Sustainable food production

[Carsten]

One of my passions is sustainable food production. In my back yard I have an Aquaponics system, it is a hybrid system crossing aqua culture with hydroponics.

 

Rather than try and reinvent the wheel I will post this Youtube video for an explanation since visuals are so powerful, it's from an Australian gardening program:

 

 

When I first came across Aquaponics I was really blown away how simple the idea was but also common sense..

 

Now days I have 8000L across 4 tanks, with Jade Perch and Silver Perch, it has now been established for 3 years, I started small and gradually expanded it...

 

Growing at the moment I have: 

• Tomatoes
• Eggplant
• Beans
• Squash
• Spinach
• Beetroot or Beets as Americans know them
• Lettuce
• Cabbage
• Corn
• Multiple types of Chinese Vegetables including my favourite Buk Choi.
• Garlic
• Various types of herbs

In the past I have also grown mellons, and various berries all of which grow well, I have known people to grow Potatoes carrots, and various other root crops.

 

For years previous to when this became an interest I often looked about the produce department and green grocers signs saying Garlic then in small print grown in Mexico, Argentina or some such place and wondered why should we need to do such a thing.

 

Which brings me to food miles, I remember reading something last year saying most of our food is delivered to our supermarkets from 100KM or more away, even that seems unnecessary to me in the amount of carbon just the transport is putting into the atmosphere.

 

While I do understand it is not practical for everyone to use a system such as Aquaponics, I do believe it is a system that can lead us back to the old market garden concept since such a large amount of food can be produced in such a small space.

 

The one argument people often come up with is: Oh but your still using aquaculture fish food!

Wrong..

 

While some people use aquaculture feed we use duckweed, black solider flies and earth worms since they reproduce in the grow beds at such a rappid rate, we also put any organic table scraps back into the system, the fish eat it with gusto..

 

So I guess my question is why isn't more of the world using such a common sense system to farm food?