Why We NEED Aquaponics - Desperately!!!

We are exceeding the planets natural capacity for food production

 

Traditional farming and fisher communities around the world are being forced to innovate in order to deal with global changes in environment and natural resources caused in part, by man’s population growth.  Commercial fishing is stagnant and stuck at 2002 levels of around 90 million metric tons.   This is reflective of environmental concerns not consumer demand.  Another 53 million metric tons are produced from fish farming as the demand has risen from 10 kilos per person in the 1960’s to 17kilos per person in 2008.  The demand for fish continues to grow at between 6% and 8% each year.  This combined with the rise in overall food prices is driving whole populations to the brink. Of the 41 countries on the WFO’s Famine watch 36 are in Africa.

Aquaponics is the future of food

Many countries see traditional farming as insufficient to meet the consumer demand for quality vegetables as well.   Holland and Spain have hundreds of square Kilometers of greenhouses all growing veggies as hydroponics looms as a significant contributor and alterntive to field crop farming methods.   The traditional farming food production chain is being further challenged by the scarcity of another natural resource: clean potable water.  Many parts of the world are woefully deficient in this precious resource, namely Africa and the Middle East.  In ground growing requires lage amounts of clean water.  China for example is now running short of fresh uncontaminated water.

Traditional farming is hard on the environment

Another impediment to traditional farming is the need for using nitrates and connercial fertilized.  The fertilizer is washed off by spring rains and contaminates the water table.  The need for environmentally damaging fertilizer along with millions of gallons of water creates a potent argument for an alternative to both traditional farming.  Aquaponics that produces both high quality carbohydrates (vegetables) and seafood, and excellent source of quality proteing is the obvious answer.  It is not a question of, "If," but, "When?"