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Upward Farms Opens New Aquaponic Operation In Brooklyn, New York
The new facility is located in Greenpoint, Brooklyn, New York, and utilizes Upward’s next-generation technology to advance the company’s growth
May 19th, 2021
BROOKLYN, NY - Innovation and sustainability are two facets of the fresh produce industry that are growing like wildflowers, and one company seeing the effects of this expansion is Upward Farms, the aquaponics vertical farming company. The New York-based grower has announced the opening of a cutting-edge new headquarters that will continue to support Upward’s commercial production, research, and development.
Jason Green, Chief Executive Officer, and Co-Founder, Upward Farms“Upward Farms’ new facility successfully scales our vertical farming model. Controlled environments and ecological farming are not at odds but are powerful compliments for the next generation of farming. We’re delivering higher yields, disease resistance, safety, and sustainability in a platform that can be deployed anywhere in the world, regardless of climate,” said Jason Green, Chief Executive Officer, and Co-Founder. “The pandemic underscores the importance of shoring up supply chains to be more local for transparency, safety, and efficiency. Localized produce is especially important from a food safety standpoint. As vertical farms scale, we can create a supply chain that’s fundamentally more resilient than shipping produce around the country, if not around the world.”
The new facility is located in Greenpoint, Brooklyn, New York, and utilizes Upward’s next-generation technology to advance the company’s growth. According to a press release, the operation is powered by end-to-end automation and is USDA Certified Organic, making it one of the first Certified Organic vertical farms in the Northeast region of the U.S.
Upward Farms has announced the opening of a cutting-edge new headquarters that will continue to support the company's commercial production, research, and development
In addition to its state-of-the-art technology, the new headquarters includes a fishery that is Monterey Bay Aquarium Seafood Watch “Best Choice” rated, and sustainably farms mercury-free, antibiotic-free, and hormone-free striped bass.
Upward Farms’ ready-to-eat microgreen mixes are currently available in all Brooklyn Whole Foods locations and are anticipated to be available in all New York City Whole Foods stores within the next few months.
The new operation is powered by end-to-end automation and is USDA Certified Organic, making it one of the first Certified Organic vertical farms in the Northeast region of the U.S.
As consumer trends continue to shift toward fresh, organic produce and online purchase of groceries, Upward Farms is offering consistent product availability, quality, and scalability for locally grown greens. The grower is expecting further expand as demand increases and has already raised approximately $150 million to date from investors to spark growth.
For more news regarding vertical farming and other growing practices gaining traction across the industry, stick with AndNowUKnow.
USA: Delaware Entrepreneurs Start Growing Crops In Water. Will Hydroponic Farms Catch On?
Bill Jordan of Millsboro is an accidental farmer who's growing crops without soil. “I was going to make alcohol from corn or peaches to supplement fuel when fuel prices got stupid,” Jordan recalled, but he quickly realized that was not profitable
Delaware News Journal
Bill Jordan of Millsboro is an accidental farmer who's growing crops without soil.
“I was going to make alcohol from corn or peaches to supplement fuel when fuel prices got stupid,” Jordan recalled, but he quickly realized that was not profitable.
As part of his research, though, he saw that some hydroponic farms use what’s left of the corn or peaches from the alcohol-making process as a fertilizer.
“That’s what led me to it,” he said.
About 15 years ago when he lived in Maryland, he started taking courses on hydroponics and visiting hydroponic farms. He built his own greenhouse and supplemented his income by building greenhouses for others.
After moving to Delaware, he started Fresh Harvest Hydroponics in Millsboro, specializing in a variety of hydroponically-grown lettuces and herbs that are pesticide-free and herbicide-free.
The plants are raised in three climate-controlled greenhouses. The largest has the capacity to grow 50,000 heads of lettuce at one time.
Before the pandemic, he was selling to wholesalers like Sysco and Teddy Bear Fresh, along with Hocker’s grocery stores in Sussex County and restaurants like Fager’s Island in Ocean City, Maryland.
“COVID really hurt us,” Jordan said. “A lot of restaurants just are not buying. Right now, we’re just doing farmers markets and onsite sales, trying to keep our head above water.”
He and one employee are able to maintain the operation, but before the pandemic, the business had several other employees.
However, Jordan said hydroponics has been a profitable business.
“It’s done well for me. It cost me a certain amount to start, but I had it paid off in about a year,” he said. “If COVID ever lifts enough, if people aren’t scared to go back to restaurants, I’ll do pretty well.”
He’s convinced that the indoor crop is superior to field grown.
“Hydroponics can grow bigger, faster, and healthier plants,” he said. “The taste is better. My basil is much stronger than field-grown because it has the right nutrients every day. We test our water on a daily basis.”
Christel Folke is an applied agriculture instructor at the Owens Campus of Delaware Technical and Community College in Georgetown. She said while hydroponic start-up and maintenance costs are the main hurdles, the process has a long list of advantages.
“It’s a controlled environment. The grower has complete control of the lighting, heat, humidity, water, and nutrients. A lot of diseases usually come from the soil, but with hydroponics, you eliminate most of that risk. You still have some pests and disease, but it is easier to control, and we use natural methods,” Folke said, speaking about the college’s hydroponic system.
Saving water is another plus because the water is targeted at the roots, with much less evaporation compared to overhead irrigation outdoors.
The plants have a longer shelf life, Jordan said. Some hydroponic growers like him sell plants with the roots.
“With the root system attached, lettuce can last two weeks or more,” he said. “The shelf life on hydroponics crushes anything else.”
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Like with other greenhouse operations, farmers can grow year-round if they have heating and cooling systems.
Hydroponics is starting to attract more attention in Delaware.
‘Life-changing experience’ turns hobby into a business
In Dover, Doug Wood was a special education teacher in the Capital School District who started aquaponics as a hobby, raising fish to supply nutrient-rich water which is filtered and used to grow crops like lettuce.
“I was selling mainly to my fellow teachers. They really liked it and they said, ‘You should do this for real.’ Then I went through a life-changing event when I lost my mother to cancer, and I started thinking, ‘You only go around once,’ and decided to pursue it as a career,” Wood said.
He also wanted to help people eat a healthier diet in an effort to prevent cancer.
“I’ve always known we consume more chemicals, more man-made stuff, than we ever have," Wood said. "What really sparked me was trying to grow with no chemicals, no pesticides."
After attending a seminar at an aquaponics company, he decided to jump in, starting 302 Aquaponics with his wife, Katie.
With the help of another former teacher, Jomelle Bowen, who majored in plant science in college, they set up the two-part operation. One section is for fish tanks and water filtration systems, and the other is for dozens of shallow “table tanks” in which the lettuce floats in containers with the roots dangling in the water below.
No soil is used. A man-made, rock-like granular material is used to help anchor the roots.
After a little over a year in business, they now have almost 20,000 square feet in greenhouses. Together with 10 other employees, they harvest about 600 heads of lettuce a day, close to 220,000 per year, with the capacity to raise 350,000 heads per year, all in under a quarter acre.
“We are basically turning over nine crops per year,” Wood said.
They raise fish to supply the nutrients for the lettuce. The water the fish are in goes through several filtration steps and then is used to grow the plants. After the solids are filtered out, “good bacteria” are added to break down the fish waste that has dissolved in the water, creating a natural fertilizer in the water.
They raise tilapia, a tropical fish that grows well in the warmer temperatures inside the greenhouse.
Lettuce is a profitable crop. But those profits came after more of a challenge than he expected.
“When we first started production, it was three weeks before COVID struck. After that, our sales were a fourth of what they should’ve been,” he said. “We were giving a lot of [lettuce] away, to the Food Bank and shelters.”
So he went to farmers’ markets, locally-owned grocery stores and offered sales directly to customers for pickup at his farm or at a variety of locations throughout the state.
“I have a refrigerated delivery van. If I didn’t have that, I don’t know what I would have done,” he said. “A lot of people didn’t want to go in stores, but they would preorder and I’d deliver to them in my van.”
Business at restaurants started picking up as capacity restrictions eased, and schools reopened.
“Sales have done really well in the last four months,” Wood said.
He sells lettuce to restaurants, three school districts – Smyrna, Caesar Rodney, and Colonial – and grocery stores like Janssen’s Market in Greenville and Hocker’s Supermarkets in Bethany Beach and Clarksville.
“My big market is at the beach with restaurants and independently-owned grocery stores,” he said.
So far, he hasn’t sold to wholesalers because the profits would be too small. But he thinks he’s on the ground floor of what could be a big business.
“Consumers are becoming much more aware of the product they’re buying, where it’s coming from, and they’re willing to pay a little more for a cleaner, more sustainable product,” he said.
Why isn’t it more widespread?
While the hydroponics business is starting to sprout in Delaware, there are some big operations in other states.
AppHarvest in Morehead, Kentucky began trading on the Nasdaq stock exchange Feb. 1. Already operating a 60-acre high-tech indoor facility, the company plans to use funds from the stock offering to build 12 more large-scale indoor farms. In February, the company broke its record by harvesting more than 120,000 pounds of tomatoes in a single day.
Another major operation is AeroFarms in Newark, New Jersey, with a 70,000 square-foot greenhouse in a former steel mill, a 30,000 square-foot growing space in a former paintball and laser tag arena and a 5,500 square-foot research and development farm in a former nightclub. The company reports it can grow more than 2 million pounds of produce a year.
AppHarvest and AeroFarms confirm the advantages of hydroponics: saving land, saving water, a year-round growing season and eliminating man-made pesticides and herbicides, opting for natural solutions.
However, the high start-up costs can be demonstrated in AppHarvest’s financial forecasts. It estimates 2021 net revenue of $21 million, but a loss of $41 million because of expenses which include building more indoor farming systems.
Another reason hydroponics hasn’t taken off: “Not every crop can be grown that way,” said Kellie Michaud, agriscience teacher at Smyrna High School. “It’s a niche.”
Some plants grow well when they’re constantly in water, but others don’t. Some are just too large to be practical in a greenhouse. Indoor farmers need crops that take up little space and reach maturity quickly.
Michaud said some of the best performers are lettuce, greens, herbs, tomatoes, peppers, celery, and strawberries.
What could turn the tide?
Smyrna High agriscience teacher Keith Shane said scarcity of land could spur more hydroponic operations.
