[WATCH] Fish and crops on a porch
Alex Sakota, an on-line marketing specialist turned urban farmer grows vegatables over a fish tank in his residence in Kappara
James Debono
Forget GMOs or chemically spurred plant growth: the food revolution is starting on a porch in front of a suburban house in Kappara, where an unpretentious little green house has cucumbers and cherry tomatoes growing on growth beds floating on a fish tank.
Installed by Alex Sakota in the beginning of May, the green house is so cluttered with different plants that there is now barely space to move in it.
Welcome to the brave new world of aquaponics: crops which do not need soil to grow in but feed on the nutrients derived from the excrement of tilapia, a fresh water fish which can be raised entirely on vegetable matter and has the best conversion efficiency – about 1.6kg of feed for 1kg of meat – of any farmed animal.
In contrast, cattle eat about 8kg of grain or meal for every kilogramme of flesh they produce.
According to Guardian columnist George Monbiot “until meat can be grown in flasks, this is about as close as we are likely to come to sustainable flesh-eating”.
Moreover aquaponics is sustainable; no boreholes are needed to extract water to irrigate crops and no pesticides are used to make the plants grow faster. Furthermore the veggies still grow faster than those grown in soil.
The system is simple: the same water circulates from the fish tank to growth beds in which the plants grow and back to the fish tank.
Alex Sakota, a Serbian-born marketing specialist who arrived in Malta in 1998 and who has already invented an interactive postcard promoted by the Malta Tourism Authority, is now seriously considering becoming a full-time urban farmer.
He recounts how his interest in farming was triggered by an observation a friend made casually four years ago.
“My friend used to accidentally spit grape seeds into an aquarium… and plants started growing.”
It was this observation which triggered an interest in the new science of aquaponics - a food production system that combines conventional aquaculture (farming fish) with hydroponics (cultivating plants in water).
Alex makes no claim to inventing the wheel, referring to the work of Murray Hallam who pioneered aquaponics in Australia where it is recognised as a form of organic agriculture.
But together with his partner he has made significant improvements in the water circulation system, which could turn aquaponics into a commercially successful venture.
In fact he intends to register a patent for two different inventions which spur the growth of plants, turning a small scale activity carried out at home into a venture with commercial potential.
Moreover Alex thinks that Malta is ideal for the new technology, where water and land are limited. It could also make Malta more self-sustaining in agriculture, by growing more food locally.
“There is no need to import €800,000 of lettuce, €2.9 million of tomatoes and €1.4 million of strawberries when all these can be grown here using aquaponics.”
This is because aquaponics is the most efficient water saving form of agriculture known and the system is highly space efficient as it can be installed in even the tiniest of spaces, making it very suitable for urban agriculture. All you need is a small roof, a yard or maybe a balcony.
But is food grown on water as good as food grown in soil? Well, Alex’s parents were sceptical until they tasted a salad made from vegetables grown in this way and were positively impressed.
“Surely one does not have to worry about slurry contaminating the fields where the vegetables grow which you buy.”
Moreover the system comes with another benefit; the fish.
“This system can easily give you 100 kilograms of fish a year. If you sell it you can get €1,000 a year and this will help you recover the costs of installing the aqua garden.”
Installing a small aqua garden in a porch costs around €3,200.
But apart from being used domestically, the new technology can be used on a large scale, commercial level.
“It makes sense, you do not have to plough or work the land, it is less labour intensive than conventional farming and requires little machinery. Moreover it has a very small carbon footprint.”
The only labour involved is feeding the fish. Moreover any big roof, like that in industrial estates, can be turned into a roof garden.
Alex does not want aquaponics to compete with local agriculture. “We want to enable farmers to produce in a more efficient way while using a sustainable technology.”
Moreover famers may even supplement their earnings by selling fish. One way to help farmers would be setting up a cooperative which would buy the produce from farmers (fish included) and sell it.
