AQUAPONICS PRODUCTION

Overview of industry Although the continental United States produces a lot of its own table vegetable crops in areas of the deep south and the warmer climate areas of the Southwest, each year more and more of our consumer crops are being imported, primarily from Mexico and Central America. There are several reasons that this shift in production areas is occurring. One of the reasons for this shift has been because in most of the crop production areas these crops are still seasonal. The United States is located just far enough north latitude that during the winter months the temperatures in most areas are too cold for optimum plant and crop growth. In the past, the population was lower and hence the demand lower and the few areas such as southern California and Texas that remained warm could produce enough products to meet the demand. This is no longer the case. With demand increasing each year from a combination increased population and an awareness of the importance of these vegetable crops in a health conscious society, US farmers can no longer meet the demand. Therefore, producers in the nearby southern countries saw this demand and expanded to fill it. There have been some advantages in the past of this source of food for the American table. The most obvious is the fact that at least we have a source of food during these winter months. Otherwise the grocery stores produce shelves would be empty of many of the vegetables found in a salad bar. Another advantage has been the price of the produce. In most of the South American countries the labor wage is very low and this one factor helped to keep the consumer cost of the product affordable even after increased transportation costs are factored in. However, now in 2010 there is a dramatic change in consumer preferences that is creating unbelievable opportunities for domestic farmers. Over the years there have been reports of food contamination all across the country. Most of the time in the past 40 years or so these reports were about tainted food in the meat industry. Usually these problems were found to be e-coli out breaks in beef, chickens and occasionally in pork. Most of the time after investigation by the Department of agriculture it was found to have not originated at the farm, but rather in the processing of the product. Although most of the problems have been identified and corrected, we still hear of recalls of meat products each year. An informed public has now been fully alerted and is very much concerned about the safety of their food. Although perhaps a bit over the top, Oprah Winfrey announced she would no longer eat beef and urged her devoted fans to do likewise. Unbelievably, within a week the demand for beef and beef products dropped so much that a beef industry council in Northern Texas filed a law suit against her claiming she was liable for ruining their industry. Although the courts found Oprah innocent the publicity of the trial just continued the public=s awareness of the food safety problem and probably did cause some people to never purchase beef again. While it has been long known that there was a potential for tainted products from the meat industry, mainly from processing failures, there was a sleeping giant in the farm produce sector that was waiting to rear its ugly head. Since 2006 there have been reported many huge out breaks of Salmonella in vegetable crops. Ironically this is nothing new. These pathogens have been with us forever and when people were affected it was usually quietly investigated, treated as an isolated incident and then ignored. However, ever since the Winfrey beef dispute, news stations and food watch dog groups around the country see something causing a problem in the food change and it becomes a top national news story for weeks. Basically, this is a good thing. People not only have the right to know the quality of their food, it is the job of government agencies to keep them aware of problems. It is then the consuming public=s task to make decision about what they purchase and where they purchase it. A good example of the problems in the produce

industry occurred in early 2008 when a major outbreak of Salmonella was attributed to tomatoes produced in the United States. For months many stores and restaurants all across the country refused to purchase tomatoes from traditional farms. Ironically, by the time this was all over, after months of investigation, it was found that the problem was not with tomatoes at all, the problem came from chili peppers produced in Mexico and used in some salsa products that used this tainted product. But it was too late. The damage was done. The tomato raised the public distrust of the food industry even higher. During the tomato recall of the early 2008's something happened that has changed the public=s opinions and buying habits that is beginning to have an effect on agriculture production. I mention that during the tomato scare grocery stores refused to stock traditional farm raised tomatoes. This is true. But they still had a limited supple of tomatoes for those who wanted them. How could this be? The tomatoes they were purchasing for their customers came from hydroponic growers who were able to be certified that their product was Salmonella free. Also, many upscale stores like health food stores like Whole Foods had a supply of tomatoes that were declared, AOrganic@. While the supply of hydroponic tomatoes was adequate to supply regular grocery stores, the supply of organic tomatoes was limited and there were shortages on these in stores nationwide. It should be pointed out, the reason the hydroponic crops were adequate was because restaurants were purchasing them for their menus and many consumers found that they did not like the quality of the hydroponically grown products because they tend to be tasteless when compared to a soil grown variety. The second effect that resulted from this was a trend to ABuy Local@. Even after the tomato was exonerated the public became cautious. In the early summer of 2008 when the tomatoes produced by local farmers began to ripen stores all the country started displaying signs announcing ALocally Grown@ for all of their produce when it was available. Small roadside farm produced stands sprang up throughout the country side and people would drive for miles from the city on weekends to the rural areas to purchase the produce right from the farmer. The reason for this trend was

