3
$\begingroup$

In my world , the Pan-Human Empire finally boasts a total area of 10,000,000,000 miles , and a population of 800 billion. They are "only" 200 billion people left to be born until the empire finally reaches its goal of 1 trillion people. Due to this , the government begins to survey land for Allocation to its state run Agricultural sector.

Possibly useful information

  • do to the infinite plane world ( upon which my story occurs ) having a similar sea to land ratio as earth , only 2.5 billion of its total area is actually land

  • 1/3 , or 834 million miles of this land is desert , leaving 1.666 billion miles of non-dessert

  • 1/10 , or 166.6 million miles of This are national parks , leaving 1.5 miles of non-park land

  • 1/20 or 75 million miles of this is urbanized city/town/village land , leaving 1.425 billion miles of farmable land

  • 1/10 or 142.5 million miles of this is either reservation land or privately owned land , leaving 1.2825 billion miles of land that can be used by the government to farm

My Questions are:

A) How much would it take to feed 1 trillion people who eat , stay , 1200 pounds each per year? ( assume that only plants are being grown )

B) Is the available amount of land enough to feed the trillion people?

C) if the amount is not enough , how much more land would the government have to annex to obtain enough land?

Improve this question
$\endgroup$
5
  • $\begingroup$ Actually not that much really. Watch this video: youtube.com/watch?v=XAJeYe-abUA $\endgroup$
    – Thucydides
    Oct 8, 2016 at 15:31
  • 1
    $\begingroup$ @Thucydides thats a 37 minute video! summarise it! $\endgroup$
    – Alex Robinson
    Oct 8, 2016 at 15:50
  • $\begingroup$ @Cursed1701 it is already summarisation of possibilities. Short speaking have energy and technology and U may feed few million people per 1km^3 of volume of food production facility or even more. $\endgroup$
    – MolbOrg
    Oct 8, 2016 at 16:50
  • $\begingroup$ I don't think these are duplicates. Linked one asks for farmland. This one apparently also allows other methods, like aeroponics. Similar, but not duplicates for me. $\endgroup$
    – Mołot
    Dec 5, 2017 at 10:10
  • $\begingroup$ THis question is much too broad. What technology can be applied? Can multi-story industrial greenhouses be employed? What is the impact of fishing and other aquaculture? Is the society predominantly vegitarian? The funny thing about Earth is that no matter how often or how loud people complain about the inability of the planet to sustain our growing population, we keep coming up with ways to do it. $\endgroup$
    – JBH
    Dec 5, 2017 at 14:49

2 Answers 2

Reset to default
5
$\begingroup$

An acre per person is the general guideline, but you might be able to squeeze that to as low as a quarter acre with fertile soil, a good climate, and intensive scientific farming techniques.

There are 640 acres per square mile, so you have 820 billion acres available. That's only a bit less than an acre per person, so I think you'll be fine.

Improve this answer
$\endgroup$
5
$\begingroup$

Using this as a reference: One km3 of aeroponics bays can feed can potentially feed 49,210,000 people on sweet potatoes at 2k calories per person per day, from there its simple mathematics: 1 trillion / 49.2 million = km3 of aeroponics bays needed, which equals 20,321.07 km^3 of aeroponics bays.

But if they don't like sweet potatoes then you have an issue.

Improve this answer
$\endgroup$
8
  • 2
    $\begingroup$ I've always loved the idea of 100 story hydroponic buildings covering an acre of land. Then you grow 100 acres of food on 1 acre of land. Not very practical or cost effective, but still an enjoyable thought. $\endgroup$
    – Tim
    Oct 8, 2016 at 16:31
  • $\begingroup$ Sun only shines on the top floor, so how does that work? $\endgroup$
    – JDługosz
    Oct 8, 2016 at 19:14
  • 3
    $\begingroup$ One sweet potato gives you about 6000 micrograms of vitamin A. Thats great, it is about 5x as much as you need per day, but also its enough to poison you. Have you ever seen a culture that uses sweet potatoes (not Yams, which are different) as a staple food? There aren't any. Thats because if your mom eats three sweet potatoes a day, every day, she'll kill you before you are done breast feeding. $\endgroup$
    – kingledion
    Oct 8, 2016 at 21:47
  • 1
    $\begingroup$ @kingledion i did some basic research, for a male adult of age 17+, they can take 3000 micro grams per day, and a single sweet potato is 368% of what you should get in a day, not your 500%, but still a considerable amount more, so yes it would slowly kill you, but i was thinking about calories rather than diet $\endgroup$
    – Alex Robinson
    Oct 9, 2016 at 18:19
  • $\begingroup$ @JDługosz sorry for late response! you put in a bunch of UV lights on each floor $\endgroup$
    – Alex Robinson
    Mar 28, 2017 at 8:45