Farming the Ocean For Peace

We discussed in the previous post how we can find the solution to the world-hunger problem through finding food resources in the ocean.

The problem is, not many people keep this dream alive by sacrificing their lives to learn the difficult trials to become a fisherman like in the olden days.

 Everyday, the life on the ocean becomes a smaller community as this generation does not choose to have careers as fishermen. 

Those who can conquer the ocean will be the leader in the world.  Those who take advantage of the opportunities to learn about the ocean's resource and incorporate it into their livelihood and business will be the leader in the coming age.

Our Future Is In the Ocean

Americans consume meat every day, some eat meat at every meal.  Yet owning and raising cows and pigs is expensive compared to the price of catching one large tuna which can yield more than $4, 000.  Fishing this way is a more lucrative business than raising cattle.  Another problem other than Americans are less interested in becoming fisherman is that we do not eat a lot of fish as a whole. 

The Japanese, however, are extremely fond of tuna. Back in the 1990s the author of "As a Peace Loving Global Citizen" began to look at options to introduce American's appetite to a more Eastern cuisine and raise money and teach about the hidden treasure of the ocean which can solve many of the world's suffering.

Here is an excerpt from his book that explains how his company brought raw fish to America.

"There were many Japanese living in the United States then, and expensive restaurants operated by Japanese sold raw tuna at a high price. Also, some Americans who were learning to enjoy raw fish enjoyed eating tuna."

The business grew and continues to grow as restaurants high-quality fish and his company is at the top of the suppliers list.
 

"The earth where we live is covered by more ocean than land.  All we needed was one boat, and we could go as far as necessary in order to catch fish. The ocean is filled with things to eat. Also, on the ocean surface, there is an active shipping industry. Ships carry things made in countries all over the world to be sold elsewhere.   When we can love and inherit the oceans, we inherit the future.
 

"We purchased several boats in the United States. These were not he large ships that might be seen in a brochure but boats about thirty-four feet to thirty-eight feet in length. They could pursue tuna with their engines turned off. They were fishing boats about the size of a yacht that would not have major accidents.

"These boats were placed in Washington, San Francisco, Tampa, and Alaska. We also purchased a ship repair facility. We did a lot of our own research. We placed one boat in each region and measured the water temperature. We checked to see how many tuna were caught each day, and placed the data on a chart.

"We didn’t just take data that experts had created previously; our members went into the water themselves to gather the information. The results of studies done by university-based researchers in the area were used as reference."


True World Foods, Good Example
 

While his business continued to grow, he made his company an example of how large industries should work with the environment instead of depleting it.  It is crucial for large companies to soon play a major role in protecting the environment which yields the very product that they sell.
This is another wide-spread issue that has also increased the world's suffering, and not preparing the earth for tomorrow. Here the author explains how his company worked using ethics while serving the purpose of the whole.

"We also developed new fishing grounds. If too many fish are caught in one area, it depletes the fish population. It is important to go to new areas. Within a short time, we had made a major impact on the U.S. fishing industry. We entered the business of catching fish on the open sea.

"Our idea was that one ship would go out to sea and catch fish for at least six months without returning to port. When the ship had all the fish it could carry, a transport ship went out to it, took its fish, and resupplied it with food and fuel. The ship had refrigeration facilities where it could store fish for a long time.

"The name of our ship was New Hope, and it was well known for being able to catch many fish. I took that boat out myself and caught tuna. People were often afraid of getting on boats. When I suggested to young people that they get on a boat, their first reaction was often one of fear. “I get seasick,” I often heard them say. “All I have to do is get on a boat, and I start getting woozy and feel like I’m going to die.

The author continues to tell how he is able to influence others to learn more about fishing and how it is ultimately important for the world's economy and future.

"So I got on the boat myself first. From that day, I went out on the boat almost every day for seven years. Even now, when I am ninety years old, I like to go out on the ocean whenever I have the time. Now, there are more and more young people who say they want to go out on the boats. More women say they want to do this. With any task, if the leader does it first, the people follow. As a result, I have become well known as a tuna fisherman.
 

"It would have been of little use, however, if we had only caught the tuna. We also needed to be able to sell it at the right price. We created a tuna-processing facility, and I even sold the tuna myself. We put the tuna in refrigerated trucks and went out and sold them.

