Fish Farms, With a Side of Greens

Just came across an interesting piece from the NYTimes talking about the combination of aquaculture and hydroponics, and Clarice, here you go, closed-loop agricultural system!

However，"Brett Roe, who investigated ecologically integrated production systems at the University of Queensland in Australia, cautioned that it might not be a cure-all. 'Aquaponics offers decentralized food security on a small scale, and reuse of resources,' he said. 'Every little bit helps. But in developing countries it may make better sense to culture fish in ponds and use the wastewater on land-based crops; a simple linkage of aquaculture and crop farming that has the same general effect of reusing resources and can be practiced in a larger scale of economy.'”

The Kenya project is carried out in conjunction with the Baobab Trust in Mombassa, http://www.thebaobabtrust.com/projects.html

By GENEVIEVE ROBERTS

LONDON — In the Lowlands of Scotland, an old fire station donated to the community of Moffat for a symbolic penny has been converted into what may be the farm of the future. Forget about fields. Forget even about established norms of industrial agriculture. Using a new technology known as aquaponics, the Moffat farm, due to start production at the end of this month, will churn out fish and vegetables by the ton, in a space equivalent to a small factory.

Aquaponics — a combination of aquaculture, or fish cultivation, and hydroponics, or water-based planting — utilizes a symbiotic relationship between fish and plants. Fish waste provides nutrients for the plants, which in turn filter the water in which the fish live. Cuttings from plant are composted to create food for worms, which provide food for the fish, completing the cycle.

“Aquaponics is a method of delivering multiple crops with minimum input, through a closed-loop method of farming,” said Charlie Price, founder of Aquaponics UK, the nonprofit organization that runs the farm.

A kilogram, or 2.2 pounds, of fish food, produces at least 50 kilograms of vegetables and 0.8 kilogram of fish, he said. “As the ecosystem becomes self-sustainable, the fish food comes from the worms, so the entire cycle is free.”

Mr. Price’s organization is working internationally with food production projects in India, Afghanistan and several African countries, including Uganda, Kenya and Namibia. But it also works closer to home. Its next project is a city farm shop in London at which people will be able to pick their own salads and choose fish for their supper from giant tanks.

The store, called Farm:shop, in the Borough of Hackney, was created by Something & Son, a design company, working with the local council. It hopes to make direct links between the city neighborhood and the realities of farming. A location has been secured, and the project is in the late stages of acquiring funding.

The potential for urban farming is being explored in Milwaukee, where some of the leading aquaponics entrepreneurs are based. Sweet Water Organics, an urban aquaponics company, raises perch and leafy green vegetables in an old factory that housed a mining company until the 1950s. The farm, founded by James Godsil and Josh Fraundorf in January 2009, has sold thousands of fish and produces about 70 kilograms of vegetables a week. It is expanding rapidly, and plans to produce between 360 and 450 kilograms of greens a week and to grow tens of thousands of kilograms of perch in coming years.

Mr. Godsil and Mr. Fraundorf learned the techniques largely from Will Allen, an urban farmer and winner of a MacArthur “genius” fellowship, and through trial and error.

“We believe this is the world’s first effort to turn a factory into a fish and vegetable farm, and it’s a complex proposition,” Mr. Godsil said. “We’ve experimented with 40 types of lettuce, settled on three or four, and we’re now trialing spinach.”

The farm started with a $50,000 investment but has attracted about $1 million in funds over the past 20 months and partnerships with the Milwaukee School of Engineering and informally with the University of Stirling in Scotland. It is discussing the prospect of a $30 million concept for Sweetwater villages, which would have community-scale manufacturing, restaurants and cafes with food produced from aquaponics.

The farm is receiving support from the University of Wisconsin and Sea Grants, a U.S. government program, to grow yellow perch and possibly blue gill, species indigenous to the Great Lakes but in decline. “The fish it produces are a 21st century form of protein that won’t harm planet earth,” Mr. Godsil said.

Industrial aquaponics is still in its infancy, with only five facilities of more than 0.4 hectare, or one acre, operating in the world, although interest is growing, particularly in areas with water shortages. Aquaponics use between 80 and 90 per cent less water than traditional growing methods.

In Barbados, where fresh water is scarce and 80 per cent of food is imported, according to the Inter-American Institute for Cooperation on Agriculture, a project known as “Aquaponic island” started last year, with a goal of educating farmers about the benefits of aquaponics to make it their technology of choice in four years. The project has funding from the United Nations Development Program, the Barbadian Ministry of Agriculture, the institute and a community group, the Baird’s Village Aquaponics Association. A commercial-scale system was set up at Baird’s Village, and this year aquaponic systems are being introduced to many of the island’s schools.

In Australia, where farmers have struggled with drought for the past decade, backyard aquaponic systems have grown in popularity. Joel Malcolm, who opened the world’s first aquaponics retail store, Backyard Aquaponics, in the Australian city of Perth, sells about 300 systems a year.

“With water restrictions enforced in almost every city around the country, people just can’t have their traditional vegetable garden,” he said. “Being able to produce your own chemical-free fish and vegetables in your own backyard not only saves money but also provides enjoyment and satisfaction. Lately there have been quite a few schools installing systems here as learning tools for the kids.”

While backyard systems are in their infancy in the United States, they are growing in popularity, with estimates that there may be 800 to 1,200 aquaponics setups in American homes and yards and as many as 1,000 more in schools, according to the Aquaponics Journal.

Could this almost-waste-free food production method be the miracle solution to tackle worldwide food shortages that some expect? Brett Roe, who investigated ecologically integrated production systems at the University of Queensland in Australia, cautioned that it might not be a cure-all. “Aquaponics offers decentralized food security on a small scale, and reuse of resources,” he said. “Every little bit helps. But in developing countries it may make better sense to culture fish in ponds and use the wastewater on land-based crops; a simple linkage of aquaculture and crop farming that has the same general effect of reusing resources and can be practiced in a larger scale of economy.”

