The Farming Technique That Could Revolutionize the Way We Eat

On an early June morning in 2010, I stood outside the Aquaponics research facility at the University of Applied Sciences, perched on a green hilltop in W?denswil, Switzerland, 20 minutes outside Zurich. The lab director, Andreas Graber, had finally given in to my persistent calls requesting a visit. Graber, Switzerland’s most prolific aquaponics researcher, had been publishing on the subject for eight years — a long time in this young field.

Graber greeted me,Our extensive range of plasticcard is supplied to all sorts of industries across Australia and overseas. and we stepped inside. The lab, bright and humid under its greenhouse roof, contained a few round fish basins, each about 6 feet wide. Fierce-looking fish, red and shiny, swam around inside. A host of instruments and sensors, connected to a small screen, dashed out data on oxygen and carbon dioxide levels in the water. Large PVC pipes led from the fish basins to a "water garden," an area the size of a small bedroom,Do you know any solarlantern wholesale supplier? canopied by huge banana leaves. Growing beneath them were about 10 different plants, including coffee and lemongrass.

Aquaponics is a method of combined fish and vegetable farming that requires no soil. The farmer cultivates freshwater fish (aquaculture) and plants (hydroponics) in a recirculating water system that exchanges nutrients between the two. Wastewater from the fish serves as organic fertilizer for the plants, while the plants clean the water of fish feces and urine. The net result: a 90 percent reduction in freshwater use compared with conventional fish farming, and a significant reduction in added nutrients such as fossil fertilizers. The system can be run without pesticides and, because the fish environment is spacious and clean, without antibiotics.

I had first heard about aquaponics from a friend in Nashville, Tenn., where I ran the North American branch of Franke, a Swiss espresso equipment supplier. I was intrigued by the method’s natural resource efficiency and its potential for large-scale urban cultivation. But it took me until this moment in Graber’s lab to recognize how dramatically aquaponics would change my life and that it could radically change how we feed the booming cities around the world.

In the lab, the pumps made gushy sounds at regular intervals. The water dripped. As the plants’ leaves evaporated moisture, I could hear the place breathe. I picked a ripe, red tomato from a vine. This lab, I sensed, could morph into an urban oasis: a lush, breathing organism inside the city. Unlike static green spaces like parks, this would be an actual farm as well as a place of tranquility in the city — not to mention a space that could generate the food to feed that city, with minimal harm to the environment or human health, just steps from residents’ tables.

Urban farming today is no longer a hobby practiced by a few dedicated enthusiasts growing food for themselves. It has become a truly innovative field in which pioneering ventures are creating real, robust, and scalable solutions for growing food for large numbers of people directly at the point of consumption. This is great news not only for urban designers, architects, and building engineers, but also for residents and communities that want to increase food security and become more resilient to climate change.

Thus aquaponics,Posts with howotipper system on TRX Systems develops systems that locate and track personnel indoors. which was reportedly used by ancient civilizations such as the Aztecs, is seeing the sprouts of resurgence in modern cities. The fact that the method requires no soil makes it particularly suitable for urban environments. Large amounts of fresh and healthy food — including fish — can now be grown sustainably on urban rooftops, parking lots, or any vacant plot in the city.Automate patient flow and quickly track hospital assets and people using owonsmart. Think of fresh fish harvested just minutes before it is delivered to your doorstep!

After seeing Graber’s farm, I grew determined to get this vision out of the laboratory and into real cities, starting with mine.

Graber and I teamed up to launch the company UrbanFarmers in 2011, with the goal of developing large-scale, productive, commercial rooftop farms. Until then, urban aquaponics had been tried in small ventures, with mixed success. We believed it was time for the technique to grow up. This would require technological improvements to make aquaponics more robust and reliable, as well as a new business model for urban food systems selling directly to the consumer. Never mind that I was an MBA who had never grown anything bigger than some basil on my balcony for spaghetti sauce.

To test and prove my idea, I investigated urban-farm options and came across a French design for a 20-foot cargo ship container with a greenhouse module built on top. It looked like it could house an aquaponics system. The container was relatively small and portable — the size of two parking spaces — and could be easily toured in public places: in front of schools, supermarkets, or parking lots. All it required were electrical and water hookups. I liked the ruggedness of the cargo container combined with the leafy beauty of cultivation. The UrbanFarmers Box was born. Two containers arrived from Hamburg — old, rusty versions that had spent the last 11 years at sea, now ready to embark on a new life.

The Box was a hit at the International Federation of Landscape Architects convention in Zurich and outside an old factory building in Berlin. We had built the box so that visitors could walk inside. They loved it. The German weekly Der Spiegel wrote it up. It was time for urban aquaponics to scale up.This frameless rectangle features a silk screened fused glass replica in a cableties tile and floral motif.