"If selling was difficult, we started our own seafood restaurants and sold the tuna directly to consumers. Once we had our own restaurants, people could not ignore us. The United States has three of the world’s four largest fishing grounds.
"The longer a person spends on the ocean, the greater the spiritual aspect of his life will become.  The ocean, can be calm and serene one minute and the next moment change its face and send strong waves."
 
The reality is, the fishing industry is an extremely dangerous occupation.  Deep sea fisherman such as Rev. Moon have been featured on many reality shows and documentaries about the dangers and the excitement enticed through fishing in the depths of the oceans.

Here is one last excerpt to how Rev. Moon overcame this fear and how others can overcome their fear of the ocean and bring about a new age centered on the ocean's resources.


"Waves several times the height of a person will rise up above the boat, as if to devour it. A strong wind will tear at the sail and make a fearful sound. Think of this, though. Even when the waves have risen and a fearful wind is blowing, the fish in the water have no trouble sleeping. They give themselves over to the waves and don’t resist them.

"This is what I learned from the fish. I decided not to be afraid, no matter how strong the waves were. I let the waves carry me. I made myself one with the boat, and we rose with the waves.

"Once I started doing that, my heart was never shaken, no matter what kind of waves I came up against. The ocean has been such a wonderful teacher for me in my life that I created the Ocean Challenge program to give young people the leadership training the ocean provides.training the ocean provides."

Not only does the ocean solve the world food crisis, it can also solve the world's rising economic problem that makes people dependant on the government for their livelihood. 

To learn further about the Ocean Challenge program and how it  teaches leadership abilities by introducing all facets and challenges of the ocean.  This program is just the beginning of preparing the next generation for the new era about to take place centered on ocean activities, and take advantage of the exciting age we are now entering.

To learn more about the Ocean Challenge Program you can visit here and view the introductory video:  Ocean Challenge.


Return for tomorrow's post:  Can't Conquer Space Until Conquer Ocean


Photos courtesy of: freedigitalphotos.net


Note:

Today's text came from the textbook As a Peace Loving Global Citizen,     Chapter  "Our Future Lies With the Ocean" which is based on Dr. Rev.  Sun Myung Moon.

World Peace Waits As Long As Hunger Exist

We have all have been bombarded with several images of starving children and homelessness in our own communities and through media. 

We as a people feel helpless to put an end to the problem. Even when we contribute just a little from our pockets, we yearn to be able to end that person's suffering from hunger forever. 

 

Humanity has long believed that the suffering that we encounter in the world today is eternally going to plague the earth for a thousand years more.  Even Jesus had said this when others complained that the expensive oil the woman used for his feet should had been sold to give money to the poor.  

 

 

Jesus Said There Would Always Be the Hungry

 

Jesus reminded the people that they would always have the poor and hungry but people were blessed with him for just a short time.

 

He didn't mean forever and  that this was earth's destination.  He was only speaking within the context of his disciple's generation.  There is going to be an end to suffering, God unequivocally created us to live in the ideal of heaven.  He plans to bring that to fruition while planting the seeds of victory on this earth as well. 

 

We discussed why history repeats itself because God blesses a chosen nation, a chosen people based on a central figure in order to bring about his ideal.  When those foundations failed to fulfill the providence to restore man through many kings and saints, God had to find a new nation, people and central person through which to work. 

 

Therefore, the only reason that history has repeated itself is for God to complete the mission of restoring you and me back to our original positions before Adam and Eve had fallen away from God's dominion.

 

This means, God wants to bring us to an ideal world of peace.

 

As long as our brothers and sisters struggle with the shortage of food, the world will not see peace.


If You Are Never Hungry, You Cannot Know God

The important point is that we should have concern for our neighbors. Every time we fill our own stomachs during a meal, we should develop a heart that we think of others who are going hungry and consider how we will help them.

True peace will not come as long as humanity does not solve the problem of hunger. If the person next to me is about to die of hunger, peace is a mere luxury.

If God is working desperately behind the scenes to bring about His original ideal of peace through thousands and the scientific millions of years of history, one should suppose that He is in dire pain from watching His children suffer.

If a human man suffers at the sight of his child's pain, shouldn't we think the ultimate God would feel even greater pain when He watches you and I suffer?

The times when you are hungry are opportunities to be nearest to God. When we are hungry and are able to look humbly at each approaching person as if he or she were our close family member and want to help him or her, then we are more likely to be fed.