“If the state of Delaware continues at the rate of development we have seen, I could see hydroponics becoming a little bit more mainstream,” Shane said. “I don’t know if that future will be in our lifetime, but I honestly think it will be a niche – a pretty sustainable niche. I don’t see it going away.”
At Delaware Technical Community College in Georgetown, Dr. Daniele Kidd agrees.
“We’ve got to figure out how to feed the growing population,” said Kidd, the chair of the college’s applied agriculture department. “Other countries where land is scarce like Japan, they have skyscrapers that are basically indoor greenhouses.”
In Delaware, even with farm preservation programs, many farms have been sold to developers.
“It would be very difficult to start a farm in our area, to buy 50 acres,” Kidd said. “It would be expensive and might not make financial sense, but with hydroponics, you can make a living on three to four acres.”
Jordan, at Fresh Harvest Hydroponics, believes this system of farming will become much more widespread.
“There are tons of advantages to hydroponics, and they’re not making any more land,” he said.
Ben Mace covers real estate and business news. He can be reached at rmace@gannett.com.
Our Monthly Webinar For April Is “Training The Next Generation of Aquaponic Farmers” From Researcher Sarah Milliken At The University of Greenwich, U.K.
Ms. Milliken will introduce an open access aquaponics curriculum, Aqu@teach, specifically developed for college students with a focus on entrepreneurial and transferable skills
The Webinar Will Take Place Live, Saturday,
April 17 From 11 am To 12 pm EST And Feature A Live Q&A.
Click Below To Register:
REGISTER: Training the Next Generation of Aquaponic Farmers
Ms. Milliken will introduce an open access aquaponics curriculum, Aqu@teach, specifically developed for college students with a focus on entrepreneurial and transferable skills. As soilless food production technologies become increasingly important in light of climate change and the threat of food insecurity, there is an urgent need to provide an appropriately trained workforce.
The Webinar is free to the public during the live broadcast. The Webinar will remain available for free, in perpetuity, to all Aquaponics Association Members in the Member’s Area of our Community Site.
Special thanks to Ed "Aqua-Eddie" Tivnan, Association Director of STEM Aquaponics, for organizing the webinar.
Hope to see you there!
Brian Filipowich, Chairman
Aquaponics Association
The Aquaponics Association
1240 Evarts Street, NE
Washington, DC 20018
Diving Into Aquaponics
Aquaponics, a method of raising crops and fish in an all-water, soilless environment, presented a fun challenge to Aquaponics Club co-founders Jonathan Dong ’21 and Robbie Rioux ’21
21 DECEMBER 3, 2020
Tucked away in the Taylor Science Center’s greenhouse, a new aquaponics system brims with tilapia, lettuce, and other developing life. Built in 2019 by Hamilton’s Aquaponics Club, the system promotes on-campus food sustainability while also providing a space for students and faculty to learn about aquaponics. And with its accessibility, regular maintenance, and potential to expand with student interest, the system does just that.
Aquaponics, a method of raising crops and fish in an all-water, soilless environment, presented a fun challenge to Aquaponics Club co-founders Jonathan Dong ’21 and Robbie Rioux ’21. According to Dong, the club started with the aim of creating “a sustainable farming practice and system on campus that [community] members could maintain.” With members representing a variety of disciplines, including chemistry, history, and government, the club teaches students about animal and plant biology and practicing aquaponics.
After building the aquaponics system, Dong and Rioux populated it first with tilapia and lettuce, two of the easiest and most efficient products to cultivate in water. The 400-gallon system includes a 100-gallon tilapia tank, tanks that break down tilapia waste, and tanks that contain the plants. Nutrients from the tilapia waste sustain the plant life, and club members feed the tilapia daily. (The club’s adviser, Supervisor of Introductory Laboratories in Biology and Lecturer in Environmental Studies Jason Townsend, feeds the fish during breaks.) The $7,000 system was funded through Student Assembly.
“The thought is that we grow the food and give it to someone on campus or in the Hamilton community,” Rioux said. The Aquaponics Club donated the first batch of lettuce to students living in the Woollcott Cooperative and the first tilapia harvest to a family from the Utica Refugee Center. Rioux said the club hopes to eventually have the tilapia served in Commons.
In addition to the initial tilapia and lettuce, the club is looking to raise and grow other animals and plants in the system. The effort to expand reflects student curiosity about how aquaponics works. “We got a ton of students on campus with their own questions about the system that they want answered,” Dong said. Club projects include researching which tilapia breed, vegetable types, and flower species that grow best with aquaponics.
Since its founding in 2018, the Aquaponics Club has come a long way in both bringing aquaponics to Hamilton and recruiting members to maintain and learn about the system. Both Dong and Rioux expressed their appreciation for the opportunity to design and continue the project. “We transformed the greenhouse into our own space, and that was a lot of fun,” Rioux said. “Hamilton’s [has] been very supportive of having us in there and letting us do what we need to, so that’s been pretty great to be able to do.”
Purdue Study Addresses Environmental, Economic Impacts of Hydroponic, Aquaponics Systems
Hydroponics and aquaponics offer promise for growing produce and raising fish. But some may be wary of entering the industries because of perceptions about high capital and operational costs and environmental impacts
October 22, 2020
Story by Brian Wallheimer
Hydroponics and aquaponics offer promise for growing produce and raising fish. But some may be wary of entering the industries because of perceptions about high capital and operational costs and environmental impacts.
Purdue University scientists compared the environmental performances of both systems and calculated their economic efficiencies in Indiana. Their findings, published in the Journal of Cleaner Production, inform those interested in entering hydroponic or aquaponic industries on how to get the most for their investment with the least environmental footprint.
Hydroponics and aquaponics are soilless systems. Hydroponic plants are grown in water containing chemical fertilizers as nutrients. Aquaponics adds the raising of fish and uses fish waste to replace chemical fertilizers. These indoor operations come with upfront capital costs and require use of significant amounts of energy for lighting, heating and water pumping, as well as fish feed and fertilizers.
For one month, graduate students Peng Chen and Gaotian Zhu raised six vegetables in a hydroponic system and those same vegetables with tilapia in an aquaponic system. Experiments were conducted in the lab of Hye-Ji Kim, a Purdue assistant professor of horticulture and landscape architecture, and in collaboration with Paul Brown, a Purdue professor of forestry and natural resources. Jen-Yi Huang, a Purdue assistant professor of food science and the leader of the project, worked with the students to conduct a life cycle assessment using the data they collected.
Purdue University researchers conducted a life cycle assessment of hydroponic and aquaponic growing systems in Indiana to measure their environmental and economic impacts. (Photo provided by Peng Chen)
The researchers found that the aquaponic system led to 45 percent less environmental impact when considering fossil fuel use, global warming, water acidification and eutrophication created by resources used as well as waste and emissions released. Twice as much food is grown in the aquaponic systems with little added environmental cost.
“The aquaponic system is more environmentally friendly when you look at the total environmental footprint per US dollar of economic value of the products,” Huang said. “But that is based on using Indiana’s current energy mix. If we consider using more renewable energy sources, things start to change.”
Indiana currently gets almost 60 percent of its energy from coal-fired power plants, according to the U.S. Energy Information Administration, with about one-third coming from natural gas. The less electricity hydroponic and aquaponic growers source from fossil fuels, the more environmentally friendly their operations become.
Chen said that changing the mix and getting one-third of power from coal, natural gas and wind would reduce the environmental impacts of hydroponics by up to 48 percent. If an operation sourced its electricity solely from wind energy, hydroponic operations would be considered slightly more environmentally friendly than aquaponics.
“By using wind energy, which is largely produced in Indiana, farmers can reduce their environmental footprint enough to make these two systems essentially equal in terms of the economic output gained for the environmental cost,” Chen said. “By choosing more plant-based fish feed, the environmental impacts can be further reduced in aquaponic systems.”
US - NEW YORK: Yemi Amu’s Urban Farming Concept Takes Root In The Big Apple
Earth is the only home we have. If we don’t start now to turn around the environmental damage we have caused, we might not be around to save it and the plants and animals that we depend on
By Tony Binns | October 6, 2020
Earth is the only home we have. If we don’t start now to turn around the environmental damage we have caused, we might not be around to save it and the plants and animals that we depend on. As a possible solution, many metropolitan cities are turning to urban farming and aquaponics. In Brooklyn, New York, Nigerian-born Yemi Amu has been a part of this movement by opening the city’s only teaching aquaponics farm, Oko Farms.
What is aquaponics and why is it important to the sustainability of our planet?
Aquaponics is farming in water. It is the cultivation of fish and plants together in a symbiotic aquatic ecosystem whereby fish waste provides nutrients for plants while plant roots filter the water for the fish. This farming method allows you to raise both fish and plants while using up to 80% less water than traditional farming. Aquaponics is also scalable and can occur both indoors and outdoors.
As we deal with the environmental impacts of climate change including soil erosion and drought, alternative growing methods like aquaponics can help create food security for vulnerable communities.
What is Oko Farms and how did it find a home in Brooklyn?
Oko Farms is an aquaponics farming and education company in Brooklyn. In 2013, we converted an abandoned lot in East Williamsburg, Brooklyn, into the Oko Farms Aquaponics Education center — NYC’s first outdoor — and only publicly accessible — aquatic farm. We were able to acquire the lot through a partnership with the Brooklyn Economic Development Corporation and GreenThumb NYC.
In addition to growing a wide variety of vegetables and fish, we provide workshops, tours, and support individuals and organizations with setting up their own aquaponics farms.
What type of produce and fish do you grow on your farm?
We grow a variety of vegetables on our farm, including leafy greens, herbs, onions, tomatoes, peppers, sweet potatoes, cabbage, sorghum, rice, millet, squash, etc. We also raise catfish, bluegill, tilapia, goldfish, and koi
How did you get into aquaponics?
I learned about aquaponics while I was managing a rooftop farm that I helped to create. The rooftop farm was located at a housing facility for formerly homeless adults in Crown Heights, Brooklyn, in 2011. One of the neighborhood volunteers introduced me to aquaponics and I was attracted to the fact that it saves water while producing both fish and vegetables. After that, I spent a couple of years studying and visiting aquaponics farms in Florida and the Midwest.
Are there career opportunities for people of color in the field?
Aquaponics farming is a great option for people of color interested in a career in farming, especially those living in urban areas. Access to land for farming can be challenging for people of color in the U.S, but some cities like Detroit, Philadelphia, and Atlanta have urban ag[riculture] policies that support farmers of color with land access.
