Aquaponics and the Wonderful Worm

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This past Friday Joanne (a fabulous lady who works part time on projects with us) and I spent an hour and a half picking through 75 liters of Hydroton that was in the last of the AquaBundance grow beds on our deck.  This was the second grow bed from our two-bed AquaBundance system development project and it was not going to make it into the greenhouse for the winter because of space constraints.  The Hydroton was going to be stored outside for the winter.  What were we digging for?  In part we were removing roots that had been left behind.  But mostly we were rescuing worms.

Worms are an incredible asset to any media based aquaponics system.  Watch below and our friend Murray Hallam shows off the worms in his grow beds during a video shoot…

They break down the solid waste from the fish, and excess roots and other materials that plants slough off, and make them more bio-available to the plants through their excrement: vermicompost.  This additional metabolic layer in media based systems is what allow media growers to avoid both the requirement to filter out solid waste AND the requirement to frequently clean out their grow beds.  A 12” (300 mm) deep grow bed with a healthy population of worms will probably only need to be cleaned out every five years or so, if then.Vermicompost, and the “tea” that results from soaking vermicompost in highly oxygenated water (the exact condition found in an aquaponics ebb and flow grow bed), have been studied extensively by the Soil Ecology Lab at Ohio State University.  Their studies have concluded that vermicompost and the corresponding “tea” are tremendously beneficial because they: Suppress plant disease including Pythium, Rhizoctonia, Plectosporium, and VerticilliumSuppress plant parasitic nematodeSuppress plant insect pests,  including tomato hornworms, mealy bugs, spider mites and aphidsBesides helping battle plant diseases, worms have also been shown to mitigate pathogens that affect humans.  An April 15, 2010 article in the Journal of Environmental Protection titled “Earthworms: Charles Darwin’s ‘Unheralded Soldiers of Mankind” stated “The earthworms also release coelomic fluids that have anti-bacterial properties that destroy all pathogens in the waste biomass [13]. They produce ‘antibiotics’ that kill the pathogenic organisms in the waste and soil where they inhabit and render it virtually sterile. It was reported that the removal of pathogens, faecal coliforms (E. coli), Salmonella spp., enteric viruses and helminth ova from sewage and sludge appear to be much more rapid when they are processed by E. fetida. Of all E. coli and Salmonella are greatly reduced [14].”

Because fish are cold blooded creatures, their waste cannot contain E. coli – that is reserved for warm-blooded creatures only.  In fact, the only way that these pathogens can be present in your aquaponics system is if they are introduced from an external source.  In a recently issued, drama-filled newsletter, an aquaponics company that specializes in DWC (raft-based) growing and training associated the introduction of worms to a media bed with the introduction of compost that may contain un-decomposed manure which might contain E. coli.  “If you introduce compost and/or worms into your aquaponics system, you run the risk of bringing in dangerous or deadly varieties of E. coli such as H0157, 11 of which can kill an otherwise healthy adult human.”

This was followed by “The REAL problem with incorporating worms that may have been in manure and may carry E. coli with them is the very real possibility that your produce (contaminated with E. coli  H0157 from the compost and/or worms you added to your aquaponics system) kills someone who eats it uncooked.”

Dramatic indeed!  Of course you should exercise common sense with the introduction of anything into your aquaponic system, whether that be a pest control spray (even if it is “organic”), new fish (quarantine first!), or a new source of water or media. Introducing manure from warm blooded animals into your aquaponics system would be dangerous and quite foolish. The irony here is that worms are perhaps one of your best chances of dealing with any harmful pathogen that has been introduced to your system!

In addition, I was told by our worm supplier that most responsible vermiculturalists rinse their worms at least twice after removing them from their (USDA certified organic) compost home, and then they use peat moss to ship them.  He said that it doesn’t even make sense to ship worms in compost because compost gives off heat and high heat is the biggest risk when shipping worms.  Click here to check out our worms.

