It’s Sustainable Wednesday again, so again we’re bringing you a feature about some of the interesting people and companies that were at the E Malama ‘Aina sustainability festival last month.

Today we’d like to introduce you to Friendly Aquaponics, a Honoka‘a company owned by husband and wife team Susanne Friend and Tim Mann.

They were in the construction business until about a year and a half ago when they made what Susanne describes as “a real conscious change. We made the move at exactly the right time.”

“We wanted to do food; to find some way to serve people who didn’t have a lot of money,” she says. They discovered aquaponics – a food production system that combines aquaculture (raising fish in tanks) and hydroponics (growing plants without soil).

From their website:

Aquaponics is a truly sustainable food production system:

Aquaponics uses minimal water consumption: less than 1% of the water of traditional farming!
Aquaponics is low energy: uses 70% less energy than farming using in-ground methods!
Aquaponics is eight to ten times more vegetable production than farming in the dirt.
Aquaponics is fully scalable: backyard family systems to full commercial systems.
Aquaponics is pure, clean, and natural: USDA Certified Organic.
Aquaponics is easy to learn and operate: anyone can do this!

Currently they grow tilapia in tanks and 10-12 varieties of lettuce, as well as a sampling of other vegetables. Susanne says they have yet to need to actually leave their property to sell their fish, because people come to the farm and buy all they have. They have been selling their lettuce commercially, though are currently looking for a new distributor.

“We both come from the business world. Farming is new to us, and if we can do this, anyone can,” she says.

Training other people in how to do aquaponics is part of their mission. “We had our first training, a two-weekend course, in October,” she says. “We thought six or seven people would come and we got 78. Out of the 78, one left and built a small aquaponics system in the week between the course, and another 11 have built or are building systems. Our training is designed to be imminently practical.” None of the 12 who are building systems had been farmers, she says.

They are offering another, three-day training session for families in late February, and a four-day session for people who want to set up commercial systems in March. They teach all aspects of construction, day-to-day management, and for the commercial training, marketing. “Everything but the business training,” she says. “Some follow-up business training would be good.”

They also offer free, two-hour farm tours on Saturdays at 10 a.m. “In our farm tour we give as much or more practical information as our trainings,” she says. “You could come to three or four farm tours and get as much information as taking the course. We encourage that.”