Recently in Aquaculture Category

One of the main reasons for adding plants to an existing aquaculture system is to conserve water. The amount of water used in factory aquaculture is enormous. We are entering a time of severe water shortages as populations soar and cities are competing with farmers for water.

One of the main reasons for changing over from conventional tillage farming to aquaponics is water usage. It is claimed that aquaponics uses only about one tenth the water as tillage farming.

Yes, mixing fish and plants is tricky business but all we have to do is look at nature; for we only invented the word aquaponics, not the process. You can optimize your system to grow plants or fish but if you want to optimize it to do both you will have a challenge on your hands.

Aquaponics Earth has  been contacted by farmers who are cutting down nut trees here in California due to lack of water and wanting to know what they can grow using what little water they are allocated.

Next to food, fresh water will be (and already is) the most valuable commodity on the planet. So, above all other discussions about why to mix growing plants with fish, I believe limited water is the primary reason.

When the founders of Aquaponics Earth came together, they realized they all shared the same life mandate--that mandate is to Teach People How To Be Self Sufficient. They also realized that mandate is what brought them each to discover Aquaponics in the first place. Because it is Aquaponics that has the capability of revitalizing, sustaining and saving the lives of starving people all over the world. Aquaponics turns starving people from victims--begging for their next hand-out from whatever charitable organization or government agency that is in front of them, if any--into people with dignity who are independent and capable of  providing food for themselves.

Oliver
www.AquaponicsEarth.com
(760) 298-3755
56925 Yucca Trail, Suite #303

Yucca Valley, California 92284

In combination with moving down the food chain to eat fewer livestock products, reducing the food miles in our diets can dramatically reduce energy use in the food economy.

In the United States, there has been a surge of interest in eating fresh local foods, corresponding with mounting concerns about the climate effects of consuming food from distant places and about the obesity and other health problems associated with junk food diets. This is reflected in the rise in urban gardening, school gardening, and farmers' markets.

With the fast-growing local foods movement, diets are becoming more locally shaped and more seasonal. In a typical supermarket in an industrial country today it is often difficult to tell what season it is because the store tries to make everything available on a year-round basis. As oil prices rise, this will become less common. In essence, a reduction in the use of oil to transport food over long distances--whether by plane, truck, or ship--will also localize the food economy.

This trend toward localization is reflected in the recent rise in the number of farms in the United States, which may be the reversal of a century-long trend of farm consolidation. Between the agricultural census of 2002 and that of 2007, the number of farms in the United States increased by 4 percent to roughly 2.2 million. The new farms were mostly small, many of them operated by women, whose numbers in farming jumped from 238,000 in 2002 to 306,000 in 2007, a rise of nearly 30 percent.

Many of the new farms cater to local markets. Some produce fresh fruits and vegetables exclusively for farmers' markets or for their own roadside stands. Others produce specialized products, such as the goat farms that produce milk, cheese, and meat or the farms that grow flowers or wood for fireplaces. Others specialize in organic food. The number of organic farms in the United States jumped from 12,000 in 2002 to 18,200 in 2007, increasing by half in five years.

Gardening was given a big boost in the spring of 2009 when U.S. First Lady Michelle Obama worked with children from a local school to dig up a piece of lawn by the White House to start a vegetable garden. There was a precedent. Eleanor Roosevelt planted a White House victory garden during World War II. Her initiative encouraged millions of victory gardens that eventually grew 40 percent of the nation's fresh produce.

Although it was much easier to expand home gardening during World War II, when the United States was largely a rural society, there is still a huge gardening potential--given that the grass lawns surrounding U.S. residences collectively cover some 18 million acres. Converting even a small share of this to fresh vegetables and fruit trees could make an important contribution to improving nutrition.

Many cities and small towns in the United States and England are creating community gardens that can be used by those who would otherwise not have access to land for gardening. Providing space for community gardens is seen by many local governments as an essential service, like providing playgrounds for children or tennis courts and other sport facilities.

Many market outlets are opening up for local produce. Perhaps the best known of these are the farmers' markets where local farmers bring their produce for sale. In the United States, the number of these markets increased from 1,755 in 1994 to more than 4,700 in mid-2009, nearly tripling over 15 years. Farmers' markets reestablish personal ties between producers and consumers that do not exist in the impersonal confines of the supermarket. Many farmers' markets also now take food stamps, giving low-income consumers access to fresh produce that they might not otherwise be able to afford. With so many trends now boosting interest in these markets, their numbers may grow even faster in the future.