simple. People trust the local growers. Another concern health conscious consumers have with the purchase of produce is the use of pesticides, herbicides and chemical fertilizers. Whether this is really an issue or not is debatable, but it doesnt matter. It is the consumer who has the final decision about the purchase and if these chemicals concern them in the least, then they are going to seek the alternatives. HYDROPONICS Hydroponic crop production is based on the principle that all a plant really needs to grow is a combination of water and food. It does not necessarily need soil. Over the years specialized hybrid plants have been developed that can thrive in these artificial environments. Anyone who remembers the experiments in high school biology classes where a seed was placed on a damp cloth and it sprouted and then began to grow can understand the principles of hydroponics. The seed only needed the moisture from the water to germinate. After that point all it really needed was a place to grip with it roots and some fertilizer and it would continue to grow. However, just because it would grow did not necessarily mean it would have the nutrient and strength to grow big enough to produce a fruit. Based on this knowledge seed companies over the years developed plants that could not only grow well under these conditions, but could produce fruit as well, and lots of it. There are a lot of advantages to having this technology. Since the plants could be fed using chemical fertilizers they did not require large expanses of land to produce large amounts of product. These plants could be placed very close together to save space and as long as the fertilizer keeps coming they will grow straight up. This practice changes the dynamics of farming. We do not talk about pounds per acre we talk about pounds per square foot. Because so many plants can be packed into a relatively small area, this means that an area of 3,000 square feet, the average size of a greenhouse, can now grow as much produce as an acre of land containing 42,200 square feet. Furthermore, since they can be grown in environmentally controlled greenhouses, as

long as there is sunlight and heat, they can be grown even in far northern regions of the world in the dead of winter. This not only answers the problem of a winter supply of produce, these facilities can now be placed near large urban consumer areas and the cost of transportation is greatly diminished. In recent years huge greenhouse complexes covering hundreds of acres have sprung up in Canada to serve both Canadian groceries as well as the northern United States. It was these operations that provided the tomatoes during the Salmonella scare of 2008. For some knowledgeable and discerning consumers there are issues with hydroponic produce, especially tomatoes. Because there is no organic fertilizer used the taste tends to be non-existent or flat when compared to a typical farm raised product. Another factor is called nutrient load. Recently there has been awareness that when crops are grown naturally they are loaded with certain vitamins and other nutrients. Tests have shown that when only chemicals are used this nutritional value is greatly diminished. This is one of the main reasons that during the local growing season people will stop using the hydroponic crops and go to roadside farm stands. There is big difference between the two crops in flavor and quality. Although because the crops are grown indoor environments there is no use of herbicides and little or no use of pesticides, some people still have issues with chemical fertilizers. As anyone who prefers organic produce to chemically grown vegetables will tell you, given the choice, when both are available they will go to the organic ones every time even though the cost may be slightly higher. Perhaps it is a perception thing, but perception is what good marketing is all about. AQUAPONICS Although similar in some ways to the practice of AHydroponics@ production, there are some very important differences that make an AAquaponic@ vegetable far superior to a AHydroponic@ vegetable. Modern aquaculture could possibly be the answer to many of the concerns for the consuming public with the adaptation of aquaponics. Aquaponics is best described as being a method of taking the waste produced from the rearing of aquatic

