If Spock Had A Farm - Spockwaponics

Captain, I must confess I find it highly illogical yet at the same time fascinating that the majority of humanity had failed to encounter your English term aquaponics until the year 2012 AD. The popular news magazine Time had named Will Allen one of its top 100 people 2 years prior to that time, yet made no mention of the technique he was using to grow 1 million pounds of food a year on three acres of land.

youtube.com / Via youtube.com

Will Allen had been farming in Milwaukee for nearly 20 years in addition to setting up urban farming and aquaponics training centers in major US cities like Brooklyn, Chicago, Detroit, Denver, New Orleans, and Cleveland before the term aquaponics came into widespread use.

Centuries before this, the Aztecs and Chinese among other civilizations had recognized the benefits of growing plants in combination with aquatic life - the Aztecs had Chinampas and the Chinese and other cultures traditionally raised fish in rice paddies.

Yet, despite all this ancient knowledge and a global population of 7 billion people, it wasn't until 2012 that a university level course in aquaponics was offered on Earth. Also in 2012, food grown using aquaponic principles became more widely available in Canada, with the energy firm ecoTECH signing a multimillion dollar contract to grow produce for one of Canada's largest supermarkets. Also, during a similar time frame, Several schools in different parts of the world were teaching young people various life skills by intergrating aquaponics into their curricula.

Yet despite all of this, pictures of cats begging for ground beef patties topped with cheese were in vogue. Quite illogical, Captain.

Want to find out more about aquaponics? I highly recommend the Aquaponic Gardening website and forum (among many other online resources). My 5 year mission - to end global hunger. Let's collaborate and figure out the best ways to live more sustainably on our one world. Come join the conversation in #sustainchat