That said, if you buy your worms from a less-than-professional source, like Craig’s List, or you harvest them from your own compost pile, you should clean the worms of anything sticking to them before introducing them to your aquaponics system.  A member of the Aquaponic Gardening Community named Converse, who happens to run a commercial redworm farm, offers this advice – “Care needs to be used that when redworms are introduced to an aquaponics system so that they are not carrying any matter sticking to their skin (such as animal manures or rotten veggie matter) that might be harboring bad bacteria.  Only after it passes through the gut of the redworm would this be completely safe…So if your redworms are introduced along with a handful of matter that does not get consumed by them, you have in effect just possibly contaminated your aquaponic system.   So you need to be sure that redworms that are introduced are not plopped in the aquaponic medium with any of the bedding they were living in.  Better yet, purge their systems (guts) by putting them in wetted down corn meal for 24 hours ( okay, be sure it is not e-Coli harboring corn meal – or use oatmeal or cream of wheat wetted down).  Then wash off the redworms, and introduce them into the aquaponics system.”

So, let me net this all out for you.  While you should understand where your worms came from, what they were shipped in, and/or how they were cleaned before entering your aquaponics system, don’t let that deter you from adding worms to your system!  They are another valuable waste conversion machine, freeing up precious nutrients for your plants.  They mitigate the need for frequently cleaning your beds. They help manage plant disease and harmful insects and nematodes, and they work to help render pathogens harmless.  They are indeed aquaponics secret ingredient!

Enjoyed this post? Here are some others you might like:

12 Ways Aquaponics Differs From HydroponicsAquaponics How-To Guide Part 1: Why Aquaponics and What Type of System?Plant Nutrient Management in an Aquaponics SystemAquaponics Grow Bed DepthStarting Plants In, and For, Aquaponic Systems

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Execution of a commercial Aquaponics system (video) - tree hugger

EcoFilms Australia/video screen-capture

Then we for the first time on the urban food revolution known as Aquaponics published, we have all types of systems for growing fish and vegetables in a symbiotic relationship seen. A few, such as the proposed urban aquaculture Center
and friendly Aquaponics farm in Hawaii, commercial operation. But the most practising seem more focused on small, backyard of Aquaponics than anything else.

However, there are those who work to market the idea. And, to the video below at least, the experience of the small backyard systems is crucial for the development of a larger, commercial operation.

Conversation with Gina Cavaliero of green acres Organics, Aquaponics experts studied Murray Hallam only what it takes to become a viable Aquaponics to create companies. Start small and get out to aim for your errors for lower fish density and concentration on vegetables, there here some important tidbits.

I would love to hear from someone, is to practice commercial aquaculture.

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Grow Your Own Plants In A Hydroponic System

Do consider which we cannot grow plants solely in soil? If yes, afterwards we should consider again as essentially we can grow your plants though any soil. Growing plants though dirt is called hydroponics. Imagine which we have the complement possibly inside your home or the bigger the single which capacitate we to grow plants faster, easier, healthier as well as all this with no dirt during all. All we need to grow plants regulating hydroponics is the resolution which consists of H2O as well as special nutrients for any sort of devise as well as the complement which enclose this resolution as well as the plants we wish to grow.

There have been opposite sorts of hydroponic techniques similar to the aeration technique, aeroponics as well as the nutritious movie technique. In aeroponics we need to anchor the plants in the sure in sequence to be means to request the resolution we have rebuilt to the roots possibly without delay or by spraying it in the form of air obscurity upon the roots.

In hydroponics we need the media to grow the plants on. The purpose of the media is to keep the resolution for the little time as well as be means to await the plant to have hit in between the roots as well as the solution. There have been opposite media for hydroponics which we can select from. Some of these media have been sand, Styrofoam, rockwool as well as others.

You can grow most sorts of plants regulating hydroponics, though of march the renouned sorts which people grow with hydroponics have been the sorts which they can sell. Many growers similar to to operate this complement to grow tomatoes, spices as well as most seedlings which they can sell or medical operation to be grown in soil.

