Aquaponics

An Answer to Earth’s Food Crisis?

Trouble is brewing…
With a population of 7,320,094,250, and counting, the Earth will be incapable of
providing food for her inhabitants in less than 25 years. The United Nations expects that
the world will have a whopping 9 billion residents by 2050. (UN Population Division,
2008)
 The World Food
Programme says,
“There are 1.02 billion undernourished people
in the world today. That means one in nearly six
people do not get enough food to be healthy
and lead an active life. Hunger and malnutrition
are in fact the number one risk to the health
worldwide — greater than AIDS, malaria and
tuberculosis combined. Among the key causes of
hunger are natural disasters, conflict, poverty,
poor agricultural infrastructure and over-
exploitation of the environment. Recently,
financial and economic crises have pushed more
people into hunger.

As well as the obvious sort of hunger resulting

from an empty stomach, there is also the hidden
hunger of micronutrient deficiencies which
make people susceptible to infectious diseases,
impair physical and mental development, reduce
their labor productivity and increase the risk of
premature death.
Photo credit: Bellmarre, 2011
Natural Occurrences
Drought
Pests
Extreme Cold
Human factors
Conflict
War
Political Upheaval
Genocide
Land Right Struggles
Are All Contributing to
…our inability to provide
enough food to support
the residents of Earth
What if…
…we could use the principles of Aquaponics to fulfill the needs of people without
having to use an overburdened agricultural system, with its overworked, nutrient
deficient soil?
Aquaponics Defined
- a system of aquaculture in which the waste produced by farmed fish or other
aquatic animals supplies nutrients for plants grown hydroponically, which in turn
purify the water.
Choices, Choices
Aquaponics
• No Petro Products Needed
• No Weeds
• No Petro-based Fertilizers
• No Extra Irrigation
• Easy Harvest!
Traditional Farming
• High Use of Petro for Working Land
• Weed-laced. Use of Herbicides
• Heavy Fertilization Required
• Truck Irrigation Required
• Mechanical or Extensive Manual
Harvest
More Choices
Aquaponics
• No Climatic Limitations
• No Locational Limitations
• Uses less than 1/10th the
amount of water
• Better than even hydroponics –
aquaponics is a closed organic
system – no toxic buildup of
chemicals!
Traditional Farming
• Food is limited by climate
• Food is shipped, by truck and
boat to locations far from where
it is grown.
• Uses 1000’s of gallons of water
• Pollutes 1000’s of gallons of
water
Low Tech Application
Asian cultures have long (1000+ years) been
using low tech means of aquaculture to
produce food.

Photo: M.G. Kibria

Aquaponics…
Has Zero Impact on environment, if pumps
are powered through renewable sources.

Provides a new use for abandoned

commercial and residential properties.

Is great for remote locations –Hawaii uses

aquaponics successfully in mountains.

Instead of clearing more rain forests, already

used property can be converted to accept
aquaponic farms, which can grow all known
vegetables and most fruit. In one acre of
space, aquaponics can produce more than
50,000 pounds of tilapia and 100,000 pounds
of vegetables per year. One grass fed cow
requires 8 acres of grass in a year. Or,
aquaponics produces 35,000 edible pounds
of meat, while grass produces only 75 ponds
in the same amount of space.
Remember…

1.3% of the world’s population is hungry. .. More than 805 million souls…

Poverty is the principal cause of hunger. The causes of poverty include poor people's lack of resources, an
extremely unequal income distribution in the world and within specific countries, conflict, and hunger
itself.

In 2010, an estimated 7.6 million children — more than 20,000 a day — died.

When a mother is undernourished during pregnancy, the baby is often born undernourished, too.
This is not a necessary sight…

On the African continent, nearly

one in every four human
beings is malnourished. In Latin
America, nearly one out of
every eight people goes to bed
hungry each night. In Asia and
the Pacific, 28 percent of the
people border on starvation,
experiencing the gnawing pain of
perpetual hunger. In the Near
East, one in ten people are
underfed.
Why wouldn’t we…

Feed the world with nutritionally sound

food?
 Citations
http://www.worldometers.info/world-population/

United Nations Populations Division. (2008). WORLD POPULATION TO EXCEED 9 BILLION BY 2050: Developing
Countries to Add 2.3 Billion Inhabitants with 1.1 Billion Aged Over 60 and 1.2 Billion of Working Age. Retrieved
from http://www.un.org/esa/population/publications/wpp2008/pressrelease.pdf

Bernstein, S,(2011), New Society Publishers, htto://newsociety.com

Photos:

http://www.ryot.org/before-and-after-california-drought-photos-water/793521/6

http://www.ffl.org/emergency-relief/world-hunger/

http://www.wfp.org/stories/south-sudan-hunger-mounts-conflict-disrupts-markets

http://marcfbellemare.com/wordpress/3661

M.G.Kibria, http://www.fao.org/docrep/012/i1141e/i1141e02.pdf
The Beginning…