The idea of hydroponics and aquaponics is to be able to
bring the two together where they can grow produce and raise fish at the same
time. The way this works is that both methods don’t require any type of soil
use. Hydroponic grow plants that only need water that contains chemical
fertilizers that give the required nutrients. Aquaponics utilizes fish in order
to help replace the chemical fertilizer with the natural waste that comes from
them.
Although this method seems like it would be more
environmental and cost-efficient it is an indoor operation. This however
demands a high amount of energy needed for lighting, heating, and water
pumping. This process also has a high cost that goes to feeding and fertilizing
both the plant and fishes.
They found that this system did lead to a 45 percent less
environmental when considering fossil fuel use, global warming, water
acidification, and eutrophication from the usage of its resources, waste, and
emissions released. “The aquaponic system is more environmentally friendly when
you look at the total environmental footprint per US dollar of the economic value
of the products,” Huang said “But that is based on using Indiana’s current
energy mix. If we consider using more renewable energy sources, things start to
change.” Although the university of Purdue has the best interest in doing this
project to make it more environmentally and economically friendly it has some
issues of its own.
The most common aquaponics problems it the issue of the
dying plants that can be from algae growth, dead fish, too many fish, water
temperatures, contaminated water, or plant nutrient deficiency. The progress of being
able to make this more economically and environmentally possible is due to a
controlled environment. There also other things to consider on a grander base
that is the idea of the common. Where to try and develop this new idea to help the
environment and still make this cost-efficient. This project needs to think of
how to use a broad set of resources, natural and cultural that are shared like
groundwater resources for this particular system that is accessible to many. It needs to be established how these
resources will be used and if it would be open access to all because using
commons is essential for society.
What this system fails to consider is that even though
people seem to support the hydroponics and aquaponics system, they probably
don’t understand that the label of environmentally friendly doesn’t mean no
contamination in the water. Also, it expressed that wind energy would be a
large part of production requiring farmers to reduce their environmental footprint.
This may sound like the best idea but still leaves out the waste of using the material to produce wind energy that would take away from making this less cost-efficient.
Sources:
https://www.thegardeningpal.com/15-most-common-problems-with-aquaponics/
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