You can consider of the great benefits of hydroponics. You can grow vegetables indoors as well as eat uninformed vegetables. You do not need the vast space containing dirt to grow plants. Hydroponics gives we the possibility to grow your crops roughly everywhere from your patio to really large greenhouses. Also consider of the full of health part, flourishing crops in dirt can have them reduction full of health as well as we will need to mislay weeds.

If we attempted to grow in the space of dirt as well as in an next to space of hydroponic resolution we will be means to grow some-more plants in the resolution space as well as we will be means to collect earlier. Have we seen any one who chuck the seeds in the dirt as well as do zero to the plants compartment the collect time? Well, this is probable with hydroponic systems as we can operate record to automate all in your complement as well as do roughly zero compartment the collect time.

You might consider which this is the difficult technique, it might be in the commencement as all else. By time we will get used to all which need to be finished as well as if we chose to automate your complement your work will be marked down really much. So what prevents we from perplexing this fun, quick as well as healthier approach of flourishing crops? Just consider of the benefits as well as find the great beam to assistance we step by step as well as try this engaging technique.

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Flowering Shrubs And Their Important Characteristics

Catesbaea spinosa

Origin as good as Distribution. Catesbaea spinosa is the local of the West Indies though is spasmodic grown via the plains in India.

General Description. This is the plant not grown for any conspicuous elaborate worth though for the accumulation it introduces in the garden. It is troublesome as good as produces leaves that with their tiny size, glossy surface, ideally ovate figure as good as really reduced stalks benefaction the sold appearance. It is rsther than the slow-growing shrub, though is audacious as good as attains the tallness of 1.3 to P5 meters. Even some-more sold is the form of the flowers, their corolla combining the tube. The petals have been creamy-white, kaleidoscopic with red.

CLERODENDRUM SQUAMATUM

cylindrical as good as utterly well-spoken to the hold The leaves, as many as 12.5 cm long, sojourn evergreen as good as have been orderly lanceolate with the forked ape)) They have been alternately organised as good as before long petioled. The flowering plants have been borne in vast clusters in the axils of leaves or in the depot position. The clusters have been constructed with good plenitude as good as nonetheless sold flowering plants have been not really pretty, their mass outcome is rsther than striking. The corolla forms the slight cylindrical blood vessel about 2.5 cm in size, as good as opens up during the tip in to the five-lobed structure.

OTHER SPECIES

C. elegans is the local of Mexico as good as is mostly grown in gardens of ascetic countries. It is the plant uncommonly matched for flourishing in mountain stations, possibly simply or as borders. It flowering plants openly in Sep as good as Dec as good as frugally during the inserted period.

C. diurnum, Day Queen or Day Jasmine, is characterized by opening of scented flowering plants during day time. It flowering plants via the year as good as has no sold dirt preferences. It is the local of West Indies as good as is during large artistic in India.

C. parquii, the Willow-leaved Jasmine, is the local of Chile as good as right away renouned in pleasant as good as subtropical tools of the globe. A tiny plant with yellow flowers, it is perfumed during night, flowering plants via the year, as good as is simply propagated by seeds.

C. aurantiacum is many appreciated for the elaborate value. It produces depot as good as axillary inflorescences, brimful with bright-orange-colored flowers, which, however, have been but scent.

Clerodendrum squamatum

Origin as good as Distribution. A local of China, Clerodendrum (Clerodendron)squamatum has far-reaching affability as good as does really good in India.

General Description. Clerodendrum has since us the little of the many dignified grassed area plants, together with C. thomsonae as good as C. splendens, that have been climbers, as good as C. squammum, the shrub.

Author of this essay does not concede we to republish/reprint this essay but created consent.

Published during Aquaponics DIY – Free Articles Directory http://www.sooperarticles.com

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The Complete Guide to Aquaponics Combining an Aquarium with a Vegetable Garden Sustainable living at its best

The Complete Guide to Aquaponics was written for a backyard hobbyist as well as for extraordinary people who instruct to know how to emanate their really own aquaponic complement during home with a slightest volume of hassle. This book has been widely separated in to dual parts.