 

In these situations, it is important to maintain a sympathetic heart of goodness.  Hunger is not an issue relegated to less-developed areas of the world.  No one is meant to be raised in poverty.  Even in the United States, which enjoys one of the highest standards of living in the world, has people who are undernourished and hungry.

The situation in impoverished countries is unspeakably worse.  We can see that securing sufficient food supplies is the most pressing problem. Solving the food crisis cannot be put off for even a moment.

Even now, some twenty thousand people around the world die of hunger-related causes every day. We cannot afford to ignore their situation just because we and our immediate families are not facing hunger.

Simply distributing food supplies by itself will never resolve hunger. A more fundamental approach to the problem is needed. The author of these textbooks on this blog, Rev. Sun Myung Moon, said he was a peace-loving global citizen and considers two fundamental and concrete methods to solve world hunger.

The first is to provide ample supplies of food at low cost, and the second is to share technology that poorer soieties can use to overcome hunger on their own.  The issue of food will present humankind with a very serious crisis in the future. We cannot build a world of peace without first resolving the food crisis.  However much food is neeeded, there is only so much sufficient land for farming.  This cannot immediately be enough to supply food for the current world's population indefintely.


How Do We Solve Problem of Hunger?


The world's oceans hold the key to solving the food crisis of the future.  This makes sense because when we look at the world, there is more ocean than there will ever be land to process food.  All of ancient civilizations prospered from living near the ocean.

In Alaska, pollack smaller than fifteen inches long are used for fertilizer.  They would make wonderful food, but people don’t know how to prepare them so they use them just for fertilizer.

As recently as twenty or thirty years ago, Westerners would give the tail of an ox and let Asians have it for free. Koreans are very fond of food prepared with the bones, or the intestines of cows, but some Westerners, especially Americans, do not know that these are edible.

When I lived In Los Angeles and recently went back last year, I went to a Korean restaurant where the customer cooks from plates stacked full of meat. 

This is delicious and the highest quality meat I have ever tasted.  Then afterward, to  hear what part of the animal from which it came, such as the cow's intestines, I did not care because it tasted very delicious.  My own family cooks pig's intestine and I would never go near it, it is all in the quality and preparation.  They use every bit of the animal in Eastern civilizations.  Every bit!

The same is true with fish. About 20 percent of the world’s fish catch is thrown out. Whenever we see this, we should think of the people who are dying of hunger, and feel pain. Fish is a much more reliable source of protein than beef.

I know many Americans who cannot even stand to go into the fish markets, it is a horrible smell, let alone eat raw fish.  I am a southerner, we eat fish of all kinds.  We have ponds and lakes everywhere and we fish for dinner all of the time for recreation. 

If starving countries can incorporate fish cakes or fish sausage and give it to the impoverished people this would be wonderful.  Here is a direct excerpt from the autobiography:
 

"Once this thought came to me," stated Rev. Moon in his book, "I started projects to process and store large volumes of fish. It does not do any good to catch large amounts of fish if you cannot handle them properly after the catch.

"Even the best fish cannot be kept well for more than eight months. Even if they are frozen, and placed in refrigeration, air gets in through cracks in the ice, and water escapes. You could pour water on the fish and freeze them again, but by then the best flavor is already gone and the fish might as well be thrown out.

"We gathered fish that were being thrown out and researched how to turn it into fish powder. We sought to do something that even advanced countries like France and Germany have not done. Fish turned into powder could be transported and stored easily, even in hot and humid climates.

"Fish powder is 98-percent protein, among the very highest protein content of all food products. For this reason it can be used to save people from dying of hunger. Fish powder could also be used to

make bread. We are still searching for ways to make it available to impoverished countries around the world."

The ocean is the solution to the world's food "shortage" problem. 

One problem facing this solution is that the days of the fisherman going out to sea for six months at a time leaving behind their life and fighting the strong currents is decreasing in the Western civilization as youngsters choose a different career path on land.

The oceans contain limitless food supplies, but the best method for saving humanity's crisis is through fish farming.  Reverend Moon excerpt from his autobiography envisions how a world of peace will be once we tap more into the ocean's resources:

"I foresee that there will be buildings, similar to the skyscrapers we see in our cities today, devoted to fish farming. By using water pipe systems, we can farm fish in tall buildings or even on the tops of mountains.