For more information, visit www.okofarms.org.
Lead photo: Yemi Amu, director of Oko Farms (Photo courtesy of Harrison Chen)
MALAYSIA: Aquaponic Farming Promises Higher Yields For Kundasang Farmers
Their ventures are proving to be lucrative and they encourage more young farmers to grow vegetables using these modern and more sustainable techniques
September 29th, 2020
Their ventures are proving to be lucrative and they encourage more young farmers to grow vegetables using these modern and more sustainable techniques
By MUHAMMAD BASIR ROSLAN
Aquaponic vegetables are chemical-free as no other fertiliser is used with the exception of the fish waste (pic: Bernama)
IN THE cool, hilly area of Kundasang in Ranau, about 100km from Kota Kinabalu, Sabah, a small group of young farmers are trying their hand at cultivating vegetables using aquaponic and hydroponic techniques.
Under the guidance of the Kinabalu Area Farmers Organisation (PPK), the farmers based in Kampung Desa Aman in Kundasang have gone into aquaponics and hydroponics since December 2019.
Their ventures are proving to be lucrative and PPK Kinabalu intends to encourage more young farmers to grow vegetables using these modern and more sustainable techniques.
According to PPK Kinabalu GM Muhammad Irwan Maruji, in aquaponics, the whole cultivation process — starting from planting the seedlings until they are ready for harvesting — takes only about three to four weeks. And, he added, vegetables harvested from a 223 sq m block of aquaponic plants can rake in sales of around RM5,600 a month.
“The capital to start an aquaponic venture, including setting up the pond and a 223 sq m block and greenhouse, comes to about RM85,000. The investment, however, is worthwhile compared to the returns,” he told Bernama, adding that aquaponic farming is suitable for young entrepreneurs who want to get involved in agriculture.
In aquaponic farming, aquaculture (rearing of aquatic animals such as freshwater fish or prawns in tanks) is combined with hydroponics (cultivating plants without soil) in an integrated system where the aquatic waste serves as nutrients for the plants which, in turn, purifies the water in the tank.
Prihatin Aid
Pointing out that vegetable farmers in Kundasang and other parts of Sabah were badly hit during the initial stage of the Movement Control Order, Muhammad Irwan said under the federal government’s Prihatin Rakyat Economic Stimulus Plan, each PPK in Sabah was allocated RM100,000 to RM200,000 to revitalise the agricultural sector.
“We are grateful for the allocation as it will be very helpful to the farmers and agro entrepreneurs here,” he said, adding that PPK Kinabalu plans to use the funds to start an additional hydroponic venture involving the local farmers, as well as introduce maize cultivation and a hanging fertigation system next month.
He said courses on aquaponic and hydroponic farming will be conducted starting early next month, following which he hopes to rope in at least 20 young farmers a year to pursue aquaponic and hydroponic ventures. “PPK Kinabalu also plans to expand the market for their vegetable produce to outside of Sabah,” he added.
Free of Chemicals
In aquaponic farming, aquaculture (rearing of aquatic animals) is combined with hydroponics (cultivating plants without soil) in an integrated system
Elaborating on PPK Kinabalu’s aquaponic venture with local farmers on a 2.83ha site in Kampung Desa Aman, Muhammad Irwan said vegetables such as red coral lettuce, green coral lettuce, mustard plant and celery are being cultivated as they are suitable for aquaponic farming. As for the aquatic component, ikan tilapia and ikan keli are being reared.
“Aquaponic vegetables are chemical-free as no other fertiliser is used with the exception of the fish waste.
“For this farming technique, we need not use much water and the plants mature faster and yield higher quality produce,” he said, adding that they also plan to sell the ikan tilapia once they mature.
“So, eventually, this project will enable us to ‘kill two birds with one stone’.”
Cattle Project
Sabah State Farmers Organisation (PPN) acting GM Mohd Sabri Jalaludin, meanwhile, said with the allocation his agency received under Prihatin, they plan to implement a cattle fattening project which is expected to have a positive impact on the state’s economic cycle.
He said PPN Sabah has expertise in the livestock industry as it has been involved in it for over 10 years. For the new project, the agency plans to buy 40 head of cattle from cattle rearers within the state in a bid to support local businesses.
Under the first phase of the project, expected to kick off next month, the cows will be fed palm kernel cake or palm kernel expeller, wheat husk, and soy residue to fatten them. Once they attain a minimum weight of 320kg each, they will be sold at RM4,000 to RM5,000 each.
Mohd Sabri added that in view of the project’s potential to contribute to the growth of the state’s GDP, they plan to increase the cat- tle to 320 heads by 2021. — Bernama
Aquaponic Farming Promises Higher Yields For Kundasang Farmers
Under the guidance of the Kinabalu Area Farmers Organisation (PPK), the farmers based in Kampung Desa Aman in Kundasang have gone into aquaponics and hydroponics since December 2019
September 26, 2020
By: Bernama
Green coral lettuce (left) and red coral lettuce thrive when cultivated using the hydroponic or aquaponic technique. Photo courtesy of Muhammad Irwan Maruji.
KOTA KINABALU: In the cool, hilly area of Kundasang in Ranau, about 100 kilometers from Kota Kinabalu, Sabah, a small group of young farmers are trying their hand at cultivating vegetables using aquaponic and hydroponic techniques.
Under the guidance of the Kinabalu Area Farmers Organisation (PPK), the farmers based in Kampung Desa Aman in Kundasang have gone into aquaponics and hydroponics since December 2019.
Their ventures are proving to be lucrative and PPK Kinabalu intends to encourage more young farmers to grow vegetables using these modern and more sustainable techniques.
According to PPK Kinabalu general manager Muhammad Irwan Maruji, in aquaponics the whole cultivation process, starting from planting the seedlings until they are ready for harvesting, takes only about three to four weeks. And, he added, vegetables harvested from a 223-square meter block of aquaponic plants can rake in sales of around RM5,600 a month.
“The capital to start an aquaponics venture, including setting up the pond and a 223-sq m block and greenhouse, comes to about RM85,000. The investment, however, is worthwhile when compared to the returns,” he told Bernama, adding that aquaponic farming is suitable for young entrepreneurs who want to get involved in agriculture.
In aquaponic farming, aquaculture (rearing of aquatic animals such as freshwater fish or prawns in tanks) is combined with hydroponics (cultivating plants without soil) in an integrated system where the aquatic waste serves as nutrients for the plants which, in turn, purifies the water in the tank.
Pointing out that vegetable farmers in Kundasang and other parts of Sabah were badly hit during the initial stage of the Movement Control Order, Muhammad Irwan said under the federal government’s Prihatin Rakyat Economic Stimulus Plan (Prihatin), each PPK in Sabah was allocated RM100,000 to RM200,000 to revitalise the agricultural sector.
“We are grateful for the allocation as it will be very helpful to the farmers and agro entrepreneurs here,” he said, adding that PPK Kinabalu plans to use the funds to start an additional hydroponic venture involving the local farmers, as well as introduce maize cultivation and a hanging fertigation system next month.
He said courses on aquaponic and hydroponic farming will be conducted starting early next month, following which he hopes to rope in at least 20 young farmers a year to pursue aquaponic and hydroponic ventures.
“PPK Kinabalu also plans to expand the market for their vegetable produce to the outside of Sabah,” he added.
Elaborating on PPK Kinabalu’s aquaponics venture with local farmers on a 2.83-hectare site in Kampung Desa Aman, Muhammad Irwan said vegetables such as red coral lettuce, green coral lettuce, mustard plant, and celery are being cultivated as they are suitable for aquaponic farming. As for the aquatic component, ikan tilapia and ikan keli are being reared.
“Aquaponic vegetables are chemical-free as no other fertilizer is used with the exception of the fish waste.
“For this farming technique, we need not use much water and the plants mature faster and yield higher quality produce,” he said, adding that they also plan to sell the ikan tilapia once they mature.
“So, eventually this project will enable us to ‘kill two birds with one stone’.”
Sabah State Farmers Organisation (PPN) acting general manager Mohd Sabri Jalaludin, meanwhile, said with the allocation his agency received under Prihatin, they plan to implement a cattle fattening project which is expected to have a positive impact on the state’s economic cycle.
He said Sabah PPN has expertise in the livestock industry as it has been involved in it for over 10 years. For the new project, the agency plans to buy 40 head of cattle from cattle rearers within the state in a bid to support local businesses.
Under the first phase of the project, expected to kick off next month, the cows will be fed palm kernel cake or palm kernel expeller, wheat husk, and soy residue to fatten them. Once they attain a minimum weight of 320 kilograms each, they will be sold at RM4,000 to RM5,000 each.
Mohd Sabri added that in view of the project’s potential to contribute to the growth of the state’s Gross Domestic Product, they plan to increase the cattle to 320 heads by 2021.
Basil Production In Horizontal or Vertical Aquaponic Systems
The main objective of this work was to compare basil production between horizontal and vertical decoupled aquaponic systems and assess the utilization of supplemental lighting in a greenhouse environment
Source: ECB
Aquaponic facilities allow the joint production of fish and plants in a reduced space. This hydroponic technique, combined with vertical farming, is not well studied. The main objective of a recent work was to compare basil production between horizontal and vertical decoupled aquaponic systems and assess the utilization of supplemental lighting in a greenhouse environment.
Six independent vertical racks were arranged with hydroponic trays at three heights. Three racks were affixed with LED lighting on the lowest levels and three with supplemental lighting on the intermediate level. Immediately adjacent to the vertical systems, two independent horizontal systems containing three trays were constructed to compare basil production.
After 35 days of growth post transplanting, the total production per tray and weight, height, number of leaves, and nodes of 20 selected plants per tray were determined. Records of the intensity of illumination photosynthetic photon flux density (PPFD)) were recorded at dawn (8:00), noon (12:00), and dusk (18:00) at randomly predetermined positions associated with the 20 selected plants per tray.
The total basil production in the experiment was 58.79 kg, with an average production per unit area of 2.43 and 0.94 kg m−2 for vertical and horizontal systems, respectively. Productivity per unit area in the vertical systems was 160% greater than in horizontal systems. A significant effect of lighting, the height of the tray, and plant position inside the tray was found on plant growth parameters.