Part 1: Introduction contains a simple beliefs of an aquaponic system. The territory “Why Try Aquaponics?” contains an general outlook of what aquaponics record is. It additionally delineates a differences in between aquaponics as well as unchanging pool aq

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Aquaponics and the Tilapia Harvest

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A few weeks ago the high temperature here in Colorado dipped into the 40's and there was snow on the nearby mountains.  It was time to harvest the tilapia in our outdoor aquaponics system.  We decided to film the experience from catching the fish to “dispatching” them to gutting and filleting.  Yes, actual tilapia were harmed in the making of this film…but they were treated with respect, killed humanely, and definitely enjoyed at the peak of freshness!  I hope this helps those of you who, like me, were / are struggling with the notion of eating your aquaponic fish.

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Tags: aquaponic, aquaponic gardening, aquaponic tilapia, aquaponics, aquaponics system, how to harvest, tilapia filleting, tilapia harvesting

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Re-imagining Work in the Motor City - Common Dreams

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It was a serendipitous weekend of soul-searching, collaboration, information sharing, and problem solving as activists “occupied” Detroit, one of the world’s most de-industrialized cities, to re-imagine “work” and ways it can reinvigorate local communities.

Over 300 participants from around the country converged on the Focus: Hope facility October 28-30 to address our nation’s accelerating decline of the jobs-based industrial economy where over 14 million Americans are unemployed and another 9.3 million hold “involuntary part-time” jobs, according to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics.

“We never anticipated Occupy Wall Street or the Arab Spring when we planned this conference,” said Richard Feldman, from the Boggs Center to Nurture Community Leadership. “Nevertheless, we are here to show the world that Detroit is the place where we can imagine what the 21st century can look like.”

Activists in Detroit have been preparing for change long before this year’s revolutionary wave of demonstrations and protests in the Middle East, Europe and Occupy Wall Street. Neighborhood leaders were among the first to promote urban gardens, and they started re-visioning the concept of “work” two decades ago when it became obvious that globalization was taking a toll on jobs.

“Something is happening to the world and we see it right here in Detroit,” said Grace Lee Boggs, long-time activist, teacher and philosopher. She, with her Chrysler autoworker spouse, James Boggs (now deceased), had been looking at a post-industrial future back in the 1980s as automation replaced workers in the auto plants.

“What was created 200 years ago [during the Industrial Revolution] is coming to an end,” said the 96-year-old author of The Next American Revolution. “All over the planet people are pursuing alternatives to the economics of greed, over-consumption and destruction of the eco-system. It is our birthright to create something new.”

The conference included an impressive line-up of guest speakers including Ms. Boggs; Vandana Shiva, environmental activist and author from India; Gar Alperovitz, author of America Beyond Capitalism; and Frithjof Bergmann, founder of the Center for New Work and a philosophy professor emeritus of the University of Michigan.

However, much time was provided for community leaders to share what they were already doing and for participants to dialogue about what they could do to transform our economic and community relationships.

Throughout the conference participants distinguished “work” from “jobs.” Basically, work is about one’s calling in life and contributions to the community while jobs are more about the specific tasks people perform for an organization.

People moved from the farm to the city to take “jobs,” said Ms. Boggs. They went from making clothes and growing food to buying clothes and buying food. Humans changed from producers to consumers. The models and ideals of work became factory oriented.

“We have to see work as going beyond jobs,” said Mama Sandra Simmons, whose opening remarks set the tone for the meetings. “We have to have faith that it is not what we see that we believe but that we find that place of becoming and being where we are more than we were before.”

