sustainable farm
Aquaponics Startup Serves Up Rainbow Trout with Side of Veggies
July 13, 2016 | Abbie Stutzer
A view of one of Redemption Fish Company’s young aquaponics tanks. The Salem, MA based company is a budding aquaponics business raising fish and produce to stem the tide of collapsing fisheries in New England. Photo courtesy of Andy Davenport.
Selling seafood in New England has never been a problem. But with local fish populations collapsing, and the appetite for seafood remaining the same, providing fish to sell is becoming more dire than most people may realize.
“Living in New England, we are assailed with seafood left and right—it is a humongous part of the culture up here—and a delicious one at that,” Redemption Fish Company co-founder Andy Davenport says. “With the constant pressure on the oceans and recent restrictions on fishing, such as the Cod populations in the Gulf of Maine, we figured we would help lighten the load and provide people a local option to [help] the hurting oceans and the current farmed fish option that’s from hundreds of miles away.”
To be clear, Davenport and his business partner Colin Davis aren’t your typical New England fisherman. They met as roommates in Cambridge, Massachusetts while Davenport was working in the biotech industry and Davis ran a farm-to-table grocery business. With their backgrounds, it may make sense that aquaponics was a natural outgrowth of their friendship. Read More
Yes, Cattle Do Still Roam the Rolling Pastures of Orange County, CA
July 7, 2016 | Anne Craig
Frank Fitzpatrick, owner of Silverado, CA-based 5 Bar Beef overseeing his herd of pasture-raised, grass-fed cattle. Photo courtesy of 5 Bar Beef.
Today, amidst the urban sprawl and paved over groves and ranches of yore, Orange County, CA residents might be surprised to learn that it is still possible to find cattle happily nibbling on grass and grazing the rolling pastures of 5 Bar Beef, a Silverado, CA-based ranching operation located in the Santa Ana Mountains. Residents can purchase 5 Bar Beef’s grass-fed, pasture-raised beef at several farmers’ markets in the county and online.
5 Bar Beef is something of a throwback, but the sustainable holistic grazing practices in use on the 800-acre ranch are entirely evidence-based — and Frank Fitzpatrick, owner and head cowboy in charge, believes that the techniques he uses offer hope for California’s water crisis and the planet at large. Read More
Grow. Eat. Repeat. Startup Sees Cash in Compost
June 23, 2016 | Abbie Stutzer
A Grow.Eat.Repeat compost collection bucket demonstrates which materials customers should include and exclude. The Savannah, GA company processes up to 20 tons of food scraps per month. Photo courtesy of Grow.Eat.Repeat Instagram feed.
Growing up in the corn and soy fields of rural Indiana, Andy Schwartz has seen first-hand what large-scale farming can do to soil quality. But it wasn’t until he managed farms of his own and made his own compost that Schwartz realized the role large-scale composting could play in keeping the quality of soil high and protecting the environment.
“When I made enough compost for myself and the food waste kept coming in I realized that I had to come up with a plan,” he says. “The plan was and is to keep valuable organic materials out of the landfill and use them to create a healthy growing medium for plants. Heirloom tomatoes and peppers from my garden are a much better outcome for food waste than producing methane gases and harmful leachates in a landfill.”
Determined to “feed the food that feeds you,” Schwartz studied successful composting projects around the country and launched Grow.Eat.Repeat, a compost pick-up company in Savannah, Georgia. With more than 300 restaurants, 100 hotels, and 50-plus schools in the city, Schwartz had no trouble identifying his primary market. Read More
Irvine, California’s “Great Park” Delivers on the Potential of Municipal Urban Agriculture
February 2, 2015 | Trish Popovitch
Image courtesy of the City of Irvine, California
Known as the “First Great Metropolitan Park of the 21st Century,” the City of Irvine’s 1,300-acre “Great Park,” is living up to its ambitious goals.
Created on the grounds of the former El Toro Naval Base, the park’s focus on promoting a relationship between local residents, sustainable food systems and community green space provides an example of how far a city can go to foster sustainable agriculture. Read More
Tiny Texas Startup Has Big Plans to Create Ten-Acre Sustainable Ag Model
February 13, 2014 | Trish Popovitch
Michael Hanan harvests aquaponic basil at Ten Acre Organics. Photo courtesy of Ten Acre Organics.
Ten Acre Organics began as the abstract vision of a few friends in Austin, Texas.
“We wanted to use social capitalism to make a positive impact,” says Michael Hanan, co-founder. “We started looking at where the greatest opportunities to do that were. We saw that growing and sharing the healthiest food possible was really one of the biggest challenges and biggest opportunities facing our generation.”
Hanan and fellow classmate Lloyd Minick began the farm in earnest in 2012. Currently, the farm is housed on a tenth of an acre residential plot in Austin. Although it is tiny, the startup hopes its method of integrated, closed loop farming that combines field plants, aquaponics, live animals and a small CSA can act as a model for productive urban farming around the nation. Read More
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