Comment by devrandomguy | Hacker News Reader

Comment by devrandomguy | Hacker News Reader

I know a few hobby farmers who are big on aquaponics; one of them actually makes most of his profit by selling the live trout to stock lakes, from ~1 acre of land. Is there some reason that this is not taking off on an industrial scale? Sure, the traditional farmers won't pivot overnight, but why are there not legions of startups farming in the desert, eating the traditional industrial farmer's lunch?

Water is tightly conserved, the main loss is through plant respiration, but even that could be reduced in a greenhouse. Then the main water loss would be either the occasional emergency flushing, when a tank of fish get sick, or through exporting the product itself.

Nutrients are greatly simplified by the fish and insect side of the system. Many of the vegetable byproducts can be converted into feed pellets, or used to grow grubs as feed. Some input may still be needed, beyond atmospheric CO2, in the form of supplemental fish feed.

Automation in aquaponics is unheard of, but it should be much cheaper, because the plants are not embedded in soil. The presence of healthy, voracious predators (fish, frogs, geckos) reduces the insect-related problems. A tolerance for insects reduces fungus problems. There is little or no need to spray the crops.

Are we not scaling up because of a lack of research? Are there just too many unknowns for anyone to invest in the $100M range? Have there already been large scale failures where we were unable to analyze the root cause, due to the biological complexity of the system? This all looks so good on a small scale.

>Is there some reason that this is not taking off on an industrial scale?

Fish get sick and die when kept in big groups. It's a huge problem in fish farming, and they have a billion gallons of water at their disposal.

There simply isn't the water/infrastructure to provide the fish what then need at the scale they need it out in the middle of Iowa while also trying to profit from it.

>But why are there not legions of startups farming in the desert

No water, and permaculture methods to reverse desertification take decades with little monetary payoff.

The shear cost of building a pipeline to the desert would trounce any profit. That is if you could find a place to take the water from, which is unlikely.

>Nutrients are greatly simplified by the fish and insect side of the system

When it's working.

How do you troubleshoot a fish? How do you ask an insect to please move over a field?

These methods are great for an acre but collapse at scale. The advantage of synthetic and mined fertilizers is precision and quantity.

>Automation in aquaponics is unheard of, but it should be much cheaper

The number one rule in farming tech should be "you can't beat the economics of dirt and sun".

In aquaponics you are taking on a tremendous technical burden for little benefit. All of the variables that are naturally regulated within healthy soil are now on part of your farming overhead. It can be done, but it eats into your margins.

A lot of aquaponics food is sold as luxury items because of the care and cleanliness that goes into their growth. Luxury however, doesn't scale.

>This all looks so good on a small scale.

Famous last words.

Large scale aquaponics would have the same antibiotic problem that farmed fish have.

I'd also be concerned that the produce would lack micro nutrients because the system is artificial.

That said, I think aquaponics will be part of the solution.

I would love to get into aquaponics (or even hydroponics), but that is my main concern - the micro nutrient make up. Is there any way to mitigate any issues arising from the artificialness of it all?

Diversity, mainly. Grow many different classes of plants, not just food products. Start a nearby beehive and include plants with large numbers of tiny flowers. Include crayfish and other filter-feeders with the fish. Keep a few trees (cactuses?) around to provide bird habitat.

Basically, yeah, artificialness is a liability, and it should be minimized intelligently. Not by imitating a jungle, that is impossible, but by being highly aware of the local microbiomes and gently supporting beneficial negative feedback loops.

Make friends with a biologist.

As for the micro nutrients, this is what the fish and insect side of the system takes care of. If there is a deficiency, try to make it up through fish feed, not by directly feeding the plants. Fish hate concentrated fertilizers. Maintaining a barrel of "compost tea" is also an option, but it should be filtered through lots of grow media before the fish get it.

If you are really really brave, you might choose to experiment with a graywater system, but there is huge potential for problems like parasites and bacterial (i.e. E-coli) explosions.

>I'd also be concerned that the produce would lack micro nutrients because the system is artificial.

Plant nutrition isn't that complex. Plant nutrition deficiencies are easy to diagnose and easy to treat. It only takes a few drops of say, molybdenum to give an entire field all micro-nutrient it needs.

There is no vital essence to micro-nutrients that are lost in a potted plant or aquaponics. It is simply a formula for nutrition, where a plant needs quantities fulfilled to be healthy.

If that's the case then why has the nutritional value of our food decreased as artificial fertilizer has come to dominate the market?

Here's the amazing thing. It hasn't.

In fact, it's gotten better. So much better that now obesity is the problem, not malnutrition.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com