This theme of re-defining our humanity was widely accepted as the prerequisite for “work.” “Jobs” have a dehumanizing effect as people fill interchangeable slots in a big machine. In today’s global economy workers can be easily replaced with those willing to work for lower wages. So, transformation to any new system of “work” must begin with one’s own personal discernment about identity and purpose in this life.
“Observe what’s happening around you,” said Mama Simmons. “Too often we come to a place to fix things when it’s us that need the fixing. We say: ‘I want to give something but don’t know how to do it, don’t know what to give, don’t know who you are or what you have to bring.’”

Former autoworker Gloria Lowe illustrated this point by describing her relationship with veterans with PTSD in her home rehabilitation work, We Want Green Too! The project helps create work for neighborhood craftsmen.

However, before the work began, she invited the veterans to share their pain with each other.

“My compassion, giving, sharing and loving transformed them,” she said. “These guys who were spiritually destroyed were then able to stand up tall physically because someone cared about them.”

Then, they were able to use their construction skills to rehab homes because they wanted to “give back” to the community they now felt a part of.

Participants and speakers emphasized that building relationships with one another also creates supportive and transformative communities as evidenced by the urban gardens movement.

“Growing food is a revolutionary act of love for oneself and others,” said Myrtle Curtis who with her husband, Wayne, founded the Feed'om Freedom Growers community garden on an empty lot in their Detroit neighborhood. “My job was killing my spirit until I decided my work was to become a farmer in the city.”

Patrick Crouch, manager of Earthworks Urban Farm in Detroit, talked about his work as something he loved doing even though it was hard and sometimes taxed his body.

“But hard work is its own reward,” he said. “I get vitamin D, physical exercise, conversation with others, a spiritual connection with my hands in the soil, and I know where my food comes from.”

Another conference theme focused on preparing youth with 21st century skills.

Yvette Murrell of Detroit uses art, music, theatre and yoga to provide youth with a place for healing and leadership in order to address urban ills like racism, poverty, drugs and imprisonment. She also teaches high school students how to become “conflict reconcilers” as an alternative to the schools’ punitive suspension system and its reliance on the criminal justice system.

Sweetwater Organics of Milwaukee offers youth an aquaponics program, a cross-disciplinary approach of science, technology, engineering, art and mathematics. Aquaponics is a system where fish and plants are grown together for harvest.

Sweetwater started out working with four schools and in six months attracted 35 schools and four universities as it led students to design an “urban village” that aims to feed itself, said Emmanuel Pratt, executive director of Sweetwater Organics. Today, there are 100 schools between Chicago and Milwaukee involved in this project.

Pratt, who is also director of Chicago State University’s Aquaponics Center, is currently converting a 20,000 square foot warehouse at the university into a living laboratory for aquaponics and urban agriculture.

“We need to change the perception of how we see our communities and cities,” he said referring to the Midwest’s lost industries and neighborhood blight. “Aquaponics provides the chance to envision new 21st century neighborhoods and cities transformed from the Rust Belt to the Fresh Coast.”

To do that, Sweetwater is currently raising 40,000-50,000 tilapia and thousands of pounds of lettuce, watercress and basil. Pratt, an architect and urban planner, said that aquaponics can play a key role in urban agriculture by feeding growing populations, while saving the environment through increased water efficiency and smarter land use.

Participants were anxious to interact with one another and conference planners provided them many opportunities, including a two-hour future economy workshop where they divided themselves into four groups (artists/media workers, entrepreneurs, educators, community organizers) to discuss what each group imagines as its work, what help each group needs and what each group can offer the other groups.

For example, artists/media workers know how to work independently, tell stories and express emotion. Educators know how to teach skills and knowledge. Entrepreneurs know how to bring a product to market and make money while community organizers know how to transform spaces, expose truths and work with the media.

This workshop illustrated how collaboration can take place among diverse groups of people who don’t ordinarily talk with each other. It also showed how work can take on new configurations when grassroots people focus on community needs and relationships rather than to allow the leaders at the top of a hierarchical organization to decide what must be accomplished and how it will be evaluated.

As exuberant and philosophical as participants were, some expressed concern that discussion about money as a means of re-generating a new economy was often omitted.

