Eliminate Drought & Famine with Regenerative Agriculture?

What are your comments on this video?

Good stuff.

What are YOUR comments? 

So cool!  McMillin said it takes less water to raise fish than it does to produce a crop of wheat! 

H Ludi Tyler wrote:
So cool!  McMillin said it takes less water to raise fish than it does to produce a crop of wheat!   

Yeah, I really liked that. I had never heard that before. I hope it's true.

I liked it.  A common sense man with a vision.

The comment about fish taking less water to raise than wheat bears repeating in every arid corner of the world.  It could have great impact on world hunger!  Replacing carbohydrates with proteins is very significant in a starving world.

Easily as important, was the comment that the "waste" must remain on site, as it is more important than the food produced!

I think John Mc Millin deserves a spot on the podium alongside Willie Smits and Greg Judy.

Thought it was great aspirationally but a bit light on information.  Also since it skipped over a lot of stuff it was not a cohesive message.

What sort of systems does he use to raise fish?

True.  It was directed at the masses (or more likely, those who are funding his works).

I would love to see him do a follow up video aimed at people wanting to do similar work.  A "How to" video would spread his message to people willing to try his methods, and possibly make a real difference in world agricultural practices.  A hundred such farms, worldwide would be noticed, and hopefully soon imitated.

Seems to me this took place along time ago [video talked about 1984].  It was a good idea but I believe if memory serves me right they went back a year latter and the systems were abandoned.  The people did not like to eat the fish and nobody kept up ponds.  If I am wrong why isn't every body following his ideas.

Russ W wrote:
  If I am wrong why isn't every body following his ideas.

Maybe for the same reason most of us still buy a lot of our food, etc at the store.

Whatever that reason is....maybe, we think it's easier, or, it's what all the other kids are doing....or.....?

Why, if these alternative systems are so great, are we (WE, we here, all of us here on this messageboard) not doing them?

Why do we still buy our food, clothing, energy from the conventional sources, most of us?

If we can answer that question, maybe we can answer the question why those folks in Africa aren't following McMillan's ideas.

We always expect some African person to do things differently, but we don't expect ourselves to do something differently, when we have so many more resources and privileges than most of them have.

Because doing things differently is hard, maybe......

Yeah, isn't it rather defeatist to suggest that if there were a better way, we'd all be doing it?

I mean, maybe if we were all perfect (sorry Paul).

That is where invention comes into play, finding ways of doing things that people weren't aware of.  And then spreading the idea and helping people understand and use it, which can be even harder than the inventing.

I'd be interested to see the information behind this claim of producing more food with less water by raising fish compared to wheat.  To me it doesn't really stack up in theory, but there's a fair possibility I am wrong.

Personally I see it as a process, of incremental steps, not "and suddenly they were all perfect one day."  This includes some folks in Africa, and elsewhere. 

Hugh H. wrote:


I'd be interested to see the information behind this claim of producing more food with less water by raising fish compared to wheat.  To me it doesn't really stack up in theory, but there's a fair possibility I am wrong.

I think you'd need to calculate how much water it takes to produce so many calories of wheat versus so many calories of fish for the same quantity of water.  Seems like it could just be figured on paper even if not "in the field." But I'm lousy at maths, so I'll let someone else do it! 

Also total nutrients, not just calories, might be useful to calculate.  Is fish a more complete dietary ingredient than wheat, for instance?

There's so many variables.  I don't really see that a lot of water goes into growing wheat.  It is not usually irrigated.  Maybe what he means is that the wheat can't be grown in many areas due to rainfall being insufficient, whereas the ponds can be created in these areas?  Or that fish can be raised in a higher density than wheat with the same amount of rainfall?

Fish ponds are subject to evaporation.  Is this managed through cover with water plants and nearby trees?  Do the fish survive on pond plants, insects etc. all generated in and around the pond, or do they need supplemental feed?

You really need to see a case study to demonstrate how these systems work.

They have a site at www.globalregen.com but unfortunately all the links to information about how the system actually works are broken.  All I could find was a mention of low scale tilapia farming alongside organic crop systems and some very small pictures.

I guess I meant the water used to grow wheat is rain water...

It might be the amount of food one can grow in a pond filled with rain water is larger than the amount of food one can grow in a plowed field with the same amount of rain water. 

I was just saying I was around at the time and remember it. I'm not sure if it would work for me because I don't like Talapia either. Now if I was to add fish culture it would be a different type of fish. If one has a fish pond on property it would be fun to fish for a meal or two but running a fish factory on my property would be low on my list. Just as well as if someone told me to plant this or that because it would make a good diet but tasted awful I wold also not keep it growing. I think anyone who is going to go to another country and try to tell people how to do grow things; they should do there homework. By the way glad my comment seemed to spark some fire.

I agree, just because you can teach people to grow some kind of food, doesn't mean they'll want to eat it.    It might be more valuable to try to find ways of growing the diet the people are used to, with maybe some minor changes, in an easier and more sustainable way than to try to impose a new diet or totally new way of doing things suddenly.  Change is difficult.  Incremental change is a little easier.

On a related note, this blog post talks about a guy who spoke at the IPC about his work in Africa getting people to let their trees re-grow.

http://perennialideas.ptpc.com.au/weblog/underground-forest-using-biodiversity-help-people?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+PerennialIdeas+%28Perennial+Ideas+Syndicated%29