Improving Agriculture Through Hydroponics

The agricultural sector of many countries all over the world are facing a lot of problems today. Examples of these are the continuing decrease in soil quality, the frequent occurrence of natural disasters, and the increased events of pest infestation, but above all these, the most serious and most widespread is the continuous decrease in the availability of arable land. According to the Philippine Statistics Authority, the area of agricultural lands in the country have decreased by 4% or 300,000 hectares and the average size of farms by 7% or 0.15 hectares, within the past decade. Though this statistic may seem pretty small, its significance can be seen when related to the 17%, or 16 million increase in human population. At this rate, it is expected that by the following years there will come a point when the agricultural crop production would not be enough to meet the needs of the people.

Nowadays, researches are being directed towards the field of agriculture. These researches aim to identify new techniques and methods of planting which will help solve the problem on limited agricultural lands. One of the most accepted and used techniques is hydroponics. Hydroponics is a planting technique which makes use of a nutrient solution as the growing medium instead of soil. Hydroponics doesn’t require a vast land area for planting, instead it only requires a smaller land area for the setup of the hydroponics system. Hydroponics has also been proven to be as effective as conventional planting, given that an effective nutrient solution is being used. Furthermore, environmental factors affecting plant growth, like pest infestations and natural calamities, can also be easily controlled in this planting technique.

The use of hydroponics in lieu of conventional planting may seem promising enough, but there is one big problem in this planting technique; identifying an effective but cheap nutrient solution. Though price may not be a problem for big time farmers, it is not the case for smaller farmers. The need for an effective but cheap nutrient solution arises, in order for this technique to be utilized not only by big time farmers, but also by simple farmers.