"[Just] up the hill from an abandoned schoolhouse in the rolling hills of
west central Wisconsin about 33 miles southeast of Eau Claire, 3,000 to
4,000 pounds of salmon are harvested each week and 1.5 million pounds of
leafy greens each year. And it’s all being sold to grocers, restaurants
and wholesalers within a 400-mile radius of Jackson County...
A 3-acre greenhouse, nearly twice the length of a football field,
glows purple from its more than 1,100 LED grow lights — a sight that
turns the heads of passing motorists on Interstate 94 at night. The
lights, with cloud-based software, help mimic California’s Salinas
Valley.
Next
door, the North Atlantic Ocean is replicated in a one-acre fish house.
Thousands of Atlantic salmon, some newly hatched from eggs sourced in
Iceland, others nearly 10 pounds after two years, are raised in
22,000-gallon tanks filled with fresh water drawn from a 180-foot-deep
well...
With millions of dollars in financial backing from Todd Wanek, the CEO
of Ashley Furniture, and his wife, Karen, this is where a team of
experts schooled in the minutiae of aquaculture and hydroponics uses
water from the fish rearing process to grow vegetables year round on
floating mats. It’s all certified organic with no pesticides, growth
hormones or other additives."
"Aquaponics is a combination of aquaculture and hydroponics. Water in
which fish are raised is then used to fill greenhouse tanks to grow
plants. The fish waste provides nutrients for the plants, and the water
recirculates between the tanks...
Salmon are raised in water that is about 39 degrees. The nutrient-rich
water is then pumped to the neighboring greenhouse where the water is
allowed to warm naturally to around 75 degrees and can be used to grow
baby red leaf lettuce from seed to harvest in 18 to 24 days...
Like hydroponics, aquaponics
systems require less land and water than conventional crop production
methods, increase growth rates and allow for year-round production... The projects, which use no surface water and emphasize cleanliness
including bio-security measures to prevent contamination of crops, are
designed to decrease transportation costs and provide locally sourced
food...
The Superior Fresh system, which includes about 850,000 gallons of water
in the greenhouse, has interior and exterior weather stations that talk
to each other and open and close roof vents to help regulate
temperatures. On a recent day, with temperatures outside in the mid-20s,
the greenhouse temperature was 76 degrees. During the polar vortex,
interior temperatures dropped to the upper 50s..."
Fascinating stuff, and I love the mental picture you serve up of a massive purple glass house ... makes me want to illuminate my glass house. The story takes on a different feel though, for me, and presumably every other reader that doesn't reside in the USA, Liberia or Myanmar, as we read about the weekly harvest of salmon being worth £3,000 - £4,000, that is a lot of money ! And temperatures of 75 degrees in the green house, a level of heat that would kill any person walking in within a few minutes. Australia had temperatures of 48 degrees recently, whole herds of cattle, camels and horses died, as did many people. Vive la difference and all that, but we here in the rest of the world have had our language subtly altered by the dominance of American T.V. programmes and movies over the last few decades (even I, a seemingly semi-intelligent person, often have to think hard to remember whether route is pronounced root or rout - it's root btw) and I seldom can resist the tingling temptation to ask why American's, so happy to reject British laws, taxes, spelling and, ha ha, tea, ... so wholeheartedly embrace a measuring system based on the size of King Henry's foot. 400 miles ! How many leagues is that ?
I was once dazzled by aquaponics and then, being a believer in animal liberation, I began to see it as just another CAFO (Confined Animal Feeding Operation)--or factory farm approach. Fish are complex, sentient beings (much research is now available)and jamming them into tanks is not a thing to celebrate, IMHO.
Fascinating stuff, and I love the mental picture you serve up of a massive purple glass house ... makes me want to illuminate my glass house.
ReplyDeleteThe story takes on a different feel though, for me, and presumably every other reader that doesn't reside in the USA, Liberia or Myanmar, as we read about the weekly harvest of salmon being worth £3,000 - £4,000, that is a lot of money !
And temperatures of 75 degrees in the green house, a level of heat that would kill any person walking in within a few minutes.
Australia had temperatures of 48 degrees recently, whole herds of cattle, camels and horses died, as did many people.
Vive la difference and all that, but we here in the rest of the world have had our language subtly altered by the dominance of American T.V. programmes and movies over the last few decades (even I, a seemingly semi-intelligent person, often have to think hard to remember whether route is pronounced root or rout - it's root btw) and I seldom can resist the tingling temptation to ask why American's, so happy to reject British laws, taxes, spelling and, ha ha, tea, ... so wholeheartedly embrace a measuring system based on the size of King Henry's foot.
400 miles ! How many leagues is that ?
https://gizmodo.com/these-are-the-three-countries-who-dont-use-the-metric-s-5786004
DeleteI was once dazzled by aquaponics and then, being a believer in animal liberation, I began to see it as just another CAFO (Confined Animal Feeding Operation)--or factory farm approach. Fish are complex, sentient beings (much research is now available)and jamming them into tanks is not a thing to celebrate, IMHO.
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