-in-point. I don't think there can be a "math formula" because so much is going to depend on specific circumstances and details added by the game master himself.

I wouldn't think there'd be much worry over competition either, in this particular case. A world of 26 billion with an elite class in the hundreds of millions, importing sea food from a world of 800 thousand - even assuming the Moughas economy's centered on industrial fishing and is harvesting massive quantities, it's still only going to be a rather small percentage of the calories needed by Rethe and therefore a luxury item; lots of room in the Rethian economy for vat-farmed tuna-helper for the riff-raff. Similarly, the 40 million of Inthe might provide a decent fraction of Rethe's caloric needs, but it's still going to be something "special" 'cause there's just too many people there for 40 million souls to feed; the Rethians're going to have to come up with some way to meet the greater fraction of their own needs.

 

[GrayPennell]

Check District 268 in the Original Spinward Marches Campaign book, Behind the Claw and Tarsus Campaign, for more information.