Life, it is proposed, started as a seed. Maybe it's wacky, but it seemed to me a good subject to put out wacky ideas on. What if we just tie seed packets to helium balloons and let them fly where they may, or, there are lots of planes flying around, just drop some seeds on the ground as they fly over hungry nations, or, how about just putting seeds in a bottle, and let the oceans current carry them where they may. We could put all kinds of seeds in little care packages and let nature do the rest. If they are food seeds it seems the worst that could happen is that the planet would eventually become overgrown with food. It would be better than having to cut the grass every week, no?
-- RJ_I_2, Nov 06 2003

I'm hungry.
-- Worldgineer, Nov 06 2003


cue UnaBubba. on imported species..
-- po, Nov 06 2003


and exactly how does spreading seeds all over the place promote world hunger?
-- ato_de, Nov 06 2003


This is in public:welfare, not public:world domination.

[RJ] Welcom. I think [po] has a point. You don't want just any seeds wandering around or "overgrown with food" may become "overgrown with only one type of food" and at the least that would be boring. This being said, well targeted appropriate seeds spread throughout unused land may be a cost effective, good idea.
-- Worldgineer, Nov 06 2003


Small lizards and other meat-bearing animals can be similarly transported.
-- phundug, Nov 06 2003


<<flap, flap, flap>> "Did you see that?"
"See what?"
"Mooooo....."
"Son of a drake! What the hell...?"
-- Detly, Nov 06 2003


//What if we just tie seed packets to helium balloons and let them fly where they may// Isn't this just a complicated way of replicating what birds do naturally?
-- Fishrat, Nov 07 2003


I have been under the (perhaps naiive) impression that for the last half century in the absence of trade unionism or political borders, with the general acceptance and encouragement of free trade, and reasonable prices for transport fuel, no individual needs to go hungry anywhere any day on the surface of this small planet.
-- jurist, Nov 07 2003


World Hunger? All politics is local. Hunger in Copperbelt Region, Zambia. Solution under way: leadership training, job creation. This is real. Cast-off computers will go a long way.
-- hyphenator, Nov 07 2003


[jurist] //no individual needs to go hungry// despite the assumptions you've made. We have enough food to feed the world right now. It's politics and to some extent capitalism that gets in the way.
-- Worldgineer, Nov 07 2003


Some people would argue that Human Greed is the solution rather than the problem and if people were allowed to be free to be even more greedy then a world paradise would be created ...

However large amounts of random food, floating free of human political machinations, is as good a solution as any to world hunger. A key problem though would be that some places have little wind so not much food would float there for the hungry masses to eat.
-- Aristotle, Nov 07 2003


Those people are fools.
-- Worldgineer, Nov 07 2003


A helium balloon with a seed attached to it lands in the Gobi Desert. How is it going to grow? Are you going to send an accompanying helium balloon with water attached to it to help it grow in such an arrid environment?
-- muzer, Nov 07 2003


I don't think [RJ] is saying all or even most of the seed will grow. Just if it does land somewhere where there is water sun and soil then food plants may grow instead of non-food plants that would have grown there.
-- Worldgineer, Nov 07 2003


// If there is a location where the people are starving, it is usually because something has happened in that area //

Nonsense. If there is such a location, it's because of repelling wind patterns which fail to attract food balloons to that location.
-- phundug, Nov 07 2003


Food Balloons. Brilliant.

[RJ], please consider renaming your idea Food Balloons. Thus saving all of us the embarrassment of having to vote on World Hunger.
-- k_sra, Nov 07 2003


Unpleasant as it is, this is the argument that I've seen people give for globalisation via such sober news agencies as the Guardian and the BBC.

Dealing with world hunger though rich, western democracies means electorates would first have to vote for changes that will make them relatively poorer to the places that are prone to world hunger.
-- Aristotle, Nov 07 2003


//The problem is, there is no cure for Human Greed.//

The cure for Human Greed is genetic modification.

Greed is the natural survival instinct continuing to act when the condition that makes it necessary no longer exists. That is, humans were built for scarcity--the instinct says "get everything you can" because that keeps you alive when things are scarce. It was never designed for abundance, because there never has truly been abundance before--and humans have stopped evolving (for the same reason), so the same "get everything you can" instinct is still plugging away. That's why people are fat, and why, if given the chance, they will hoard more money than they could ever possibly spend.

Somewhere, there are genes and hormones in the human body telling us to gather and store. In order to solve these problems, those genes need to be countered.

Either that or somebody will invent the replicator and eliminate all scarcity, and we'll have to find other things to hoard.
-- darksasami, Nov 07 2003


Very disappointed in this idea: Thought it was new way to promote more and worse World Hunger. Back to the drawing board, (or groaning board)... By golly, how about this idea, since we're talking about ending world hunger through seed dispersion: Put seeds in every form processed through relief agencies. Flowers, corn, vegetables, edible mushroom spores, etc., embedded physically in the stationery for all the paperwork that end-world-hunger charities generate. That way when food-requisition forms are thrown away in refugee camps, they become flower gardens or orchards or potato fields.
-- cloudface, Nov 08 2003


[cloudface]why not just make the forms themselves edible?... Where greed is concerned, guns usually have a pretty good effect. Greed is not natural, it derives itself from hate. Anyway, what the hay, the most wonderful place on the planet was once supposed to be a garden, called Eden. Okay, I'll rename the idea.
-- RJ_I_2, Nov 10 2003


A wonderful idea, but in areas like India where there is too many people and the soil is salty you should include do it your self tips that help them learn to irragate water in a way that flushes the salt out of their soil and makes it usable.
-- twinkletoes1218, Mar 25 2008



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