Aquaponics is a system of growing plants and fish together in a mutually beneficial system. Aquaponics is starting to revolutionize the way many people are growing food. Because of the many advantages that aquaponics has over conventional farming and organic farming, it is no surprise why so many food growers are switching to this kind of system.
One of the most precious resources, when it comes to growing food is water. Farmers must dump massive amounts of water onto the land so the plants can get the small amount of it that they need. Most of this water ends up being wasted through evaporation or soaking deep into the ground. With aquaponics, the water is contained and recirculated in the system and delivered directly to the roots. None of it is dumped on the ground and evaporation is much less. Aquaponics can use as little as 2% of the water that conventional farming uses to grow the same amount of food.
With aquaponics, there is no need for fertile land. Fertile land is very valuable and expensive. But with aquaponics, plants are not grown in the ground, so food can be grown in areas that would normally be unsuitable. With this system, food can be grown on cheap infertile rocky ground and even barren deserts. Since very little water is needed, this can allow food to be grown in many parts of the world where it otherwise wouldn’t.
Aquaponics is energy efficient. Massive amounts of energy is required in faring to till the soil, add fertilizer, pesticides and herbicides. Plus the energy to produce these materials, which many are made from petroleum. With aquaponics, there is no soil to till. The biggest energy user is the pumps to circulate and aerate the water. And these can be run off electricity, which is easy to supply with solar panels.
Plants can be grown closer together in a aquaponics system and they can grow faster. This allows several times more produce to be grown in the same amount of space as with soil farming. And with this organic system, food is known for having more of a garden grown quality than with even hydroponics, with its use of chemical fertilizers.
Aquaponics has a low start up and operating cost. Aquaponic systems can be made from low cost simple materials and equipment. It is also very scalable, making it easy to start small and add on to the system later. You can buy a cheap piece of land and get set up with an aquaponics farm for a fraction of what it may cost to buy the fertile land that would only grow a fraction of the food in the same amount of space.
A great bonus with aquaponics is the production of fish. With many concerns about the quality of imported farmed fish and depleting natural fish, the fresh clean fish from these systems in some cases be even more valuable than the plants they grow. This more than pays for the cost of fish feed while creating free fertilizer for the plant crops.
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