“Making money doesn’t have to be evil,” said Mike Wimberley, founder of the Hope District on the Eastside. He also rehabilitates local housing and commercial properties through Friends of Detroit and Tri-County, a nonprofit organization that his mother, Lily Wimberley, founded in 1994.

“We need to re-populate our city and put down roots so that people have houses, education, health care,” he said. “That takes money and we have to figure out how people here can make it.”

Other participants mentioned that money should be put back into the community. For example, most people who make their living in Detroit don’t reside there, and many major institutions don’t make many of their purchases from local businesses. Being mindful and diligent in re-investing money into the community is a way of bringing back the city and helping local businesses succeed.

In another discussion, participants acknowledged that relying on political and economic leaders to lead was a fruitless endeavor because they have forgotten the people they are supposed to represent. A “we have to do it ourselves” attitude permeated the conference in a recognition that representative democracy is in serious decline. Besides, they said, societal change usually occurs at the grassroots level—and rigid social class distinctions and hierarchies have no place in the new economy we are envisioning.

“A gardener isn’t better or worse than a doctor,” said one man.

Shaun Nethercott, founder and executive director of the Matrix Theatre, expressed the same sentiments from another point of view.

“In Platonic idealism, which is completely infused in European economic, political and social structures, ‘the idea’ has more value than ‘the practice,’ the mind is more important than the body, the planner is more important than the maker. This is why an architect makes more money than a carpenter, why a doctor has higher status than a nurse, why CEOs have more value than anyone working in his company. It is why we value humans more than animals, and animals more than plants.”

Treating people as human beings is essential, especially those who have been disenfranchised by losing their jobs, their homes, their health or their status through some form of discrimination.

“As a city, we have unique things to teach,” said Shea Howell, one of the conference organizers. “[As a global center of industrialization] Detroit was in the front line of dehumanization and we have a lot of experience behind us to respond.”

The “Reimagining Work” conference was launched by the Boggs Center to Nurture Community Leadership, in partnership with the East Michigan Environmental Action Council, Allied Media Conference, Detroit Coalition Against Police Brutality, Putting the Neighbor Back in the ‘Hood, Damon Keith for Civil Rights and Focus: Hope.

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Aquaponics to Feed the World, Protect the Planet

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This week a friend and aquaponics colleague sent me a link to an NPR “Salt Food Blog” summary of an “All Things Considered” radio broadcast titled “Facing Planetary Enemy #1 – Agriculture”.  Both the broadcast and blog post were focused on just-released findings of a University of Minnesota led team of scientists and researchers.  Their task – nothing less than figuring out how to sustainably secure the world’s future food supply.  The team’s results will be the subject of the cover article in the October 20 issue of Nature magazine.

“Can we feed the more than 9 billion people anticipated to live on this planet in 2050 without destroying Earth’s life support systems?” is the captivating conundrum that begins the UM press release.  The article goes on to list reasons why our current food growing practices are paradoxically destroying our planetary home that the residents it seeks to feed inhabit.  It then lists the five suggested changes to those practices that the team concluded would not only abate this destruction but were also the most promising opportunities to increase food production to meet rapidly growing demand.

Neither list struck me as surprising for someone engaged in the worldwide “future of food” dialog.  However, what I did find striking was no mention of aquaponics among the set of proposed solutions.   Widespread adaptation of aquaponics could both alleviate all of the destruction as well as provide the prescribed vehicles for increased sustainability and productivity. Let me explain.

First, the environmental problems with current agricultural practices were outlined as follows.