Optimization of light source distribution and tray orientation can enhance the productive performance in vertical aquaponic systems. Electricity cost associated with supplemental lighting per kg of production increment was 21.84 and 12.25 $ kg−1 for the bottom and intermediate levels of the vertical system, respectively, the latter being economically the most profitable.
Agronomy 2020, 10(9), 1414; https://doi.org/10.3390/agronomy10091414
by Víctor M. Fernández-Cabanás 1,*,Luis Pérez-Urrestarazu 2,Alexes Juárez 3,Nathan T. Kaufman 3 andJackson A. Gross 3
1 Urban Greening and Biosystems Engineering Research Group, Departamento de Ciencias Agroforestales, Universidad de Sevilla, ETSIA, Ctra, Utrera km.1, 41013 Seville, Spain
2 Urban Greening and Biosystems Engineering Research Group, Area of Agro-Forestry Engineering, Universidad de Sevilla, ETSIA, Ctra, Utrera km.1, 41013 Seville, Spain
3 Department of Animal Sciences, University of California, Davis, Davis, CA 95616, USA
Author to whom correspondence should be addressed.
Received: 29 July 2020 / Revised: 10 September 2020 / Accepted: 14 September 2020 / Published: 17 September 2020
(This article belongs to the Section Horticultural and Floricultural Crops)
View Full-Text Download PDF Browse Figures Cite This Paper
Keywords: decoupled aquaponics; vertical farming; hydroponics; basil; artificial lighting
Source: MDPI.
Food Safety And E. coli in Aquaponic And Hydroponic Systems
This document is The Aquaponics Association’s response to a recent publication on E. coli in Aquaponic and Hydroponic systems
This document is The Aquaponics Association’s response to a recent publication on E. coli in Aquaponic and Hydroponic systems.
PDF Version: Food Safety and E. Coli in Aquaponic and Hydroponic Systems
April 27, 2020
By Tawnya Sawyer; Nick Savidov, Ph.D.; George Pate; and Marc Laberge
Overview of the Study
On April 6, 2020, Purdue Agriculture News published a story about a study related to the contamination risk of Shiga toxin-producing E. coli (STEC) in Aquaponic and Hydroponic production. The full study was published in MDPI Journal Horticulturae in January 2020.
Researchers conducted the study from December 2017 through February 2018. The Study consisted of side-by-side aquaponic and hydroponic systems in a controlled environment lab growing lettuce, basil, and tomatoes with tilapia. The purpose of the study was to identify the food safety risks associated with soilless systems. The study indicates that both the aquaponic and hydroponic systems contained Shiga toxin-producing E. coli (STEC) at the time of sampling. It did not find the presence of Listeria spp., or Salmonella spp.
The authors contend that the aquaponic system and specifically the fish feces were likely the sources of E. coli. However, we believe that there is no evidence to prove that this was the actual source of contamination since the authors admit traceback was not performed, and there were several other possible introductions.
The pathogen was present in the water and on the root system of the plants. The researchers did not detect it in the edible portion of the plants. However, if the water is positive for a contaminant, and it accidentally splashes onto the edible portion of the crop throughout its life, or during harvest, this could still result in a food safety concern.
History of E. coli in Soil-less growing systems
Until now, researchers have only discovered environmental E. coli in soilless growing systems. It is essential to note that there are hundreds of types of non-fecal coliform bacteria in the air, water, soil, as well as the fecal coliform bacteria represented mostly by E.coli in the waste of all mammals, humans, and some birds. A vast majority of these coliforms are perfectly harmless.
The E. coli found in this Study — Shiga toxin-producing O157:H7 — historically has been associated with warm-blooded mammals, more specifically bovine fed corn in feedlots (Lim JY et al. 2007), as well as swine and turkeys. Further research must be performed to prove that cold-blooded, non-mammal aquatic species such as tilapia can harbor this strain of pathogenic E. coli. A wide group of studies, university professors, and industry professionals currently refute the possibility that tilapia can harbor this strain. The lack of evidence detailing the ability of aquatic animals to harbor E. coli makes the fish contaminated with this specific strain of bacteria very rare and suspect.
Many foodborne illnesses from fresh produce such as romaine lettuces, green onions, herbs, and sprouts, are traced back to the soil; the irrigation water used in these crops (Solomon et al. 2002); the seed stock; or poor sanitation in handling facilities.
There are a wide variety of community and commercial aquaponic and hydroponic growing facilities that routinely perform pathogen testing and have not identified this pathogen present. If it was present, traceback procedures would be followed to identify and remove the source, as well as any necessary food safety precautions and recalls performed.
Our Position
The Aquaponic Association and its members agree that food safety and proper handling practices are critical to commercializing our industry and the safety of our customers. One thing that the study points out is that a contaminant can occur in a soilless system, which creates a potential food safety concern. We agree on this; however, we have numerous concerns with the procedures and statements made in the publication.
We have reached out to the professional investigator on this study Hye-Ji Kim to get answers to essential questions that the study publication does not adequately address. There are significant gaps and questions with the study.
Concerns About the Study Findings and Publication
Lack of Traceability
The study group is unsure how the pathogen was introduced into the two systems. They admit that no traceback was performed to identify the source of contamination. They speculate both in the study and in their email response that this pathogen was:
1) Accidentally introduced
2) That it is from the fish feces in the aquaponics system that splashed into the hydroponic system through the open top of the fish tank during feeding,
3) that it was from contaminated fish stock (which were provided by the Purdue Animal Sciences Research and Education Center)
4) That it was human contamination from visitors or operator handling issues.
A traceback was not conducted as it was not within the scope of the study (Kim personal communications). We disagree; the discovery of O157:H7 strain in the university greenhouse with the suspicion of fish being contaminated should have resulted in immediate action in order to track down the source of contamination and prevent infection of the university students and staff. Outside of a University setting, traceback would have been mandatory in a commercial facility. It is questionable that the University did not perform these procedures because it was “out of the scope of the study”.
Questioning Fish Feces as the Source of Contamination
Blaming fish feces as the contaminating source seems incredibly misleading when so many other options exist, and no traceback proved that as the source. The contents of the fish intestines were tested for the presence of E. coli, and none was found (Kim personal communications). It seems that if the fish does not have STEC E. coli inside its gut, then it is more likely the fish feces being positive would be related to the contaminated water that the feces was floating in.
In wild fish species, levels of E. coli appear to follow trends similar to ambient water and sediment concentrations; as concentrations in their environments rise, so do concentrations within the fish (Guillen et al., 2010).
Furthermore, it seems very suspect that a two-month-old system in a controlled environment lab could have been so quickly contaminated. It is well-known that E.coli cannot survive in a biologically-active environment, such as an anaerobic digester or aquaponic system (T.Gao et al., 2011). E. coli are outcompeted by other microorganisms, which adapted to survive in the environment outside animal guts much better than E. coli. Thus, E. coli O157:H7, which is specially adapted to live in cattle guts, will inevitably be replaced by other microorganisms.
As for the hydroponic system showing positive results, this also seems suspect if the nutrients were synthetic, as there would be very little chance for the E. coli to survive without a biological host or continuous contamination source being present. An accidental exposure in the hydroponic system would have become diluted over time, or the pathogen died off to the point that they would have been undetectable. The fact is the organic matter in hydroponics is virtually absent and, therefore, provides a poor environment for E. coli growth and propagation (Dankwa, 2019). Therefore. one would need a continuous source, not an accidental one (like splashing), in order to maintain the E. coli population in hydroponics.
Since both systems were contaminated, we suggest that there is a more likely common pathogen source that the researchers did not correctly identify and remove. The source of contamination could be from source water, filtering system, repurposed equipment, airborne in the greenhouse or HVAC system, human vector, lab equipment, the seed stock, nutrients, or other inputs.
The Purdue Animal Research and Education Center, where the researchers sourced the fish, is an operation that also has swine, cattle, and poultry production. Research suggests that pathogenic E. coli can travel 180 m through airborne exposure (Berry et al., 2015). Airborne exposure poses a more significant risk to controlled environments as pathogens can persist in the HVAC system (Riggio et al., 2019). STEC has the potential to live in dust particles for up to 42 weeks, which can act as a possible vector of contamination if there is a continuous source. Therefore, even a slight possibility of the pathogenic Shiga-producing O157:H7 strain of E. coli transfer from the Animal Research and Education Center resulting in the uncontrolled cross-contamination of other research labs and facilities certified below Biosafety level 2 not designed to work with the pathogenic bacteria would raise a serious concern about the existing safety practices (Boston University).
Lack of 3rd Party or Peer University Test Verification
It has also been recognized that there is a high frequency of false-positive signals in a real-time PCR-based “Plus/Minus” assay (Nowrouzian FL, et al., 2009). Hence the possibility that the PCR verification method may have resulted in inaccurate results. The pathogen was not verified by a 3rd party lab to be actual STEC E.coli O157:H7. Only positive or negative results were obtained for this study.
We recommend several other universities and third-party labs to run samples and validate the results. However, no samples have been provided, which may be impossible to obtain based on the study being conducted in early 2018. Without this verification, there are questions about the possibility of false-positives due to the presence of environmental E.coli, fecal coliforms, or a wide variety of other bacteria commonly found in nutrient-rich environments (Konstantinidis et al., 2011).
Impact of Sterilization
The study conclusion suggests that sterilization efforts are critical. “Our results indicated that contamination with bacterial pathogens could likely be reduced in aquaponic and hydroponic systems if the entire systems were thoroughly sanitized before each use and pathogen-free fish were used for the operation.” This statement is inaccurate and could be detrimental to proper food safety practices. As the microflora of the system develops, it creates an environment that can suppress phytopathogens (Bartelme et al., 2018) and other zoonotic pathogens as a result of antibiotic compounds released by beneficial bacteria (Compant et al., 2005). In Recirculating Aquaculture Systems (RAS), some microbial communities take over 15 years to develop (Bartelme et al., 2017), resulting in greater stability over time.
Many papers support this hypothesis with regards to probiotics in wastewater treatment, aquaculture, and hydroponics. Microbial community analysis also depicts a greater microbial diversity in aquaponics over decoupled or aquaculture systems (Eck et al., 2019), indicating a more significant potential for suppression of pathogens in coupled aquaponic systems over RAS or decoupled aquaponic system. No pathogens were discovered in a mature coupled aquaponics system during 18 years of continuous research in Canada since 2002 (Savidov, personal communications).
