The world’s population is an estimated 8 billion and is expected to reach 10 billion by 2050. To feed such a rapidly increasing global populace, food production must increase by 30 to 50%. This increase should not put pressure on forested land; and thanks to recent innovations, increase in food production can be done without necessarily expanding or further exploiting agricultural lands.
Aquaponics is one of the more efficient and intensive food production system that has emerged in recent years. It is efficient in terms of the amount of food produced per unit area, unit of water, units of nutrients added to the system and offers less negative environmental impacts. Hence aquaponics has become a self-supporting food production system that combines recirculating aquaculture with plant culture in the absence of soil. It provides an opportunity to utilise aquaculture effluent while growing plants with a sustainable, cost effective and non-chemical nutrient sources. Fish are reared in tanks whilst plants are grown in PVC piping channels, rafts and growbed medium like clay pebbles, rockwool, gravel etc. Mechanical and biological filters are seperate components of the aquaponics system.
Higher intial capital investment and complexity of running the system tends to provide a barrier to entry for youth wanting to venture in aquaponics. At Eden Knight Farm, we have designed a unique system that is not only affordable, but user friendly. The system suits our African conditions and is dubbed,“Sandponics”. The system slightly differs from most conventional aquaponics systems in that we use sand which is cheap and locally sourced as the growbed medium. The sand also acts as the mechanical and biological filter making the system easy to operate and cheaper to set up. Horticultural plants can be grown in this system whilst in combination to fish production to table size. The system uses no electricity making it adaptable both in urban and rural spaces and this guarantees food security at household level.
This case study presentation showcases the functionalities of the Sandponics system culminating from the author’s experience in designing and operationalizing the system over the years.