Adrian Southern - The Aquaponic Farmer: A Complete Guide to Building and Operating a Commercial Aquaponic System

Copyright 2017 by Michael Hennell King and Miles Adrian Southern. All rights reserved.

Cover design by Diane McIntosh.

Text Editor: Valley Hennell. Graphic designer: Andrej Klimo. www.andrejklimo.com Cover photo of plated trout: Our trout served at the Old Firehouse Wine and Cocktail Bar in Duncan, BC (photo credit: Cory Towriss). Important graphic: Adobestock_67829647. All images are author-supplied unless otherwise noted.

Printed in Canada. First printing October, 2017

Although the authors and publisher have made every effort to ensure that the information in this book was correct at press time, the authors and publisher do not assume and hereby disclaim any liability to any party for any loss, damage or disruption caused by the information in this book and by errors or omissions, whether such errors or omissions result from negligence, accident or any other cause. Users of this book are strongly advised to conduct their own research into costs and income projections, regulatory and legal requirements, and the risks associated with starting a farm or aquaponic business venture.

Inquiries regarding requests to reprint all or part of The Aquaponic Farmer should be addressed to New Society Publishers at the address below. To order directly from the publishers, please call toll-free (North America) 1-800-567-6772, or order online at www.newsociety.com

Any other inquiries can be directed by mail to:

New Society Publishers

P.O. Box 189, Gabriola Island, BC V0R 1X0, Canada

(250) 247-9737

LIBRARY AND ARCHIVES CANADA CATALOGUING IN PUBLICATION

Southern, Adrian, 1982-, author

The aquaponic farmer : a complete guide to building and operating a commercial aquaponic system / Adrian Southern & Whelm King.

Includes bibliographical references and index.

Issued in print and electronic formats.

ISBN 978-0-86571-858-6 (softcover).--ISBN 978-1-55092-652-1 (PDF).-- ISBN 978-1-77142-247-5 (EPUB)

1. Aquaponics. 2. Aquaculture. I. King, Whelm, 1977-, author II. Title.

SB126.5.S68 2017 635.048 C2017-904850-3

C2017-904851-1

New Society Publishers mission is to publish books that contribute in fundamental ways to building an ecologically sustainable and just society, and to do so with the least possible impact on the environment, in a manner that models this vision.

To all farmers

F IRST AND FOREMOST, we thank our primary collaborators on this project: our mothers and editors, Valley Hennell and Kerrie Talbot; Andrej Klimo, graphic designer; Michael Timmons, content reviewer; and Rob West and the whole New Society team.

We thank the pioneers who paved and continue to pave the way: Mark McMurtry and James Rakocy for their foundational work in aquaponics; Michael Timmons and James Ebeling for their voluminous research into recirculating aquaculture and aquaponics; and numerous other farmers who have shared information and ethics with us, directly or indirectly.

Adrian Southern:

I would like to thank my friend Kirsti for planting the very first seed that eventually grew into this book, and my entire family (especially my wife Kim) for their ongoing support during this project. Also, Steve, Janet and Amanda at Taste of B.C. for assisting me in all things aquaculture and answering my endless questions.

I T ALL STARTED WITH A WEED. It wasnt particularly different than its numerous kin. It was just an ordinary weed, nestled in my rows of neatly planted lettuce, mocking me. It was both benign and the bane of my existence, the cause of the quite literal pain in my ass. I had been SPIN farming for the past two years, using two of my neighbors backyards to produce a variety of vegetables that I sold at local farmers markets. The work was constant and intense. Converting city yards into small fertile farms was laborious, and managing several of them was a daily struggle. All work considered, I calculated I was earning about $2 per hour. My body was aching, I was just managing to keep my crops reasonably healthy, and there I stood, looking at the weed under a boiling sun the weed that hadnt been there just a few days ago when I had last spent hours weeding this plot. And it wasnt alone. There was a veritable army of them. As I bent over to dig in yet again, I knew there had to be a better way.

There is.

In 2009 a friend of mine who was enrolled in the Fisheries and Aquaculture program at Vancouver Island University in Nanaimo, where I had lived for some years, invited me to take a tour of the facility. The school had recently set up a small aquaponics system as a demo for the concept. It was a moment of epiphany that would change my life. I was immediately hooked. Raising both plants and fish. Sustainably. All year round. With water use cut by 90% or more. Without the need for arable land.

With. No. Weeds.

After visiting the university, I knew my days as an urban soil farmer were over. For the next three years I voraciously researched aquaponics. I read everything I could find on the subject. I designed and built numerous backyard systems. I experimented and tested. I succeeded and I failed. I became more and more convinced that aquaponics has a vital place in the future of farming.

In 2012, I purchased a property in the rolling hills of the Cowichan Valley on southern Vancouver Island, British Columbia, with the intention of establishing a commercial aquaponic farm. I approached my good friend, Whelm King, an entrepreneur and business manager, to assist me. Together, we created Raincoast Aquaponics (RCA).

Today we grow a wide variety of vegetables and raise rainbow trout in our 3680 greenhouse. Annually, we produce approximately 30,000 heads of vibrant, delicious lettuce (or equivalent other crops) and 750 kg of tender pink trout. We also raise pigs almost entirely on compost and produce fish fertilizer that we bottle and sell to local farmers and gardeners.

A world without weeds is not possible. A farm without weeds is.

Adrian Southern
October 2016

A S YOU HAVE JUST STARTED READING a book on aquaponic farming, were going to make some basic assumptions. Were going to assume that you understand the urgency of climate change and are familiar with such terms as peak oil and sustainability and localization. We assume that you dont need convincing that industrial agriculture is, by its very nature, a system of increasing costs and decreasing returns which turns arable land, one of humanitys greatest resources, into sterile landscapes requiring constant chemical fertilization. The fertilizers themselves are derived from fossil fuels, a dwindling and polluting resource.

Industrial agriculture has disrupted the natural methods of farming that have sustained humans for millennia. It produces low-quality food heavily depleted of the essential elements necessary for human health. Fertile land becomes barren, human health deteriorates, and the whole system requires vast infrastructures to grow, store, move, store again, move again, store yet again and so on, before it is finally sold to us in all its nutrition-lacking glory. The whole system is fragile and rigid, every link in the chain essential and requiring large inputs. If even one link breaks, all efforts are spoiled and all food wasted. In permaculture terms, the system lacks any semblance of redundancy.