These findings support the argument that more biologically mature systems are less likely to develop pathogens and that periodic sanitation should not be done outside of initial start-up unless a zoonotic pathogen (Henderson 2008), is detected. If a pathogen is found, producers should follow proper sanitation and recall procedures.
Conclusion
Overall, this and other research into food safety are ongoing, and new information becomes available continuously to help shape the best practices for proper greenhouse management. As the Aquaponic Association, we hope to provide the most accurate and reliable resources for this purpose. At the same time, we hope to reduce the possibility of studies like this creating unnecessary fear, or unsubstantiated claims that could harm the growth of the aquaponic (and hydroponic) industry. When a document like this is published, it will be quoted by the media, and referenced in other studies as if it is an absolute. Other research must be performed to validate or negate this study’s outcomes.
Our findings conclude that while there is a low chance of the persistence of a pathogen in properly designed aquaponic and hydroponic systems, there is still a potential concern. No agricultural system is immune to this. Compared to soil production, soil-less crops grown in a controlled environment are far less likely to become infected pathogens from mammals, birds, and other creatures which are difficult to prevent in field crop production. Human contamination or poor handling practices are of significant concern (Pattillo et al., 2015). The best way to avoid risk is to adhere to food safety guidelines set forth by the USDA, GlobalGAPs, the Aquaponic Association, and other accredited organizations.
contact: info@aquaponicsassociation.org
References
Bartelme, R.P., McLellan, S.L., Newton, R.J., 2017. Freshwater Recirculating Aquaculture System Operations Drive Biofilter Bacterial Community Shifts around a Stable Nitrifying Consortium of Ammonia-Oxidizing Archaea and Comammox Nitrospira. Front. Microbiol. 8. https://doi.org/10.3389/fmicb.2017.00101
Bartelme, R.P., Oyserman, B.O., Blom, J.E., Sepulveda-Villet, O.J., Newton, R.J., 2018. Stripping Away the Soil: Plant Growth Promoting Microbiology Opportunities in Aquaponics. Front. Microbiol. 9, 8. https://doi.org/10.3389/fmicb.2018.00008
Berry, E.D., Wells, J.E., Bono, J.L., Woodbury, B.L., Kalchayanand, N., Norman, K.N., Suslow, T.V., López-Velasco, G., Millner, P.D., 2015. Effect of Proximity to a Cattle Feedlot on Escherichia coli O157:H7 Contamination of Leafy Greens and Evaluation of the Potential for Airborne Transmission. Appl. Environ. Microbiol. 81, 1101–1110. https://doi.org/10.1128/AEM.02998-14
Compant, S., Duffy, B., Nowak, J., Clément, C., Barka, E.A., 2005. Use of Plant Growth-Promoting Bacteria for Biocontrol of Plant Diseases: Principles, Mechanisms of Action, and Future Prospects. Appl. Environ. Microbiol. 71, 4951–4959. https://doi.org/10.1128/AEM.71.9.4951-4959.2005
Dankwa, A.S., 2019. Safety Assessment of Hydroponic Closed System 127. https://digitalcommons.library.umaine.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=4052&context=etd
Eck, M., Sare, A., Massart, S., Schmautz, Z., Junge, R., Smits, T., Jijakli, M., 2019. Exploring Bacterial Communities in Aquaponic Systems. Water 11, 260. https://doi.org/10.3390/w11020260
Guillen, Wrast, Environmental Institute of Houston, 2010, Fishes as Sources of E. coli Bacteria in Warm Water Streams, https://www.uhcl.edu/environmental-institute/research/publications/documents/10-015guillenetalfishreport.pdf
Henderson, H., 2008. Direct and indirect zoonotic transmission of Shiga toxin-producing Escherichia coli. J. Am. Vet. Med. Assoc. 232, 848–859. https://doi.org/10.2460/javma.232.6.848
Konstantinidis, Chengwei Luo, 2011. Georgia Tech Institute, Environmental E. coli: New way to classify E. coli bacteria and test for fecal contamination, https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2011/04/110411152527.htm
Lim JY et al., Escherichia coli O157:H7 colonization at the rectoanal junction of long-duration culture-positive cattle. Appl Environ Microbiol. 2007;73:1380–1382 https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1828644/
Boston University Agent Sheet E.coli EHEC or STEC) (https://www.bu.edu/researchsupport/safety/rohp/agent-information-sheets/e-coli-0157h7-agent-information-sheet/).
Nowrouzian FL1, Adlerberth I, Wold AE., 2009 High frequency of false-positive signals in a real-time PCR-based “Plus/Minus” assay. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/19161539
Riggio, G., Jones, S., Gibson, K., 2019. Risk of Human Pathogen Internalization in Leafy Vegetables During Lab-Scale Hydroponic Cultivation. Horticulturae 5, 25. https://doi.org/10.3390/horticulturae5010025
Solomon et al., Effect of Irrigation Method on Transmission to and Persistence
of Escherichia coli O157:H7 on Lettuce Journal of Food Protection, Vol. 65, No. 4, 2002, Pages 673–676 https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/11952218
Gao*, T. Haine, A. Chen, Y. Tong, and X. Li, 2011, 7 logs of toxic strain of E. coli were removed by mesophilic AD process while ~ 5 logs increase of the strain were seen in water control with the same condition for 7 days
Pattillo*, Shaw, Currey, Xie, Rosentrater, 2015, Aquaponics Food Safety and Human Health, https://southcenters.osu.edu/sites/southc/files/site-library/site-documents/abc/aquaponics_workshop/AquaponicsFoodSafetyandHumanHealthAllenPatillo.pdf
Farmers, Nonprofits Sue USDA, Saying Hydroponics Can't Be Organic
Center for Food Safety (CFS), along with a coalition of organic farms and stakeholders, filed a lawsuit challenging the United States Department of Agriculture's (USDA's) decision to allow hydroponic operations to be certified organic
Center for Food Safety (CFS), along with a coalition of organic farms and stakeholders, filed a lawsuit challenging the United States Department of Agriculture's (USDA's) decision to allow hydroponic operations to be certified organic.
The lawsuit claims that hydroponic operations violate organic standards for failing to build healthy soils, and asks the Court to stop USDA from allowing hydroponically-produced crops to be sold under the USDA Organic label. The plaintiff coalition includes some of the longest-standing organic farms in the United States including Swanton Berry Farm, Full Belly Farm, Durst Organic Growers, Terra Firma Farm, Jacobs Farm del Cabo, and Long Wind Farm, in addition to organic stakeholder organizations including organic certifier OneCert and the Maine Organic Farmers and Gardeners Association.
"Healthy soil is the foundation of organic farming," said Andrew Kimbrell, executive director of plaintiff Center for Food Safety, "Organic farmers and consumers believe that the Organic label means not just growing food in soil, but improving the fertility of that soil. USDA's loophole for corporate hydroponics to be sold under the Organic label guts the very essence of 'Organic'."
CFS's lawsuit cites the federal Organic Foods Production Act, which requires farms to build soil fertility in order to be certified organic. Hydroponics cannot comply with federal organic standards because hydroponic crops are not grown in soil, the CFS claims.
"The federal organic law unequivocally requires organic production to promote soil fertility," said Sylvia Wu, senior attorney at the Center for Food Safety and counsel for plaintiffs. "USDA's decision to allow mega-hydroponic operations that do nothing with soil to be sold as 'Organic' violates the law."
"Healthy soil is critical to producing nutrient-dense foods that benefit both people and the environment," said Paul Muller, one of the farm owners of plaintiff Full Belly Farm in Guinda, California, a diversified family farm that has been farmed organically since 1985. "Healthy soil increases and improves the availability of soil nutrients and beneficial microorganisms, and enhances the land's ability to sequester carbon and retain nutrients and water."
"While I welcome the work that my friends in the hydroponic industry are doing, hydroponic production does not conform to the soil-building precepts of organic farming," said Jim Cochran, owner of plaintiff Swanton Berry Farm, one of the oldest certified organic strawberry farms in California. "I would be perfectly happy to have my strawberries compete with properly distinguished hydroponically-grown strawberries, without the latter piggybacking on an Organic label that has taken more than 30 years to develop and establish in the minds of consumers. Certifying hydroponically-grown crops as organic devalues that label."
"The USDA's claim that hydroponics can be certified as organic is disingenuous and false," said Sam Welsch, president of plaintiff organic certifier OneCert, Inc. "Until the USDA started telling certifiers that they could ignore the parts of the law and rules that required fertility to come from organic matter in soil, no one was certifying hydroponic systems as organic."
For more information:
Center for Food Safety
www.centerforfoodsafety.org
Publication date: Tue 3 Mar 2020
L'Occitane-Backed Group To Open Europe's Largest Aquaponic Farm in 2022
AMP Saumon de France is backed by the financial muscle of international body, face, and fragrance products company L'Occitane, which has some 1,500 stores in 90 countries
The AMP Saumon de France Project is Backed by The Financial Muscle of Fragrance Products Company L'Occitane.
16 January 2020
By John Evans
France's Aquaponic Management Project Group (AMP) said it expects to open Europe's largest Aquaponic farm in 2022.
Around €12 million ($13.4 million) is being plowed into the project, which is at the study stage with work beginning.
AMP unveiled the venture in conjunction with agricultural cooperative Scael last year.
The site is expected to annually produce 1,000 metric tons of trout.
The Olis Les Jardins du Saumonier Chartres, southwest of Paris, is backed by funding from investment bank Alantra.
The project is led by Aquaculture Operations Director and Designer Olivier Soulas who joined last August from Building Integrated GreenHouses (BIGH), which bills itself a developer of sustainable aquaponics urban farms operating under the principles of the circular economy.
AMP, led by businessman Pascal Goumain, operates France's largest sea-based farm with an annual 3,000 metric tons salmon and trout producing capacity off the coast of Cherbourg in the north of the country.
It operates six salmon farms in Normandy capable of producing 1,200 metric tons annually.
The company also operates two aquaponic urban farms under the brand name Les Jardins du Saumonier in Cherbourg and Asnieres sur Seine.
AMP Saumon de France is backed by the financial muscle of the international body, face, and fragrance products company L'Occitane, which has some 1,500 stores in 90 countries.
