[URBAN NOTE] "Fish feed the plants, plants clean the water in waiter's fresh-food venture"

[rfmcdonald]

The Globe and Mail carries Andrew Seale's article looking at the potential of urban aquaponics.

Pablo Alvarez envisions a day when Torontonians will wander his Aqua Greens aquaponics farm in the city centre, choosing bunches of arugula, basil and chives as well as a couple of the tilapia swimming below the plants.

Customers will be able to buy fish and local, organic greens any time of year, says Mr. Alvarez, an entrepreneur and long-time waiter who wants to connect people with their food.

But for now his aquaponics farm – a self-contained ecosystem in which fish swimming in huge vats provide nutrients for plants floating above on foam pads, which in turn clean the water for the tilapia – is relegated to a 3,000-square-foot industrial park near Pearson International Airport.

Before they set up their current location in September of 2014, Mr. Alvarez and partner Craig Petten were denied permission to launch in Toronto proper, given that the city’s zoning bylaws don’t allow agricultural operations. It’s a pain point for the small business, which supplies produce – the tilapia aren’t for sale yet – to multiple restaurants in the downtown core.

The bootstrapped startup is at full capacity, producing about 12,000 plants a month with 5,000 tilapia. The guys behind Aqua Greens say the business will make its way into the black in the coming months, more than a year after the first harvest.

The founders haven’t paid themselves yet, but they say a more pressing challenge is finding a way to compensate the six or seven volunteers, mostly students of environmental science or zoology, who also pitch in. They help with the harvest, clean the systems and brainstorm how to make Aqua Greens more efficient.