Salty Sam’s Fun Blog for Children
Number 325
Sea Farming
Hello Everyone
Did you know that about 70% of the Earth’s surface is water?
You probably do, because l am sure l have mentioned it before.
That means that only about a third of the planet, actually less than that even, is land, and then about a third of that land is desert, which of course includes Antartica, and land like this isn’t much good for farming.
The world’s population is burgeoning (growing fast) and a lot of countries in the developed world and developing world are committed to ending hunger and poverty.
lt is hardly surprising then, that people are viewing the sea as an area where there are opportunities for farming.
ln fact in some areas, fish stocks are so depleted that if humans don’t start working on responsible ways of managing the sea, it will be in big trouble.
There are different ways of farming in sea water.
You can farm little creatures like shrimp and crabs in man-made ponds or indoor tanks. Most ponds are created on mud flats or in mangroves. The ponds are fed with water from the tide or by pumps which help to oxygenate the water, and fences are set up to stop the crabs running away. (Although there is concern that shrimp farms can release carbon dioxide from disturbed sediment.)
You can put large cages or tunnels in the sea to farm fish and shellfish. They can be made of metal or cane or bamboo.
And you can float rafts or ropes in the sea from which you can hang lines. Shellfish will be attached to these lines and left to grow.
lt looks as if they are in a queue waiting to be collected.
lt is very easy for fishermen to come along on a boat and just pull the lines up out of the water to take the harvest. The kinds of shellfish that are often farmed like this are oysters, clams, scallops and abalone.
Sometimes seaweed is farmed like this too. Around the British lles there is kelp farming. Kelp is an enormous type of seaweed that usually anchors itself onto rocks or the legs of jetties and piers.
lt grows quickly and is very nutritious. lt can be used as food or turned into tablets to be sold in health food shops.
The farmers can even take spores from the weed and start growing their own plants to be set out in the sea later.
ln some places, mussels are farmed on the beach. Small mussels are brought in from the seabed and left to grow plump in places that are accessible at low tide.
They are then raked off the beach about 18 months later as a winter harvest from the sea.
There are also schemes called stock enhancement.
This means that baby sea creatures are grown in laboratories in very high numbers. These babies, when small, would be very liable to be eaten by other sea creatures out in the sea.
ln the laboratory they are kept safe until they are a good size and then they are released into the wild.
A good example of this would be when a lobster’s eggs are taken and developed.
One lobster will produce many hundreds of eggs. These are taken and hatched. The tiny lobsters are kept in separate cubicles almost like ice cube tray compartments.
Eventually, they are taken down to the beach and released into the rock pools where they will look after themselves.
The law says that fishermen are not allowed to take some creatures if they are too small and so they will be left to grow into full-sized lobsters.
These kinds of schemes have been introduced for other species like shrimp and abalone but the people doing it have to make sure that the balance of the food chain in the sea is not disrupted so much that it causes disastrous results.
The choice of a particular sea farming system will depend on the natural conditions already available and also how much funding (money) is available to the fishermen.
Education is also necessary to ensure the local population can understand how to sustain their livelihoods long term. There can be a danger to the shoreline and mangrove swamps if they are over-farmed and storms can cause damage to lines and cages.
Sea farms are such a good idea because if organised properly there will always be food to be taken, and money to be earned but no pollution to the environment.
At first, creatures were taken from the sea to stock these farms. Some did not do well when confined to ponds and tanks and so nowadays creatures are bred especially from farmed stock. lt is exactly what happened when people first started to breed farm animals on land.
Sometimes, artificial reefs are constructed. These create homes for sea creatures and give them shelter from predators and strong sea currents. Once established, the creatures can breed and increase their numbers. This is called habitat improvement.
Of course, monitoring the seas for pollution is also important and in recent times the amounts of plastic rubbish and micro plastics in the seas has been a cause for great concern. You have probably seen this on the news. Tiny particles of plastic wash into the sea and are eaten by plankton. The plankton is eaten by larger creatures and so the plastic enters the food chain and will eventually be eaten by humans and their pets.