Lead photo: L'Occitane, French body, face, and perfume products giant. Photo: Flickr / @MichelCuri
Eastgate’s Aquaponic Farm District A First For Shopping Centers In Africa
Eastgate’s Aquaponic Farm District utilizes smart new technologies to provide sustainable solutions to food production and food security for customers, offering 100 percent natural and fresh produce at the source
Eastgate’s Aquaponic Farm District utilizes smart new technologies to provide sustainable solutions to food production and food security for customers, offering 100 percent natural and fresh produce at the source.
January 23, 2020
Justin Hess with organic basil produced in the aquaponic farm district at Eastgate.
Eastgate Shopping Centre has become trailblazers by being the first center to have a rooftop Aquaponic Farm District in Africa.
The farm is in partnership with influential aquaponic company Ichthys.
Produce from the farm has been on sale since December 2019.
Ichthys managing director and Eastgate farm manager, Justin Hess, said aquaponic farming is one of the recent innovations in agriculture.
Eastgate’s Aquaponic Farm District is situated on the rooftop at entrance 10 of the center.
“The basic idea is combining hydroponic farming, where you grow plants without soil, which is a nutrients solution, with a fish farm known as an aquaculture farm. Aquaponics comes from combining aquaculture and hydroponics,” said Hess.
He said it’s one of the only organic ways to hydroponically grow vegetables.
The aquaponic farm district at Eastgate has three 10 000 liter fish tanks with 200 Pangasius fish.
Hess said this method has been around for the past 25 years, although in Africa it is still very new, with only a handful of farms adopting this method.
“The biggest advantage of aquaponic farming is it 100 percent recycles all water used. The water from the fish tanks is circulated between all our plants and is returned again,” said Hess.
Justin Hess with produce grown via the hydroponic deep water method.
Hess said the fish becomes the fertilizer as they eat and excrete in the water and that nutrients run through the system.
He said the nutrients become toxic for the fish if you do not clean it, but the plants clean the nutrients in that water, which never has to be replaced.
Justin Hess with organic basil produced in the aquaponic farm district at Eastgate.
“We have three 10 000 liter fish tanks with 200 Pangasius fish which are from Thailand originally. If you are eating the fish in a restaurant it is called Basa,” said Hess.
He said it’s one of the nicest fish to eat and this is one of the first aquaponic Pangasius farms in South Africa.
“There is a main commercial farm in Midrand, which is the largest aquaponics farm in Africa. There is about six other commercial farms in South Africa which is adopting this method and a handful in Africa,” said Hess.
Alana Hoskins enjoying an organic grown tomatoe from Eastgate’s Aquaponic Farm District.
He said the district includes a fish farm and a hydroponic section.
Hess said there are three methods of growing in the hydroponic section of the farm namely stone and drain, deep water and vertical.
The farm grows tomatoes, cucumber, letters, chili peppers, basil, chives, spring onion, mint, and spinach, among others.
Tomatoes grown at he aquaponic farm district at Eastgate shopping center.
Alana Hoskin, marketing manager for Eastgate Shopping Centre, said the center was introduced to the concept a year ago.
“One of the focuses for the center in 2020 is sustainability and how we can make a difference within our own community and for our customers. We felt like this was the right direction. We are the first shopping center to have a rooftop aquaponic farm,” said Hoskins.
She said the center turned 40 last year, and now wanted to think differently and do something that will set the center away from any other.
Organically grown basil at Eastgate’s Aquaponic Farm District.
“We want shoppers to consciously choose Eastgate for a reason, and the aquaponic farming is a good reason,” said Hoskins.
Hoskins said aquaponic farming is a sustainable solution for the east rand as there is a need to have an organic offering.
The hydroponic section at the aquaponic farm district at Eastgate Shopping Centre.
In the future, Hoskins said the center is looking at offering a few courses for the community on how to start their own aquaponic farms.
Fresh produce from the farm is sold from 9 am to 12 pm every Saturday at Entrance 10 at the rooftop entrance where the farm is located.
Alana Hoskins and Justin Hess.
“We will extend the time once we harvest more. We have also incorporated our recycling bins such as glass, general waste, and paper at the farm district, as it gives into the sustainable lifestyle as a whole. Thinking organic is thinking about recycling as well. We made it easier for customers to come and do their recycling and then purchase organic produce.
“In 2020 our motto is ‘be the change’. We have done a number of eco-friendly projects at the center and will continue to do so to create a better environment,” said Hoskins.
For more information contact center management or visit www.eastgatemall.co.za.
PixzAR
Singapore Hotel’s Aquaponic Rooftop Farm To Produce Vegetables And Fish
Aquaponics involves growing plants without soil, a process that saves resources including water, land, and manpower. By August, the rooftop farm will supply 30 percent of the vegetable and fish requirements for two neighboring hotels
Aquaponics involves growing plants without soil, a process that saves resources including water, land, and manpower
By August, the rooftop farm will supply 30 percent of the vegetable and fish requirements for two neighboring hotels
27 December 2019
This is not a new hotel, why are we featuring it now? True, a hotel has stood here since 1986, when it opened as the Westin Plaza, but now it has an aquaponics farm. Repeat, an aquaponics farm!
What on earth is an aquaponics farm, and why is it exciting news? Aquaponics is a combination of aquaculture and hydroponics; in simple terms, growing plants without soil. It employs a closed, circular system that channels the waste from living fish to fertilize plants, which in turn filter and clean the water for the fish. This process saves resources and reduces the need for water, land, and manpower.
A first for hotels in the city-state, the Fairmont Singapore’s aquaponics farm was launched in late October. The fact the farm is in Singapore – a concrete jungle that imports more than 90 percent of its food – while there’s a growing realization our fragile environment must be protected is inspirational for densely built cities.
Is it one of those “show and tell” herb gardens that resorts create as a talking point but supply only a tiny proportion of the property’s needs? Granted, at just 450 square metres, wedged between the rooftops of the Fairmont Singapore and sister property Swissôtel The Stamford, the “farm” is not large. But through clever configuration, once it’s fully operational in August 2020, it will yield an estimated 2,200kg of vegetables and 350kg of fish monthly for both hotels, or about 30 percent of their needs.
The hotel’s Aquaponics Salad.
More than 40 varieties of vegetables and herbs, including spinach, kang kong, lettuce, and mint, are being grown in compact beds and towers, and about 16,000 tilapia fish are being raised in huge containers at the back of the farm. The first fish will be ready for the dining table in March.
The plan is to plant and harvest in batches so a constant supply is available. To trick the plants into giving healthy yields in unfavourable conditions, they are sheltered from sunlight, kept at 24 to 25 degrees Celsius and exposed to LED lighting.
The proof of the pudding is in the eating. How does the produce taste? My salad at modern grill Skai contained oak leaf, red chard, mizuna, rocket leaves, baby kale and Japanese Pentas flowers, all fresh from the farm, the leaves still luscious and crisp – proof that the less distance your food travels, the better it tastes.
Currently, the farm supplies five of the hotels’ 13 food outlets. The jewel in the crown, Michelin-starred JAAN by British chef Kirk Westaway, will soon incorporate some of the farm’s output in its menu of reinvented British classics.
What is Fairmont doing about food waste? Through the Treatsure app, leftovers from buffets are sold to the public at S$10 (US$7) per box – biodegradable, of course – just before closing. Treatsure users are updated on which member hotels have leftovers up for grabs and can take as much food as they can pack into the provided box. This has reduced Fairmont’s buffet wastage by 40 to 60 percent.
Whatever cannot be sold is fed into the Eco-Wizz digester, together with leftovers from other outlets, to be turned into water and compost. Local charity Food from the Heart collects leftover bread baskets from the breakfast service for distribution to impoverished families.
A Deluxe Harbour View Room.
What else is the hotel doing to make travel less destructive to the environment? Although you’ll still find single-use plastics in your room – laundry bags and slipper wrappers, for instance – the move towards eliminating their use is ongoing, the hotel assures us. Each revamped room and suite in Fairmont’s new South Tower has a nifty Swisspro tap, which dispenses filtered hot and cold water, so no more plastic bottles.
My conscience feels lighter, now what about location? The building was designed more than 30 years ago by the late I.M. Pei, of Hong Kong’s Bank of China Tower fame. The hotel has taken on various guises under different owners, but remains in demand for its location, in the city’s cultural and historical heart. It is within walking distance of the Singapore Art Museum and the National Gallery Singapore.
And the view! Centrally located beds give guests panoramas of the city’s spectacular skyline, an effect heightened by the building’s circular design.
What’s the bottom line? Rates start at S$399 (excluding service charge and tax). A two-course set lunch at Italian restaurant Prego costs about S$30, excluding taxes and service charge. The cost savings from the aquaponics products have yet to be factored into menu prices.
Data Analytics: The Newest Tool of Aquaponic Agriculture
Colleges across the country are looking for creative ways to give students hands-on, real-world experience using technology to solve problems. It makes sense: Proficiency in this area is one of the most in-demand skills in the workforce
The University of Connecticut taps Splunk to improve operations at a student-run farm.
Calvin Hennick is a freelance journalist who specializes in business and technology writing. He is a contributor to the CDW family of technology magazines.
Colleges across the country are looking for creative ways to give students hands-on, real-world experience using technology to solve problems. It makes sense: Proficiency in this area is one of the most in-demand skills in the workforce.
Jonathan Moore, academic director of the management information systems program at the University of Connecticut, developed a program that teaches data analytics and, in a unique twist, lets students hone their skills by helping fellow students.
Previously, Moore ran the school’s student IT help desk, working with undergraduates who provided technical support to students for campus technologies such as email, software, wireless connections and learning management systems.
Today, Moore’s students are using data analytics to support peers in another academic program at UConn. The initiative is illustrative of how far analytics use cases have come in just the past few years — and the ways in which vendors like Splunk are making their tools accessible and intuitive enough to be used not just by data scientists but also by learners still finding their footing in IT.
“It’s giving students relevant skills, moving the needle on curriculum and academia, and breaking down academic siloes,” Moore said in an interview with EdTech at Splunk’s recent .conf19 conference in Las Vegas.
UConn Business School Workshops Focus on Emerging Tech
Several years ago, Moore launched a program at the University of Connecticut School of Business called OPIM Innovate (the moniker refers to the school’s operations, information and decisions department). The program aims to give students experience with new, business-changing technologies, including augmented reality, 3D printing, the Internet of Things, microcontrollers and data analytics.