"With fish farming we can produce more than enough food to feed all the world’s people.  The ocean is a blessing bequeathed to us by God. When I go out on the ocean, I am completely absorbed in fishing.

"I have caught all kinds of fish in different countries. One reason I fish is so I can teach people who don’t know how to fish. In South America I spent several months showing local people my fishing methods.

"I took in tangled fishnets myself and spent three or four hours showing them how to untangle them. To secure adequate supplies of food at a low cost, humankind will need to develop the ocean. This and the great grasslands that are still in their prehistoric state are our final storehouses of wealth."

This is definitely a tough task as more of the younger generation lose the tradition and interest of preserving the environment and catching food on their own.  It requires mounds of work and selflessness by going to places that are extremely hot and humid while keeping up the strong dedication to bring food resources to an area.

Developing the grasslands in tropical regions cannot be done without a love for humankind.

Jardim, in Brazil, is just such a place and is part of the the "Seven Epic Snorkeling Spots Around the World".  Tourist snorkeling in Jardim waters gives the feeling of flying.

On the other hand, it is quite a difficult place to live. The weather is hot, and bugs that have not even been named yet are continuously biting.   Reverend Moon explains more in his book how his visit went, and describes Jardim's people in detail:


"I lived in that place and made friends with all its various creatures. I walked around barefooted, feeling the red soil of Jardim beneath my feet, looking just like a peasant farmer. When I was at the river catching fish, I looked like the local fishermen.

"It is only when the local people look at you and say, “You really are a farmer,” or “You really are a fisherman,” that you are qualified to receive their knowledge and share your own knowledge with them. It is not something that can be done by someone who needs to sleep eight hours a night in a clean and comfortable bed, eat three square meals a day, and take naps under a shady tree.

"When we were developing a project in Paraguay, a group of our members and I were living in a small hut in Olimpo. There was only one toilet, and each morning we had to take turns using it. I would get up each morning at three o’clock, do some exercises, and then go fishing.

"Because of this, the members who were with me went through some very difficult times. It was usual for them to be cutting bait early in the morning before they were completely awake. When we took the boat out, we had to cross through a number of other properties in order to reach the mooring site.

"Unlocking the gates to these properties in pitch darkness was difficult. One morning when the members were fumbling with a lock, unable to open it, I yelled at them, “What are you doing?!” I shouted so loudly and fiercely that I surprised even myself, so I am sure it must have been difficult for them. 

"But I feel that I cannot afford to waste so much as a single second. I don’t have any time to be idly standing around. I can clearly see a list of all the things I must accomplish before there can be a world of peace, so my heart is always in a hurry.

"When I fished there on the river before dawn, the mosquitoes would swarm like a dark cloud. Their stingers were so sharp they would pierce right through a pair of jeans. In the predawn darkness we could not see the floats on our fishing lines, so we had to attach white plastic bags to them.

"I could not wait for the sun to come up. I was in too much of a hurry. I still miss Jardim. I miss everything about it. When I close my eyes, I can still feel the heat of the Jardim air pressing against my face. The minor inconveniences to my body were nothing. Bodily suffering passes quickly. What is important is that this place can one day play a significant role in serving the world. Being in Jardim brought great  happiness to my heart."

It takes a lot of sacrifice for each of us if we want to help our global brothers and sisters.  Let's be honest, this is work that we don't have time, patience or ethic to even achieve.  But, it will be done in our generation.

Our selfishness in America to obtain the cheapest products, and abusing resources of underdeveloped nations for our own interest is not going to last forever and is crushing the world and it will soon crush our own.  Soon, it will also be in America's interest to be a team player in the global situation, because we ourselves will need rescuing as well. 

Hopefully, we will continue to support other countries instead of the latest trends to leave countries when they need us most. 

Will World history repeats itself?  It happened before in every developed society that lived for itself.  Why should America be any different? 

Hopefully, we will begin to work again what founded this country and that is to truly live with God as the center and help our brother and sister nations, and truly live God's dream and bring about His ideal world of creation He had a billion years ago. 

photos courtesy of: freedigitalphotos.net


Return tomorrow for: Solution To End Hunger Brings Peace

Note:  The text today came from "A Peace Loving Global Citizen" Chapter 7 "The Solution to Poverty and Hunger" which was taken from the author of the 8 great seminary textbooks Dr. Reverend Sun Myung Moon.  To learn more about his Unification Movement, please visit www.familyfed.org.