While still in its fledgling stages, Mr. Godsil said the potential of aquaponics was “breathtaking.”

“Aquaponics has inspired pragmatic utopian visions, that keep getting validated by the facts. We need solutions to what could be a Pearl Harbor moment for the species, if global warming trends continue the way Al Gore and scientists predict,” he said referring to the former U.S. vice president.

Mr. Price of Aquaponics UK said: “Given our requirements to provide significantly more energy and food in the next 20 years, aquaponics can play a vital role. It isn’t a new technology – in fact it was first documented by the Aztecs – but when adopted in our new climate it provides a highly profitable and sustainable food production system.”

The Baobab Trust project

Sustainable Agriculture

The Mtopanga Training and Demonstration Farm is a 10hec farm with a variety of vegetables and fruits organically grown. Livestock and poultry keeping including an integrated fish farming system and alternative technology makes up the demonstration farm at the same time a Training facility. With a number of components on the farm each structure is
interlinked, providing and benefiting each other. Hence, ensuring it is a continuous process all on the same land. Since all these are set-up on together, we offer community and the surrounding stakeholders
technical advice, trainings tours. We also welcome farmers and interested individuals to visit the farm. Hence the farm is open to all who are interested in sustainable farming. We work very closely with the Ministry of Agriculture and Fisheries.

Training:
We offer trainings on organic farming, integrated fish farming, livestock and poultry keeping, bee keeping, alternative energy including biogas. Compost, tree nursery set-up and charcoal making. Our trainings are based on hands-on training for the communities and surrounding stakeholders.

Educational Tours:
School groups and Institutions are taken on a tour around
the farm.

Open Field Days:
About twice a year, an Open-Field Day is hosted to the local Farmers, Institutions, Schools and Individuals. The Farm is set up to demonstrate various farming methods using basic affordable techniques that can be applied to their own farms. This day is coordinated with the Ministry of Agriculture and Livestock..

Pasquerella, team head to Kenya for volunteer project

Pasquerella, team head to Kenya for volunteer project

As Mount Holyoke students were wrapping up their summer travel, internships, and community service, incoming president Lynn Pasquerella was honoring a volunteer commitment of her own. With a team that included the Africa Center for Engineering Social Solutions (ACESS) and Mount Holyoke students Hilda Barasa ’12 and Yiting Wang ’11, Pasquerella traveled to Kenya’s West Lake District projects aimed at providing access to clean water and promoting “microbusinesses.”

“The overall objective has been to empower women in the communities and create sustainable businesses,” Pasquerella said.

One project involved testing a press used for molding clay water purification pots. Collaborating with the ACESS team, community members were able formulate a more efficient process using local materials.

Fish farming also promises to expand local business opportunities, but the team is still looking for ways to prevent predation by monitor lizards and transport fish effectively in areas lacking infrastructure. “I hope to work with the Center for the Environment at Mount Holyoke to try to address these issues,” Pasquerella noted, adding that this is the first time Mount Holyoke has been involved in the project.

Her involvement with the group began during her time at URI, when she met Clarice Odhiambo, an ACESS worker performing graduate work at Brown University. Odhiambo, a former Coca-Cola Africa executive, asked if university personnel could partner with the group to identify engineering solutions to communities lacking clean water.

Wang found out about the project while interning with the United Nations Environmental Program in Nairobi, Kenya. She contacted Pasquerella, who put her in touch with Odhiambo.

“The encounter was very much unexpected,” said Wang, “but I felt very fortunate to join Lynn and her wonderful team with Clarice.” Wang added that after her week-long trip with the team, the organization seemed to her based on a development model she had never experienced herself.

“It stood away from the usual political diplomacy of official development assistance from the West and approached it from a civic and institutional angle,” she said. When three engineering students from the University of Hartford taught the workers at the local construction company how to assemble the press and make the mold for the ceramic filter, she was inspired to watch the workers alter the plan with locally available materials.

Wang will continue to assist Pasquerella and her team at Mount Holyoke in designing academic and experiential programs involving ACESS.

Pasquerella’s engagement in social issues predates her ethical studies—she described working alongside her mother in a light switch factory.

“I saw women working on the assembly line, trying to make quota and knowing that if they didn’t, they wouldn’t be able to feed their children at the end of the day. There were no men … Class and gender issues became apparent to me then.”

The Kenya Project is now in its third year, and Pasquerella expects it to continue beyond its initial five-year commitment.

“We stay in same communities. There are challenges involved, so it’s important that we keep our commitment in terms of their evolving needs,” she said. Already struggling with poverty and high rates of HIV/AIDS, the community’s well apparatus broke, so finding other ways to access clean water has been vitally important.

Despite the challenges, Pasquerella said that the new constitution, passed at the end of August, has offered locals hope. “There is a great deal of optimism, and there wasn’t as much optimism two years ago, especially because of post-election violence.” Among other changes, the new constitution will allow women to enjoy the same rights as male citizens of the country. Many Kenyans have been disappointed, though, with the Obama administration’s failure to bring them additional resources. Citizens continue to struggle with rampant corruption, but they hope the new constitution will introduce a greater degree of transparency.

In the meantime, Pasquerella said she hopes Mount Holyoke will continue to fund students’ participation in similar projects in Kenya and other countries and provide mentors for these students. Having extensively presented her work abroad, she believes travel is a critical means of building social awareness. “I think the more that we get to know other cultures and how people live their lives, the better we’re able to think critically about complex issues in a world that’s increasingly globally independent… First and foremost, we come to understand we are not the center of the universe, and that there’s suffering we don’t hear about because we think there are parts of the world that don’t matter.”