Project Overview
Information Products
Commodities
- Vegetables: greens (leafy)
- Animals: fish, other
Practices
- Animal Production: aquaculture
- Natural Resources/Environment: biodiversity
- Soil Management: soil quality/health
Summary:
Sustainable farms are becoming increasingly important in our region for their role in food access and food security. There has been a high demand for local produce from our community over the years and a concern for increasing access to diverse and healthy food for low-income populations. However, there remain few farms and producers in our region. Land is limited and expensive with much of the area consisting of rocky and clay soils. Because the land is not historically agricultural land, often the soil conditions are poor, requiring a lot of labor and input to make it suitable for crop production. Furthermore, water resources are becoming increasingly scarce. Wells are very expensive in these areas, and many growers utilize small ponds or other water catchment for irrigation purposes. Many farms struggle with these obstacles. We paired aquaculture, vermiculture, and mealworm farming, with agriculture to provide examples of ways to improve soil, yields and income for small farmers. We continued to establish a sustainable aquaculture system in one of our ponds and compared this to another catchment system without aquaculture. We irrigated identical fields from each treatment to look at how aquaculture can improve crop yields and soil health. We examined how vermiculture and mealworm farming can benefit these systems, by lowering overhead costs and creating optimal growth in fish. We looked at the benefits of these systems for increasing revenue and providing additional commodities for small farms, increasing profits while lowering costly inputs like organic fertilizers. This helps increase sustainability on farms in our region and provides a much-needed example of how small farmers can overcome obstacles like poor soil, fertility, and high overhead costs. Our results were shared with the community, schools, and producers through organized farm tours, workshops, posters and other educational materials.
Project objectives:
We developed and improved the sustainability of an aquaculture system in a small irrigation catchment pond and compared this to conventional watering from catchment tanks without aquaculture. We planted and irrigated identical study areas on the farm for each treatment to look at how aquaculture can improve crop yields and soil health. In addition, we showed how fish production can serve as another commodity for small farms, increasing profits while lowering costly inputs like organic fertilizers. We examined the benefits of vermiculture and mealworm farming to sustain aquaculture and compared fish growths across different worm and insect treatments and developed sustainable methods for producing fish feed on the farm. Our results were shared with the community, schools, and producers through organized farm tours, workshops, posters and other educational materials.