OPIM Innovate started as a series of workshops, where students came to nosh on free pizza while learning about topics in IT and business. Over time, the school began developing pilot — and then permanent — classes based on popular workshops.
That’s how UConn’s MIS students came to use data analytics to help support an aquaponics facility at the school. The aquaponics greenhouse is part of Spring Valley Student Farm, which sits 5 miles from the main campus and fosters student learning around environmental and sustainability issues. (It also grows organic produce for use in the school’s dining facilities.)
Hydroponics is the cultivation of plants in water, while aquaponics involves the rearing of aquatic animals in a hydroponic environment. The idea is that plants will use nitrogen-rich fish waste products as fertilizer. However, when the facility first opened, students didn’t see the positive agriculture outcomes they were expecting, and the farm turned to MIS students to bring data analytics to bear on the problem.
Ryan O’Connor, a Splunk engineer and adjunct faculty member at the school, designed a class project that used sensors and Splunk software to monitor conditions at the aquaponics facility. The program was supported by Splunk4Good, which donates millions of dollars each year in software licenses, training, support and education to nonprofit organizations and educational institutions around the world.
Connected Sensors and Analytics Software Track Farm Metrics
Over the summer, before the class started, Moore and O’Connor put the infrastructure in place to support analytics, expanding wireless connectivity at the farm and building a prototype system to track metrics. Then, once the class started, MIS students began collecting, monitoring and analyzing data from IoT sensors to provide real-time insights on metrics such as pH balance, water temperature, water quality and UV light.
The students quickly pinpointed simple problems affecting the facility’s success. For one, the greenhouse got colder at night than previously thought. Also, students were leaving the door open when they weren’t supposed to, which allowed animals to get in overnight and damage the plants.
O’Connor noted that Splunk allows students to crunch months’ worth of data in less than a second. But, perhaps just as important, the Splunk AR mobile tool lets students see real-time metrics on their smartphones.
“It’s great for instantaneous readings,” said O’Connor. In a typical aquaponics setup, he notes, students would have to take time to individually measure and record different metrics — using a variety of tools to measure, say, temperature and pH balance. “But if you have sensors already in there, and they’re sending the data to Splunk, that’s saving a lot of time.”
GUTER/GETTY IMAGES
US: Pennsylvania - Indoor Aquaponics Farm To Bring Jobs (Plus Fresh Fish And Veggies) To Duquesne
Pittsburgh isn’t exactly known for its seafood. Not having a sea nearby slows us down a bit in that regard. This could change (well, no, we’re not getting a sea) if all goes according to plan for a new aquaponics farm in Duquesne.
Aquaponics farm. Rendering courtesy of In City Farms.
November 13, 2019
Pittsburgh isn’t exactly known for its seafood. Not having a sea nearby slows us down a bit in that regard.
This could change (well, no, we’re not getting a sea) if all goes according to plan for a new aquaponics farm in Duquesne.
“I’ve raised fish since I was a 12-year-old kid,” explains entrepreneur Glenn Ford, the Minnesota-based founder of In City Farms. What attracted Ford to aquaponics was the need for a different kind of food system that can reliably provide food in the year 2050 and beyond — no small challenge, given the potential impacts of climate change.
Ford plans to open his new indoor farm on vacant industrial land within Duquesne’s riverfront, and he expects to employ 130 people in the first phase. The second phase will employ 100 more, and a third phase is being planned.
In City’s building will be 180,000 square feet, and cost $30 million for the first phase.
“It’s going through permitting now,” says Ford. “We estimate that we’ll have this thing started in the spring.”
Here’s how it works: Aquaponics begins with raising edible fish (the Duquesne farm will likely include trout and Arctic char) in indoor pools. The fish are then sold commercially, and the waste stream from the water then fertilizes vegetables that are also grown indoors.
“Essentially, it takes the nutrient stream from fish and runs it through a biological filter which has a bunch of positive bacteria in it, much like the soil has,” Ford says. In the process, he explains, the bacteria eat away all the ammonia and turn it into nitrates that plants can consume.
Aquaponics farm in Duquesne. Rendering courtesy of In City Farms.
“There is a balance between the amount of fish you can raise and the plants that can be supported,” he says. “It’s a mathematical and scientific loop.”
Growing plants indoors under optimal conditions gives the region a source of produce all year long, beyond the typical outdoor growing season. Traditionally, restaurants that want to source ingredients locally have few options in the winter.
“We are predominantly focused on the wholesale trade,” Ford says. “But we’ll also sell to restaurants directly if they come to us with requests for things they can’t find in the market.”
Ideally, he says, the plants will be consumed within 20 or 30 miles from where they’re grown, lowering the carbon footprint.
The former Duquesne Steel Works site was chosen because it fits a profile of a community that industry has largely left behind. In City Farms has also purchased land in five other cities, says Ford.
“I come from inner cities and so do several of the people on my management team,” says Ford. “We’re looking at ways to give back. We’ll hire as many people as we can to fill those jobs from the community. There’s a pretty high percentage that can come from directly from Duquesne.”
The jobs will start at about $35,000 for entry-level and will include management positions.
Aquaponics farm in Duquesne. Rendering courtesy of In City Farms.
This is just one part of an effort called Food21, which imagines creating a thriving economy based around food in the region. It could involve creating jobs through food production and logistics.
The jobs aren’t the byproduct of this venture — they’re the whole point: “This is a catalyst to use food to employ people and give them jobs,” says Ford.
“Obviously we have to run a successful business to keep employing people and keep the business growing,” he says. “In order to do that, products have to be produced that have market value at market rates. But it’s really an opportunity to look at the resources that are present inside a community, and to figure out how to turn those resources into opportunities.”
This isn’t the only high-tech non-traditional farm startup in the Mon Valley. Braddock has a robotic vertical farm in the works from tech firm Fifth Season.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
City Design editor
Michael Machosky is a writer and journalist with 18 years of experience writing about everything from development news, food and film to art, travel, books and music. He lives in Greenfield with his wife, Shaunna, and 8-year old son.
How Does Tilapia Help Produce Organic Vege? This Ampang Aquaponic Farm Blooms Because of It
The growing demand for clean eating eventually led to the birth of Urban Greenlife farm, run by Chin and six other shareholders including the farm’s co-director Shum Chong Bon and Aquaponics Hardware Asia business development manager Yoon Wong
20 September 2019
BY TAN MEI ZI
(From left) Shum Chong Bon, Yoon Wong, and Chin Kwe Fok began cultivating the farm last year. — Pictures by Firdaus Latif
KUALA LUMPUR, Sept 20 — For Chin Kwe Fok, the motivation behind setting up an aquaponic farm was simple: A desire to eat healthily.
After speaking with friends at church, he soon realized he wasn’t the only one on the lookout for organic, pesticide-free produce.
The growing demand for clean eating eventually led to the birth of Urban Greenlife farm, run by Chin and six other shareholders including the farm’s co-director Shum Chong Bon and Aquaponics Hardware Asia business development manager Yoon Wong.
Tucked away in a quiet street in Ampang, the farm spans over 3,000 square feet and currently houses a variety of greens including basil, kale, watercress, Japanese cucumber, and Brazilian spinach.
It runs on an aquaponic system where nutrient-rich water produced by tilapia is fed to the plants before being recirculated back into the fish tanks.
Crops from ancient civilizations as early as the Aztec Empire are said to have flourished thanks to this method, now used by Chin to grow vegetables without the need for pesticides or chemical fertilisers.
The farm’s success is a result of the mutual health between the plants and the aquatic animals.
As consumer awareness about organic produce improves, Chin and his co-directors hope to establish working relationships with nearby restaurants and supply fresh vegetables straight to their kitchens.
“When we talk to people, we see that there is a market out there for organic food.
“People from the church I attend have expressed interest when I told them about the farm and asked if they could buy directly from us.
“Now we are trying to make the system stable so we can maintain supply to keep up with the demand,” Chin told Malay Mail.
It’s been an uphill battle working on the farm as the balance is of utmost importance; if one element falters, the rest of the operation soon follows.
The farm has a strict rule on avoiding chemicals as they can seep into the water and pose a fatal risk to the fish once the fluid recirculates back into their tanks.
Similarly, the tilapia need to be fed and monitored with meticulous care to ensure the health of the plants is not compromised.
The roots of the plant are immersed in nutrient-rich water that gets fed to them from the tilapia tank.
It currently costs around RM4,000 per month to maintain the farm, a bargain considering its proximity to the city center.
Aquaponic farming also saves water and produces minimal waste, making it cost-efficient in the long run.
By chance, the landowner happened to be a fish lover, making it easier for the Urban Greenlife team to get a headstart when with rearing tilapia.
“We were lucky because the owner of the lot likes to keep fish, so the place came with a pond already built inside.
“He did all the renovations and didn’t charge anything,” said Chin.
As Urban Greenlife continues to sprout new opportunities for its owners, Chin hopes to inspire Malaysians to move towards healthier eating by making aquaponic produce more accessible and affordable.
To find out more about Urban Greenlife, surf over to their Facebook page.
Resetting The Table: An Aquaponic Farm Rooted In Community
The sun is beating down on Oko Farms, and goldfish the size of sandals swim lazy circles through a tank of water shaded by a tarp-covered tent. Sunflowers sway in the wind, a light breeze rustles through planter beds, and bees hum as they move between clusters of bright little flowers
Elazar and the camera crew head to Bushwick, New York to meet the woman behind New York City's largest outdoor aquaponic farm
August 27, 2019
To View The Video, Please Click Here
[Photographs: Vicky Wasik. Video: Serious Eats Video.]
Editor's note: Resetting the Table is a monthly Serious Eats video series celebrating the diverse foodways that inform the way we eat in America. In each segment, Elazar Sontag cooks and talks with someone whose work in food, farming, or social justice is making a difference.
The sun is beating down on Oko Farms, and goldfish the size of sandals swim lazy circles through a tank of water shaded by a tarp-covered tent. Sunflowers sway in the wind, a light breeze rustles through planter beds, and bees hum as they move between clusters of bright little flowers. It’s not the kind of scene you expect to find in noisy, traffic-jammed Brooklyn, squeezed between a pizza shop and a banner promising "Fast & Professional!!" tax preparation services. But on this plot of land in Bushwick, Yemi Amu has transformed an abandoned concrete lot into New York City’s largest outdoor aquaponic farm.
