What Do You Perceive as the Pros and Cons?

The only con I can think of at the moment is that they're talking about using standard farming equipment, and, every one knows that machinery corrodes much more quickly in salt water. Probably easy to overcome but will add more expense.

I wonder how much it would cost to implement this in large parts of western Sahara. You only need a pipeline to syphon water from the Atlantic to a below sea level reservoir; then use wind mills to "irrigate" the land.

If implemented on a huge scale, this would have the added advantage of evaporating water to form clouds to drift across the rest of the Sahara.

Selling the roots for carbon credits?

They are good at selling the Pros in the video, not surprising.

The major Con will be, "Can you make money (without taxpayer paid subsidies or government mandated consumption)?"

That's a good point. The salt has to go somewhere, it doesn't evaporate, and the part that we don't eat stays there. I think that it would accumulate in less time than a human lifetime.

Maybe salt raking will come back.

We have seen that in South Africa where a thriving tobacco farming industry was destroyed due to soil salinity increase due to mining activities that added salinity to the irrigation water.

Maybe I misunderstood the plan, but I thought the water was let in and out at high and low tides...that would facilitate a breathing effect, it's true that the salinity would increase slightly during the expiration phase of the water returning to the sea, but that would be negligible it seems to me...all that being said it seems like one of those plans that turns out to have a fatal flaw that should have seemed obvious at the beginning..

For one thing they make no mention of shrimp or oyster farming, which seems like an obvious choice over mangrove and whatever those plants they were hoping to develop a market for, this is a big unknown it seems to me, and selling carbon credits sounds like a scam...So while it sounds good in the sales pitch, the jury is still out...a little deeper dive into all the facts is needed before any opinion can be considered....I didn't see any actual product being sold, or any financials being disclosed, no endorsements by famous do-gooders...Doesn't inspire confidence...

A possible con is that people will have to develop new eating habits--new likes and dislikes. With global warming, and politicians' lack of enthusiasm to fix it, this deserves more research including the cons so we can see what the balance is; that is, a profit/loss calculation by knowledgeable folks. We have only one side so far.

A unique idea. It would stop the oceans from rising because the tide is not allowed to return to the ocean. The mangrove trees look like a good solution to storm surge. The con is the tremendous amount of work to get an area ready for farming. Government subsidies means that you are paying for it.

I'm not so sure it would "stop the oceans from rising," but it would be helpful to have salt-tolerant plants near the shore where there will likely be more swampy areas.

Changing the topic a bit: It would be nice to have salt-tolerant vegetation down-hill and down-wind of our many roads that may be heavily salted in the winter.

Big con. Destroys the land for all time for any useful form of food production.

We used to have a nursey and any water with a conductivity maximum of 1000uS would build up and eventually destroy the soil. Looks like it is to make a fast buck from subsidies, still could feed livestock the salty plants and have pickled pork, corned beef right off the hoof/trotters

Salt marshes are naturally occurring around the world. It takes many generations for then to build up enough soil layers to be useful for farming crops, but the grasses which develop there are suitable for animal grazing long before that.

It may be a useful way to reduce erosion and far less costly than huge concrete walls.

A good number of cereal crops exhibit salt tolerance, so could be planted further inland than those talked about in the video once the farm is well established.

Bays on the pacific ocean near me do not have a problem with salt in the dirt near the salt water. There are plenty of farms up and down the coast starting at the top of the beach. Bays/Sloughs are similar to what is being done here. Don't have a clue as to the soil types in each location.

Also, plenty of rain here to wash it out.

Without rain salt diffusion in the soil could be a real problem.

I went thru the video again. I think they misname their "ecosystem". Its just a fancy farm.

The positive that I see here are the forward thinking,but the negatives are it is not presently practical or profitable to implement.Most businesses will buy anything if they can show a five year ROI,so if is profitable,it will be done.

A better solution will be to bio engineer common crops to tolerate salt water.Imagine if all crops could tolerate salt water?Genes from seaweed,algae,etc.spliced into or replacing existing genes?

With bio engineering it may one day be possible to grow rice,wheat and corn with salt water.Perhaps mammals could also be modified to be able to drink salt water.Even humans,perhaps.

A better solution will be to bio engineer common crops to tolerate salt water.Imagine if all crops could tolerate salt water?

I suspect it would be easier/cheaper for us/mammals to learn to like the plants that are tolerant of salt water. Following could be bio engineering to get some of our standard eatable plants to grow in salt water.

Why not raise shrimp and fish?