Saving the seas is not enough. Jobs and having enough food is important too.
Billions of people rely on the sea to provide them with food or an income.
Continuous monitoring of the environment and testing of new equipment is important while this industry is growing. lt will probably make a huge impact on future food stocks. lt seems that sea farming will continue to grow enormously.
All of this means that people are becoming farmers of the sea rather than hunters in the sea.
There is a special term for this. lt is called the blue-green economy.
The coastlines used for farming can be greatly impacted if great care is not taken.
People are beginning to understand that the seas are not endless dumping grounds or a supply of an infinite amount of food. We can’t see into them as easily as we can look across the land, but we are beginning to understand that they need as much care giving to them as the land does.
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And see you again next Fun Friday!
Love and kisses
Salty Sam
www.christina-sinclair.com
Bill and Bob’s Joke of the Week
Bill: A man walks in to see a doctor and says, “Doctor, doctor, l keep thinking that l am a snooker ball.
Bob: So what did the doctor say?
Bill: He said, “Well, l am sorry, but you will just have to go to the end of the cue!”
Salty Sam © Christina Sinclair 2015
Unauthorized use and/or duplication of material from this blog without express and written permission from this blog’s author and owner is strictly prohibited.
Links may be used to www.christina-sinclair.com
Picture Gallery
Seaweed farming
Oyster farm
Freshwater clam farming
THE SALTY SAM NEWS DESK
Auntie Alice’s bee hives are doing well. The bees are coming in and out of them all day long and they are fascinating to watch.
There are lots of flowers in Auntie Alice’s large garden for the bees to feed from but Auntie Alice is very keen to make sure that they really do have plenty to eat and so she had been planning for some while to plant a lavender hedge along side one of her paths.
There was quite a lot of ground to fill up with plants so she thought ahead and made her own by making them from cuttings. Plants made from cuttings are free!
You only have to provide the pots and compost.
If you use yoghurt pots, you won’t have to buy plant pots either.
There were lines and lines of pots, all with little plants in them, taking up a lot of space in the greenhouse.
The children all came round to help her plant the hedge.
Lots of children can achieve mighty tasks when they put their mind to it.
This is why children have long school holidays in the summer. In the past, the children would be needed to help gather in harvests. Not just grain crops like corn, but fruit as well.
Nowadays, if you want to pick all the apples off a tree there is a big machine that does it for you in just a couple of seconds. It has a big arm that grabs the tree, shakes it vigorously without breaking it and all the apples fall down and hit the ground in a sudden red or yellow shower!
In the past farming was very labour intensive. Everyone would help in the fields and that included children. They had to give up school for a while to help with food production.
Auntie Alice’s hedge is tiny and sparse at the moment but as time goes on it will grow and thicken out.
The bees will love feeding from it when the flowers come.
It will be buzzing with activity.
And then the children went off to play.
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Quick Quiz
Can you un-jumble these words to find the names of well-known islands?
- srejey
- lamat
- srucpy
- asidira
- calarmol
- clisiy
- terec
lt’s the Weekend!
HOW TO MAKE A KNlTTED LAVENDER DOLL
This little doll is very cute.
The doll in the photograph has white hair because the colour went well with lavender and pink. But you can give your doll any colour hair you like.
You can make the doll to hang in your wardrobe or sit in your drawer or you can just play with her.