animals, such as fish, and using this waste to produce high quality vegetables and plants. Because the waste is organic in nature, the food crops coming from this operation can be considered organic as well. Aquaponics has the unique ability to combine the best of things in crop production. A traditional farmer can use any variety of vegetable he chooses to produce his crop. For instance, if he feels his clients would like the variety of tomatoes known as ABig Boy=, he can get the seeds, place them in the ground and they grow to give him what he wants. He has the choice of using either animal waste, like cow manure, or chemicals to provide the plant food. If he uses animal waste or other organic fertilizer his crop can be labeled organic and bring a higher price at the market. The crop grows with nature soil moisture so the fruit is not watery. Hydroponics do not have this option. They must use specific varieties of plants and use chemical fertilizers. However, the farmer has a major short coming. He can only grow his plants during the spring and summer growing season. Also he is somewhat limited to production based on the land area he can plant. Aquaponics is a unique method to get the best of both worlds. The plants can be grown inside a greenhouse anywhere in the world in high densities, the fertilizer is organic, the plant can be any variety and the plant is not grown in standing water allowing for a very favorable product. HOW AQUAPONICS WORKS Aquaponic production facilities are not necessarily overly sophisticated high tech operations, although the proper management of them are. Some systems are more advanced than others depending on how the system is designed. As with anything, there are basic steps in the process to achieve the desired results. No matter how the system is set up, they all center around the fact that in an indoor aquaculture facility a lot of waste is generated. For every pound of fish raised one can almost expect 2 pounds of waste. Without the use of aquaponics, the disposal of this waste is something that a fish farmer has to deal with. He must find a way to discharge it in an

environmentally acceptable way. However, when one considers that this by-product has values in the production of other high demand crops throwing it away makes no sense at all. Because it is a water environment, obviously the fish waste is already in the water that will be needed to grow the plants. It just becomes a matter getting the raw fish waste into a form that the plants can use as food. As mentioned, there are several different ways to grow plants using fish waste from aquaculture facilities. Some of the simpler systems just set up beds or troughs that can hold water and run the fish water from the fish tanks through the beds and grow the plants right there. The theory is the plant beds will act as a filter and trap the fish waste and then this water is sent back to the tanks. At the same time the filter is producing an ancillary cash crop. Although this does work to grow plants and crops it does have some drawbacks. For one thing, soil based plants such as tomatoes and lettuce are not the best plants that can be used to filter fish water. If the initial purpose is to filter the water with plants then water hyacinths would do a much better job. The problem is, the water hyacinths are not a good cash crop and produce no fruit for market. This filtering system will indeed grow good vegetable crops, but the fish system will suffer to a degree because the returning water quality is lower than a good regular filter would provide. Another problem is the crop can never really be considered AOrganic@ under the strictest definition of the term. In order for a traditional land farmer to have his crops certified as being organic, the animal waste, i.e. cow manure, must have been applied to the growing area at least nine months prior to planting. This is to allow for the organic break down of the manure to nitrates. It also guarantees that any virus such as e-coli is removed from the fertilizer and can not be transplanted to the crop. Obviously, when the plants are being growing in raw fish waste the manure has not been fully converted. A different type of design is planned for the Brown operation. In this facility the aquaponics is treated as a different entity from the fish, even though they are, to a degree, connected. First the fish rearing tanks have their own filtration system containing a solids

filter and biological contactor (bio-filter) to remove ammonia and nitrites. Only the waste trapped in the filters is sent to the aquaponics. When the fish waste leaves the fish growing area it first enters a digestion unit. This digester breaks the waste down from a solid into a nutrient rich liquid through aerobic and anaerobic processes. This liquid is then sent, through a recirculation system, to the plants. The plants are actually being grown in a moist media. At certain times during the day timers turn on pumps that send the fertilizer to the plant roots and this moistens the media. After a short period of time the water is returned to the digester. This allows the plants roots to grow in a condition similar to the moisture found is normal garden soil thereby allowing for the production of any regular garden plant variety. Because the plant is grown using natural fertilizer the flavor is similar to that grown in soil instead of chemicals. The nutrient load of the fruit is maximized and the quality of the product far superior to hydroponically grown crops. Furthermore, this product can be certified as being organic and locally grown greatly increasing its market value.

