Category Archives: Aquaponics

Aquaponics, Food Security, Hamakua Coast, Peak Oil, Renewable Energy Sources

A New Year: Looking Forward

Years ago, we decided we need to plan for the worse and hope for the best. We have always try to position ourselves for where we will need to be in five or 10 years.

In the early part of 2008, rising oil prices squeezed us and other farmers. Oil prices have dropped, but assuming they start to rise again and will probably be higher than before – where do we need to be five and 10 years from now?

When oil prices spiked earlier this year, we could feel the strain it put on our employees as they struggled to stretch their paychecks. We could not raise their pay, but we were able to supply them with food every Thursday, when we gave them bananas, tomatoes and other things we grew. Utilizing our free water resource, we now plan to also supply our workers with tilapia fish, for protein.

Because of our free fresh water, we can grow tilapia without much input other than food. Roy Tanaka tells us that tilapia are vegetarians and we may be able to feed the fish “off grade” vegetables and fruit. We are not necessarily interested in seeing how fast the fish can grow. We are more interested in using waste products to keep costs down so we can give our people food.

When oil prices rise again, we will see electricity, water and gas prices rise, too. To be prepared for rising oil prices we are installing a hydroelectric generator in the flume that runs through our property. It will generate enough electricity to supply our whole operation and still have 25 percent left over. We plan to let our workers plug in their electric hybrids at the farm as an extra benefit of working for Hamakua Springs.

Operationally, we know that rising oil prices means rising fertilizer prices. So on the portion of land we lease out, we work with area farmers in order that crop rotation and cover cropping benefits each other. Together with hydroelectricity, we will change the cost characteristics of banana, sweet potato and other crops.

I can say that crop rotating bananas and sweet potatoes has never been done before. But why not? The principles are sound.

We also have small growers working the ridgelines and small niches that fit their size. They do crops that we don’t do and so we complement each other. On our 600-acre parcel, we are working toward having many variations of food. Doing this will engage many people. When push comes to shove, it is important that many people have a vested interest in our system of agriculture.

Generating electricity from the river means that our electricity costs will be stable. In contrast, no one can guess how high oil prices will rise. I think they will go much higher than what we saw several months ago. Better safe than sorry.

Looking beyond the farm, if we have cheap electricity then we can serve as a place to consolidate and refrigerate shipments of other farmer’ products, so they can get to O‘ahu in a cost-effective manner. This is important because O‘ahu land prices are so high and the population is so densely arranged that it’s not easy to see how the people there can feed themselves. This means that outer-island farmers need to be positioned to supply food for O‘ahu in a seamless manner.

We found that three ahupua‘a run through our farm and that was very interesting to know. I feel I am in tune with how the Hawaiians would have managed these lands in the old days.  It is about observation, diligence and common sense.

Putting everything together, we have all the pieces to make a sustainable community and maybe even a whole district. It seems to me that with further collaboration, we can supply all the food for people living between Hilo and Honoka‘a, and probably even further.

It will be an interesting year. Best wishes to you and yours for a good 2009.

Aquaponics

Friendly Aquaponics

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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.”

Aquaponics, Hydroponics

Simple Aquaponics

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I’ve changed my mind about how we’ll use fish waste as fertilizer for hydroponic vegetables. Instead of using the University of the Virgin Islands-developed high-tech aquaponics system, I’ve decided to use Roy Tanaka’s simple “rubbah slippah” system.

The University of the Virgin Islands concept is a recirculating system using a series of pumps, aerators and bio filters. Very elegant.

But then I visited Roy Tanaka, who has been using a run of the river at his place near Papaikou for many years. He uses a small pipe which runs from a nearby river into the first tank, and then overflows into a second tank and so on. It is the essence of simplicity and common sense. He tells me that he has never had to wash his tanks because they are always clean. Free water, no electricity for pumping or aeration and no need to clean the tanks. What’s not to like about that system?

We will take a little water out of the pipe that fills our reservoir and run it through several species of aquatic animals. We are thinking of trout in the first tank and tilapia in the second, overflowing to catfish in the third, prawns in the fourth and finally crawfish in the fifth. Then, the nutrient-full overflow will go into the reservoir that supplies water for our hydroponics operation.

The effect is that we will borrow water ahead of the reservoir, run it through the fish and then put the nutrient-laden water back into the reservoir to feed our hydroponic vegetables.

We plan to start small, producing fish for our employees. As we learn about the system’s limitations, as well as what the demand might be for our products, we will increase production. We don’t, however, intend to reduce the amount we provide to our workers.

I have the utmost respect for small innovative farmers. Roy Tanaka is a perfect example of a wise and practical farmer.