In school gardens, children learn how food is produced, a skill often lacking in urban settings, and they may get their first taste of freshly picked peas or vine-ripened tomatoes. School gardens also provide fresh produce for school lunches. California, a leader in this area, has 6,000 school gardens.

Many schools and universities are now making a point of buying local food because it is fresher, tastier, and more nutritious and it fits into new campus greening programs. Some universities compost kitchen and cafeteria food waste and make the compost available to the farmers who supply them with fresh produce.

Supermarkets are increasingly contracting with local farmers during the season when locally grown produce is available. Upscale restaurants emphasize locally grown food on their menus. In some cases, year-round food markets are evolving that market just locally produced foods, including not only fruit and vegetables but also meat, milk, cheese, eggs, and other farm products.

Food from more distant locations boosts carbon emissions while losing flavor and nutrition. A survey of food consumed in Iowa showed conventional produce traveled on average 1,500 miles, not including food imported from other countries. In contrast, locally grown produce traveled on average 56 miles--a huge difference in fuel investment. And a study in Ontario, Canada, found that 58 imported foods traveled an average of 2,800 miles. Simply put, consumers are worried about food security in a long-distance food economy. This trend has led to a new term: locavore, complementing the better known terms herbivore, carnivore, and omnivore.

Concerns about the climate effects of consuming food transported from distant locations has also led Tesco, the leading U.K. supermarket chain, to label products with their carbon footprint--indicating the greenhouse gas contribution of food items from the farm to supermarket shelf. Sweden is a recent pioneer in labeling food with its carbon footprint along with nutritional facts.

As agriculture localizes, livestock production will likely start to shift away from mega-sized cattle, hog, and poultry feeding operations. The shift from factory farm production of milk, meat, and eggs by returning to mixed crop-livestock operations facilitates nutrient recycling as local farmers return livestock manure to the land. The combination of high prices of natural gas, which is used to make nitrogen fertilizer, and of phosphate, as reserves are depleted, suggests a much greater future emphasis on nutrient recycling--an area where small farmers producing for local markets have a distinct advantage over massive feeding operations.

As world food insecurity mounts, more and more people will be looking to produce some of their own food in backyards, in front yards, on rooftops, in community gardens, and elsewhere, further contributing to the localization of agriculture.

RESOURCE:

Adapted from Chapter 9, "Feeding Eight Billion People Well," in Lester R. Brown, Plan B 4.0: Mobilizing to Save Civilization (New York: W.W. Norton & Company, 2009), available on-line at www.earthpolicy.org/index.php?/books/pb4

Additional data and information sources at www.earthpolicy.org

The rite of passage for young coho salmon is a glorious rendezvous with the sea, but three years of drought have left many migrating fish marooned in the drying tributaries of Marin County's San Geronimo Valley, according to a recent study.

Many of these trapped juvenile fish, commonly known as smolts, have either been plucked out of isolated pools by birds and other predators or died from lack of nutrients, biologists with the Salmon Protection and Watershed Network said.

The stranding of smolt trying to reach the ocean is one of a litany of problems facing the endangered Central California coho population, which registered the lowest number of egg-laying adults in the normally bountiful Lagunitas watershed in recorded history last winter.

It is unique in that the primary spawning grounds are in the middle of developed communities. Some 40 percent of the coho in the watershed are hatched in tributaries surrounded by homes, golf courses, roads and horse corrals in the 9-square-mile San Geronimo Valley, according to the study.

It is estimated that between 3,000 and 6,000 coho swim down the waterway back to the ocean every year. The plummeting coho numbers exacerbate a near-catastrophic decline in the overall population of salmon along the West Coast. The coho population around the state has declined precipitously over the years and so few chinook salmon returned to spawn in the Sacramento-San Joaquin River system the past two years that ocean fishing had to be banned in California and Oregon.

Marine habitat loss is causing a decline in shellfish populations, which is having an adverse knock-on effect on sensitive ecosystems, a study suggests.

Described as the first global assessment of its kind, it warns that 85% of the world's oyster reefs have already been lost.

The findings, published by The Nature Conservancy (TNC), adds that many other reefs are now "functionally extinct".

It blames poor fishing practices and coastal developments for the declines.

Among the report's recommendations were to elevate native, wild oysters as a priority species for conservation, and ensuring existing protection policies were extended to include the vulnerable reefs.