Yemi utilizes the space on her farm to grow many of the vegetables she ate growing up in the coastal city of Lagos, Nigeria. Alongside onions and kale, she also grows gburé (water leaf), clove basil, several varieties of rice, sorghum, and other hard-to-find vegetables and herbs for Nigerian chef friends to incorporate into their cooking.
[Photograph: Vicky Wasik]
Aquaponic farming is a sustainable method of growing plants and raising fish simultaneously, perfect for areas like this one, where a fire hydrant is the most accessible source of water. In aquaponics, water from a large freshwater fish tank is filtered to remove solid waste, then it's pumped through pipes into plant beds, providing the plants with nutrient-dense fertilizer. The plants filter out any toxic waste from the water, so that it’s clean when it returns to the fish tank, and the cycle repeats. This method of farming uses just a fraction of the water that conventional methods use.
Other farmers turned the Bushwick lot down, since without a water source it wasn’t farmable land. But Yemi saw the empty lot’s potential for aquaponic farming, and got to work.
Oko Farms before and during the building process. [Photographs: Courtesy of Yemi Amu.]
The 2,500-square-foot farm she has created acts as a community space of sorts. Students regularly visit Oko Farms to learn about aquaponic farming, and Yemi welcomes anyone in the community to wander through and learn more about what she’s doing. When she's not tending to her own farm, Yemi helps build aquaponic farms throughout New York.
Early one morning, I headed to Oko with the Serious Eats camera crew to meet Yemi, learn about aquaponic farming and the incredible work she’s doing in her community, and to cook lunch on the beautiful farm.
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ELAZAR SONTAG ASSISTANT EDITOR
Elazar Sontag is a writer from Oakland, California, living in Brooklyn. He’s the author of Flavors of Oakland: A Cookbook in 20 Stories, a book about home cooks and their food cultures. He's written for the Washington Post, New York Magazine, Vice, and this excellent website. Find him on Instagram: e_zar
OId MacDonald Had A Farm…And A Robot, And Racks of plants, And Lots of Plastic To grow Plants In…
How about farms that go up vertically – measured in stories high, instead of in acres wide? How about farms that are inside buildings, instead of outdoors? How about farms that are in a city, instead of out in the country? How about farms that use water, instead of dirt?
The future of farming?
How about farms that go up vertically – measured in stories high, instead of in acres wide? How about farms that are inside buildings, instead of outdoors? How about farms that are in a city, instead of out in the country? How about farms that use water, instead of dirt? How about farms that use plastic, instead of dirt? Not to mention robots and drones working the crops.
All possible. All happening, in fact. And perhaps, the future of farming.
Over the year to come, we’ll tell you more in detail about these innovations, and other changes in how we grow our food. But the future of farming has more in common with the past and the present than you might think. Petrochemicals, for instance. Past, present or future, you can’t farm without the products made from them: from the strong, lightweight plastics used to build the racks (and even the “ground”) plants grow on, to the carbon fiber-reinforced resin used to make many of those drones and robots and other equipment used on the indoor farms of the future – to the fuels that move the tractors, combines and other equipment used on the outdoor farms of today, as well as the fuels that move the food those farms grow to us – farming has deep petrochemical roots.
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Today, we’ll start with an introduction, and we’ll start in – in San Carlos, California.
That’s where Iron Ox has turned a warehouse into a grow house: a dirt-free indoor farm growing romaine lettuce, kale and other leafy greens. What replaces dirt at Iron Ox, is water (water supercharged with nutrients) – and racks, rows and rows of horizontal and vertical racks of plants…
(Photo from Iron Ox)
…fresh food grown for people living in cities (like so many of us), grown in the cities where we live, and grown year round (which even in California, isn’t possible outdoors).
And the “Iron Ox”? Much of the work on this farm is done by robots (like the one in that picture, lifting and moving racks of plants). Those robots can move in any direction, so they can place those racks closer together and get the most out of those indoor spaces. The robots move on Mecanum wheels made from a high-tech synthetic rubber derived from petrochemicals like ethylene, propylene and toluene. Even the robot arm that plants seeds and transfers plants? That bends and flexes thanks to polypropylene joints.
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In Houston, Moonflower Farms has replaced the dirt with vermiculite that contains a mineral blend. In their mini-warehouse (more of a shack really), their micro-greens are racked vertically…
(Photo from Moonflower Farms)
…under hot pink lights.
That meant, after Hurricane Harvey swept over the Gulf Coast, Moonflower had 10 inches of water on the floor – but almost all of their crop was just fine (since it was up above the ground, and the flood water).
(Those racks, by the way, must be light-weight and strong, which requires engineered polymers like high-density polyethylene, ABS and HIPS. And yes, those high-tech polymers are made from petrochemicals such as ethylene, propylene, butadiene and benzene.)
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Also in Houston is Acre in a Box. In this case, the “box” is an old shipping container. And inside that 320 square feet, is an acre (and a half, actually) of produce…
(Photo from Acre in a Box)
…growing hydroponically day and night, come rain or come shine, or even come hurricane.
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At Urban Organics, in St. Paul, Minnesota – it’s easy to see one advantage of indoor farming. The average high temperature in January is 23 degrees. And unless you like a hot bowl of pine needle soup (think Euell Gibbons), there’s not much of anything growing fresh in that weather.
Urban Organics is an aquaponics farm – meaning they also grow their plants in a nutrient-rich water – but in this case, the fertilizer comes from fish (fish poop, that is). In turn, the plants filter the water as they absorb those nutrients, the clean water goes back to the fish, and round and round the system goes.
(Photo from Urban Organics)
And this type of advanced agriculture wouldn’t be possible without the engineered plastics made from petrochemicals. Companies like Pentair Aquatic Eco-Systems use polyethene and fiber-reinforced resins, made from the petrochemical ethylene, to make fish tanks and filter tanks. Ethylene is also used in the polyethylene and vinyl liners. And the advanced membrane technology that allows for water recycling depends on petrochemicals as well (like the xylene, that makes the polyamide, that makes those membranes).
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But maybe the most far-out farming is going on in Japan – where Mebiol Research and Development is growing tomatoes – indoors – on a plastic sheet.
(Photo from Mebiol)
This plastic (polymer) sheet is a hydrogel called polyvinyl acetate – a material like a super sponge which soaks up water and nutrients. The tomatoes (and there are other plants too), grow ON the polymer, spreading their roots across the surface, and absorbing the nutrient-steeped water. That polymer starts with ethylene, again – which as you know by now, is a critical part of future farming.
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Oh, and those drones? Drones nowadays inspect crops – check for plants that are underwatered – spot diseased plants – evaluate smoke contamination after a fire. And after a fire, drones can plant new trees (as seeds), to help restore burned-over wilderness areas (and since they are drones, getting into a wilderness to plant is not a problem).
(Photo from DroneSeed)
The drones, by the way, don’t dig holes and plant seeds – these drones “shoot” seed pods into the ground. The pods are packed with nutrients, and coated with capsaicin (the stuff in chili peppers), to keep animals from eating the seeds.
(These sophisticated, seed-planting drones have to be tough, to withstand a wide variety of weather conditions and constant stress from the multiple blades – so fiber-reinforced resins are used because they are as strong as steel and much lighter in weight. The resins are a special type of plastic called epoxy, and the petrochemical propylene is their foundation.)
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All of these methods of farming use far less water (as much as 90 percent less water) as conventional farming – they take up far less land – they can grow food year round – and they can grow food in the same place where most of it is being eaten, our cities. All good, and all important at a time when there is less and less good farmland, and more and more of us needing to be fed. And as we told you at the beginning of this peek at the future, all of this depends on farming’s deep petrochemical roots.
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Right after World War I, there was a hit song: “How ya gonna keep ‘em down on the farm (after they’ve seen Paree)?”
Millions of American soldiers came home after the war, having left their home town for the first time, their state for the first time, their country for the first time – and maybe, so the song went, soldiers who’d left small towns across America, might have a taste now for big city life, and wouldn’t want to go home.
That might be different in years to come though. Because “down on the farm” might be very much a part of big city life. And it won’t be “down” on the farm anyhow. Those future farms will go up, up into the air. Skyscrapers filled with vegetables? Stay tuned throughout the year as we follow this story.
Controlled Environmental Farming Inc - Provides True Urban Farming In Tucson, AZ
The facility of approximately 40,000 square feet will house a closed loop aquaponic method of production that uses patented technology to provide for vertical cultivation
07/07/19
Controlled Environmental Farming Inc (CEF) has released the initial Site Plan for an urban farm to be located inside the city limits of Tucson, AZ.
The proposed location, 4431 E 22nd Street, has received preliminary approval from the City of Tucson Planning Department. This location in the heart of Tucson will provide locally grown fruits, vegetables, herbs, shrimp and fish at an affordable price.
The facility of approximately 40,000 square feet will house a closed loop aquaponic method of production that uses patented technology to provide for vertical cultivation. This vertical integration allows CEF to reduce land and capital construction costs and provides operation cost reduction through production density. “Our philosophy is to make every cubic inch count in product production,” states Bruce Carman, Director of Technology / Owner of CEF.
CEF intends to use direct distribution to the consumer to ensure product quality, freshness and food safety.
The all-inclusive, highly efficient facility will provide cultivation, processing, packaging and distribution to all clientele which are modeled to be private individuals and restaurants. This model helps to keep consumer costs down.
According to a report released by the U.S. Department of Agriculture's Economic Research Service (ERS), for every consumer dollar spent on food, the farm-share average is approximately $0.15 cents meaning that $0.85 cents is spent toward distribution, marketing and retail of the product. “Our direct-to-consumer model, will allow CEF to maintain and control costs for our customers while also allowing us to provide the freshest quality produce. Consumers increasingly want to know where their food is coming from, how it’s being grown, and who their farmer is. Local urban farming responds to those questions,” said Kristen Osgood, CEF’s CEO.
The facility will provide direct sales through an on-line ordering system that can also arrange delivery if desired. Customers will be able to shop on site at the “Farm Market” or use the drive through to pick-up their orders, including complete meal-kits, salads, whole shrimp, fish and raw veggies.
In each area CEF locates, it intends to create local partnerships with other farmers and producers who share in the same food ethos as CEF. It is through these partnerships CEF hopes to integrate and promote local food economies. This will allow CEF customers to have the very best the local foodshed has to offer.