Whitman news since 1896

Whitman Wire

Vol. CLIV, Issue 6
Whitman news since 1896

Whitman Wire

Whitman news since 1896

Whitman Wire

Aquaponics best means to increase local food

Food justice has quickly become the latest environmental buzz. “Eat local” campaigns have spread across the nation, seen primarily in the rise in farmers’ markets from 1,755 markets in 1994 to over 7,864 in 2012. However, local alone does not mean sustainable or good.

Bon Appétit, marketed as “food services for a sustainable future,” has noticed the necessity for sustainable food and thus created nationwide policies and campaigns to reduce their impact on the global climate as it relates to food production. They launched the “Farm to Fork” and “Low Carbon Diet” programs because many consumers are unaware that “agriculture and the food system overall is responsible for one-third of global greenhouse gas emissions.”

Going into a supermarket and having every type of fruit, vegetable and meat available for purchase on any given day of the year has completely blinded our society. Noticing the massive deception and injustice in America’s food system, Bon Appétit made it their goal “to reduce greenhouse gas emissions created by the highest impact areas of [their] business by 25 [percent].” Their campaigns aim to reduce purchases that have traveled far distances from the burning of fossil fuels in transportation.

To offset food travel and import, one of Bon Appétit’s founding principles is to purchase a minimum of 20 percent of their food from “local” farms. Walla Walla seems like an agricultural paradise, surrounded in all directions by massive fields of wheat, onions and garbanzo beans. Yet upon closer inspection, it becomes evident that the vast majority of our “local” farms are far from exhibiting environmental consciousness around the importance of local food.

But local food is not as simple as it appears: There is a catch. To Bon Appétit, a “local” farm is not merely defined by geographic distance. In order for a farm to be eligible for the Farm to Fork program it must be within 150 miles of the Bon Appétit kitchen, be owner-operated and earn $5 million or less in annual sales.

The majority of Walla Walla farms are far from qualifying as models of “sustainable”  food production. Many farms are monocultures (a single crop is grown on the same land for a period of time), use chemical pesticides and grow produce in massive quantities to be exported to cities around the country. Their practices strip the soil of nutrients without replenishment, drown the land in toxic chemical fertilizers, increase erosion and damage the health of the environment.

In a place like Walla Walla, a large-scale agriculture Eden, Bon Appétit struggles to meet the Farm to Fork quota and thus has little room to hope that their 20 percent requirement will ever be exceeded without changing current purchasing patterns. Because our “local” farms rarely qualify as such, the only way to increase the amount of sustainable local food is to employ creative, alternative systems: I propose aquaponics.

Aquaponics is a closed-loop food production system. The name “aquaponics” is derived from the portmanteau of “hydroponics” (cultivating plants in water) and “aquaculture” (farm fishing).

In aquaculture, effluents accumulate in the water, increasing toxicity for the fish. This water is led to a hydroponic system where the byproducts from the aquaculture are filtered out by the plants as vital nutrients, after which the cleansed water is recirculated back to the animals.

A subset of students in Sustainable Agriculture at Whitman (SAW) has already begun researching, planning and attempting to convince Bon Appétit that our climate crisis demands creative alternatives to local food injustices. It is time to open our eyes to the reality of where our food comes from, allow our minds to think outside of the outdated monoculture past and push for creative, alternative and sustainable solutions to increase production of local food.

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  • L

    Leo MieleJul 24, 2017 at 8:06 am

    Thanks for sharing! Aquaponics is a great system, as outlined by this informative article – http://organicdailypost.com/aquaponics-101/

    Reply
  • N

    nameDec 7, 2012 at 7:04 pm

    George You did not read very carefully. You need to look at the forest not the tree.
    1. If you use vegetable based fish food, you are using land based resources, fertilizer, pesticide, fuel for processing and transport. And not to mention the fact that you damage the food while processing.
    I am proposing that when you grow seaweeds and shellfish you are using the least possible amount of resources for a given amount of food.
    2. There is no Omega-3 from land based resources. Flax seed does not provide the same kind of Omge-3 as the ocean derived variety.
    3. Land resources are already overwhelmed, and we contaminate our coastal waters with every step. Growing the Seaweed and Shellfish would help clean the water from contaminants that we introduce to the oceans and lakes.

    Reply
  • C

    CDec 7, 2012 at 7:03 pm

    George You did not read very carefully. You need to look at the forest not the tree.
    1. If you use vegetable based fish food, you are using land based resources, fertilizer, pesticide, fuel for processing and transport. And not to mention the fact that you damage the food while processing.
    I am proposing that when you grow seaweeds and shellfish you are using the least possible amount of resources for a given amount of food.
    2. There is no Omega-3 from land based resources. Flax seed does not provide the same kind of Omge-3 as the ocean derived variety.
    3. Land resources are already overwhelmed, and we contaminate our coastal waters with every step. Growing the Seaweed and Shellfish would help clean the water from contaminants that we introduce to the oceans and lakes.
    4. Oceans have all of the nutrients necessary for growing seaweeds and Shellfish.

    Reply
  • G

    georgeDec 7, 2012 at 2:32 pm

    There are completely vegetable based fish foods available now.

    Reply
  • C

    CDec 6, 2012 at 5:41 pm

    I am a big fan of Aquaponics.
    But there is something everyone is ignoring. The source of the fish food. And science of growing efficiently.
    Any Monkey can grow lettuce, or a few tomatoes. Don’t believe me go to the zoo and give them some seeds.
    The challenge is to grow, 50 Kg of tomato, that’s 110 pounds of tomato from a single tomato plant in one year’s time.
    The fish food need to come not from land based farming or animals, nor from ocean based fish.
    The true sustainable production should depend on seaweed and Algae, so if anyone is focusing on Aquaponics, please look into growing the seaweed and Algae first, so you can feed your fish. Your fish don’t need to grow at Speedy-Gonzales time frame.
    Then look into how to grow your Tomatoes and lettuce, cost effectively and efficiently
    This is true sustainability. When you Know your product, and your chemistry, Biology, Physics, Biochemistry, Microbiology, Marine Biology everything else in between.
    You need to come close to creating a bubble that absolutely nothing goes to waste. And you can account for every variable on paper and in the solution.
    There is too much emphasis these days in buzz words and going for the cheapest and fastest way to show off and not enough on the TRUE Absolute science of doing the job the best way it’s possible. Even when we have the means and the necessary science behind us. Are we not evolved enough to surpass the MONKEY’s by much??????

    Reply