Aquaponics Production with tomatoes in the back And lettuce in the front

Growing under carefully controlled conditions Massive yields can be obtained with aquaponics

AQUAPONICS PROVIDES A MARKET BASKET

When talking about aquaponics greenhouse products, usually the first thing that comes to mind is tomatoes. While they are a big crop, a complete market basket variety of vegetables can be raised. From snap beans to kale to strawberries, everything can be considered.

Lettuce growing on floats All forms of lettuce can be produced using the floats system

Snap beans growing in loose gravel fed with nutrient rich fertilizer made from fish waste

Lettuce
In the United States the per capita consumption of lettuce in 2010 reached a high level of 15 pounds. While iceberg lettuce is still the mostly widely purchased of all lettuce varieties, the more leafy types like Romaine have increased in demand by over 500% ie past tens years because it has more nutrient value and is much preferred by health conscious buyers. For aquaponics growers Romaine and Butterhead lettuce are the best types to raise because they not only bring a high price in the markets than iceberg lettuce, they stand more heat. Butterhead and leaf types can stand even more heat and have a longer season of production. This is ideal for greenhouse operators in the Northeast who experience high summer temperatures. These varieties also grow well in the moderate room temperatures of 70-75 degrees which means the Northeastern growers can extend their growing seasons well into early winter and perhaps year around. There are several ways to produce lettuce crops using aquaponics. One is the Raft system whereby the plants are grown on sheets of foam board floating on pools of water. LETTUCE IN A FLOATING FOAM RAFT SYSTEM

Other methods include troughs made by manufacturers. In these devices the nutrient rich water flows through a shallow trough that has a cover over it that contains holes for the lettuce plants. As the water flows through the roots of the lettuce extend down ward and they get both the moisture they need as well as the nutrient. Lettuce in a Commercial NTF System

Which is the best system use depends on who you talk to. Of course the manufacturers of the MTF system say theirs is, while people who have used both methods say they can pack more product per sq. ft. on a raft. In talking to a grower in Racine WI who has used both methods, we have learned the following. The NTF system keeps the plants about 8 apart allowing for only 2 heads per sq ft. One his raft he was able to grow 3 heads per sq ft. This is significant because that is a 50% increase in production from the same floor space. After the seed is planted in the seedling area it is 21 days until placed on the growing raft. After the seedling is placed on the growing raft it is 25 days to market. One the average each Hole will yield 11 heads per year.

ASSUMPTIONS
Based of the information of the preceding page we can make the following assumptions. For these calculations we are using a single standard 30 foot by 100 foot greenhouse containing 3,000 sq ft. of floor space. We have to allow 500 sq ft of this space as being unusable to allow for isle ways and other open areas including the seedling area. This leaves 2,500 sq feet for crop production. Using the 3 plants per sq. ft. density we could have as many as 7,500 plants growing at one time. In the real world not every plant will be ready at exactly the same day, nor would a farmer want them to be, however, for this analysis we will assume they are. Based on the 11 turns per hole per year we can expect to grow about 80,000 heads of lettuce per year in this one 3,000 sq ft greenhouse. Profitability in aquaponics, like most all farm production, is based on scale of economies. The larger the operation and the more you grow, the higher the potential profit because some things are fixed cost that do not necessarily in crease with increased production. A good example is the volume produced by just the one greenhouse. Because we had to allow some space for the seedling production area we lost some market crop production area. If a second 3,000 foot green is added we would now be able to use an additional 200 square feet for production allowing this building to produce an additional 1800 heads of lettuce per year or a total production of 81,800 heads. It is the same with the labor. While the first greenhouse will probably have about 6 employees, 1 for seedling production and 5 for management, packing, shipping, etc., the second green house may only require an additional 3 employees. The packaging of fresh organic aquaponics products like lettuce, basil and other leafy greens is different than the traditional method where the product is just cut from the roots and then placed in shipping containers. Fresh organic products are removed from the system, roots and all and then packaged in special containers that add water to the roots. If allowed to sit in the sunlight the plant actually keeps growing. When the consumer purchases the product it is as though it was freshly picked from the garden. As side from having the ability to provide the consumer with the freshest possible products, there is another advantage of packaging the products this way in favor of the growers, the product will last longer in his storage prior to shipping. As a result of the special care giving to the harvesting and packaging of the product, the packing cost will be able $.05 higher than normal large farm cost or about $.15 per head.