LAVENDER DOLL FRONT (KNIT ONE)
Using 4mm knitting needles and dark mauve yarn cast on 15 stitches
Sl1 (knit 1, purl 1) repeat these last 2 stitches until the end of the row
Sl1 (purl 1, knit 1) repeat these last 2 stitches until the end of the row
Sl1 (purl 1, knit 1) repeat these last 2 stitches until the end of the row
Sl1 (knit 1, purl 1) repeat these last 2 stitches until the end of the row
Repeat these last 4 rows 4 times
Continue working in stocking stitch
Decrease 1 stitch at the beginning of each of the next 2 rows (13 sts)
Change to white dk yarn
Decrease 1 stitch at the beginning of each of the next 2 rows (11 sts)
Knit 6 rows of stocking stitch
Change to pink dk yarn
Knit 6 rows of stocking stitch
Change to white
Knit 2 rows of stocking stitch
LAVENDER DOLL BACK (KNIT ONE)
Using 4mm knitting needles and dark mauve yarn cast on 15 stitches
Sl1 (knit 1, purl 1) repeat these last 2 stitches until the end of the row
Sl1 (purl 1, knit 1) repeat these last 2 stitches until the end of the row
Sl1 (purl 1, knit 1) repeat these last 2 stitches until the end of the row
Sl1 (knit 1, purl 1) repeat these last 2 stitches until the end of the row
Repeat these last 4 rows 4 times
Continue working in stocking stitch
Decrease 1 stitch at the beginning of each of the next 2 rows (13 sts)
Change to white dk yarn
Decrease 1 stitch at the beginning of each of the next 2 rows (11 sts)
Knit 6 rows of stocking stitch
Change to pink dk yarn
Knit 2 rows of stocking stitch
Change to white
Knit 6 rows of stocking stitch
LAVENDER DOLL ARMS (KNIT TWO)
Using 4mm knitting needles and white dk yarn cast on 8 stitches
Knit 6 rows of stocking stitch
Change to pink dk yarn
Knit 2 rows of stocking stitch
Don’t cast off
Cut off the yarn leaving a length of about 10-15cm and thread this through the stitches on your needle and pull the knitting needle away
LAVENDER DOLL BUN (KNIT ONE)
Using 4mm knitting needles and white dk yarn cast on 10 stitches
Cast off
Curl the knitting around into a spiral
Sew across with yarn in a knitter’s needle in different directions until you have a solid disc
LAVENDER DOLL SHAWL (KNIT ONE)
Using 4mm knitting needles and light mauve yarn cast on 21 stitches
Knit 1 row
Knit 1 row
Continue knitting in garter stitch decreasing one stitch at the beginning of each row until 1 stitch remains and then cast off.
Sew the front of the shawl together so that it will be able to slip over the doll’s head and then embroider a French knot on to the top of the join in white yarn by wrapping the yarn around a knitter’s needle 5 times.
Then put one stitch into the centre of the French knot using a deep purple yarn.
This will create a ‘brooch’ with a ‘jewel’ in the centre to hold the shawl together.
TO MAKE UP
- Sew up the side seams of the body, skirt and head right sides together using over-sew stitching and matching all the colours up
- Turn the body and head the right way out
- Pull the top of the head shut and stuff the head, body and skirt (you may need to put a couple of extra stitches in the top of the head in the same colour yarn as the hair to close up the little hole)
- Sew a strand of white yarn into the back of the neck and wrap it around the neck a couple of times, pull tight and secure the yarn into the centre back of the neck
- Insert a sachet of dried lavender flowers into the skirt
- Sew up the bottom seam of the skirt wrong sides together using over-sew stitching
- Embroider a face onto the front of the head using one strand of black yarn (you can pull double knitting yarn apart to get thinner strands)
- Sew along the under arm seams using over-sew stitching right sides together and turn the arms the right way out
- Tightly bind the wrists twice around with pink yarn
- Stuff the arms with the ends of the yarn left over from the knitting and a little stuffing as well if required
- Sew the arms securely to the sides of the body so that they point forward
- Sew the bun to the back of the neck
- Thread a length of yarn around the body at the top of the skirt weaving it through the knitting and then pull it tight into a bow at the front to create a waist
- Pull the shawl into place
Please note that the material on this blog is for personal use and for use in classrooms only.
It is a copyright infringement and, therefore, illegal under international law to sell items made with these patterns.
Use of the toys and projects is at your own risk.
©Christina Sinclair Designs 2015
Quick Quiz Answers
- Jersey
- Malta
- Cyprus
- Sardinia
- Mallorca
- Sicily
- Crete
Crete