“Farm and ranch lands cover nearly 40 percent of Earth’s land area” – While aquaponic techniques can’t address this shocking statistic per se, they can certainly mitigate the impact.  Because aquaponics is a soil-less growing technique, plants and fish can be grown anywhere, including on land that is considered unfertile (too sandy, too rocky, too toxic) and even in old warehouse buildings and unused parking lots.“Agriculture consumes nearly three quarters of the earth’s available water” – Because aquaponics is a recirculating system, the only water “lost” is either held in the plants, transpires through their leaves, or evaporates from the top of the fish tank.  Aquaponics is generally thought to use less than a tenth of the water of traditional agriculture for the same crop output.“Agricultural activities such as clearing land, growing rice, raising cattle and overusing fertilizers make up 35 percent of the single largest contributor of greenhouse gases to the atmosphere” – None of these practices have any place in aquqponic growing.“About 40% of all crops the planet produces are used to feed animals.” – Fish are the single most efficient converter of feed to flesh of any edible animal.  One and a half pounds of feed will bring to harvest, one pound of edible, omnivorous fish fillets.  It takes eight pounds of feed to produce the same single pound of beef fillets.While not mentioned in the article, I would add “consuming petroleum” to this list.  Between oil-based fertilizers, oil-fueled farming machinery, and long distances between farm and table, modern food is “dripping” with oil.  Aquaponic systems on the other hand, have no oil-based inputs and are run entirely on a small amount of electricity.  This electricity can be created through currently available renewable energy methods.

The researchers then recommended five changes to current practices that they believe will not only help to solve the issues stated above, but will also extend our ability to feed the burgeoning world’s population.  All but one can be implemented through aquaponic growing techniques.

“Halt farmland expansion.” – As explained above, because aquaponics is a soil-less growing system that can be set up anywhere, it is perfectly suited to address this goal.“Close yield gaps. Many parts of Africa, Latin America and Eastern Europe have substantial “yield gaps”– where farmland is not living up to its potential for producing crops. Closing these gaps through improved use of existing crop varieties, better management and improved genetics could increase current food production nearly 60 percent.” Because of the consistent and ideal mix of water, oxygen and fertilizer that an aquaponics system provides, plants grow significantly faster in an aquaponics system than they do in soil.   In addition, plants can be placed closer together in aquaponics systems because they are not competing for those resources in their root zone.  I believe this is an answer to the search for “better management” techniques that the researchers are seeking.“Use inputs more strategically. Current use of water, nutrients and agriculture chemicals suffer from what the research team calls “Goldilocks’ Problem”: too much in some places, too little in others, rarely just right. Strategic reallocation could substantially boost the benefit we get from precious inputs.” Since aquaponic systems use comparatively so little water, inherently produce their own nutrients, and use no agricultural chemicals, the problem of redistribution becomes a non-issue.“Shift diets. Growing animal feed or biofuels on top croplands, no matter how efficiently, is a drain on human food supply. Dedicating croplands to direct human food production could boost calories produced per person by nearly 50 percent.” Fish protein is not only heart-healthy but, as mentioned above; it is the most efficient converter of plant protein to animal protein known to man.“Reduce waste. One-third of the food farms produce ends up discarded, spoiled or eaten by pests. Eliminating waste in the path from farm to mouth could boost food available for consumption another 50 percent.” Because aquaponics systems are raised off the ground they tend to have fewer pest issues than traditional agriculture.  And because aquaponic farms can be set up anywhere, producing food directly within densely populated communities can be implemented right now, with no new technologies needed.  The path from farm to table can be made as short as down the block or even from back yard to table. Thus, it is attractive ways to localize food production and to cut out the waste inherent in the long paths we now have from farm to market to home – paths that could be reduced to near zero with widespread aquaponics.

Aquaponics is not the answer to all of our future food supply and environmental issues.  Grains and root crops, for example, will probably always be most efficiently grown in the soil.  But for above ground, vegetative crops and fish protein, there simply isn’t a better growing technique on, and for, the planet.

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Aquaponics and Fish FeedAquaponics Wishes: Feed Hungry KidsHello world!Aquaponics and the Evolution of FreshAquaponics and The Blue RevolutionPosted: October 14th, 2011 under Blog, Inspirations, Sustainability.
Tags: aquaponic, aquaponic farming, aquaponics, feed the world, NPR, University of Minnesota

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