BASIL

Basil is grown exactly like the lettuce either in the raft system or in the NFT trays. The main difference is, with basil you can get 9 basil stalks per sq. ft on a raft tray. Also basil can be harvested two different ways. It can be removed root and all and placed in Living bags, as shown below to keep the leaves growing for many days, or it can be clipped and sold by the bunch. When the basil is just clipped, the roots will continue to produce more stalks. The down side to clipping is the product does not bring as much money in the market place. While lettuce has been reported to bringing the farmer prices between $1.30 to a $1.45 per head, basil brings about $1.25 per package holding about 5 stalks. This would mean that per square foot of green house space the basil could yield higher profits. Most growers produce both crops since the same buyers purchase them both. Living containers for organic Lettuce and Basil

Basil is placed in living tubes to keep it fresh. Notice in the picture of lettuce above and the basil to the left that both plants still have roots attached. A little bit of water has been added at the bottom to keep the plant living.

AQUAPONICS SYSTEMS
Aquaponics systems can be developed several ways. One is to purchase all of the materials from a manufacturer. While these systems work well and are nice, it is not always necessary for a farmer to spend this money. AS was described above, a simple home built raft system works just as well, and in some cases, depending on who you talk to, they work better and can cost about as much. For the sake of this report we have included the following information. Not all of this equipment is necessary. For instance, when using the S-09 system you will not need the nutrient delivery and return system as this can be built in place for about this cost. The following is the cost listed for a single greenhouse complete with NTF growing systems supplied by Crop king.

Free Standing 30' x 128' 6,192 plant spaces

Description Items Pricing

Structure & Covering

Greenhouse Structure Greenhouse Covering $ 9,962 Cooling System Vent Door Air Circulation System Overhead Unit Heaters Environmental Controls Electrical Panel Technical Service CropKing NFT Growing Channel Nutrition Delivery Return System CropKing NFT Fertroller System

Cooling Vent Door Air Circulation Heaters Environmental Controls Electrical Panel Technical Support

$ 16,781

NFT Lettuce System

$ 22,034

Nutrient Tanks Nursery Seedling System NFT Support System Testing & Miscellaneous Equipment Growing Supplies Testing and Miscellaneous Equipment Growing Supplies

$ 7,388

Growing Package Total $ 56,165 Additional Options: CO2 Enrichment & Control System CO2 Enrichment and Control System $ 1,100 Shade Cloth Shade Cloth Insect Exclusion System Insect Exclusion System $ 755 $ 3,153

FISH BARN WITH AQUAPONICS ATTACHED

AQUAPONICS PROJECTIONS
Since the fish waste (fertilizer)is already present the cost of operating this part of the facility is very low. Labor can be spread out between the fish growing and the aquaponics operation. The Following chart shows the cash flow for aquaponics crop production. The chart on this page deals only with tomatoes while the chart on the next page is for lettuce. It is important to understand that a complete market basket of vegetables can be raised including lettuce, cucumbers, peppers, melons as well as herbs like basil. Some may have a higher market value per square foot of greenhouse production.