Aquaponics

Aquaponics. I’m Greg Martin with Lacy Gray for Colorado Ag Today.

You’d never know it by looking but a lot of green growing is happening behind closed doors in Colorado.

GRAY: What Greg is talking about is the KM2 Farms in Fort Collins. What looks like an ordinary office building houses large aquaponic farm inside. Behind an ordinary office lies a 1500 square food warehouse filled with fresh mint, basil, watercress, cilantro, radishes and micro-greens.

MARTIN: Mike Bennett and Matt Arthur are a couple of young farmers that are using a closed-loop, indoor system that feeds plants with the converted excrement of 4,000 Koi and goldfish. and they can grow about 4,000 pounds of greens a month on the same water that the average family uses in a couple of weeks or that a high-density cow pasture uses in less than two minutes.

GRAY: Aquaponics is similar to hydroponics which is the feeding plants a nutrient solution in water, not soil and that of of aquaculture, which raises fish in a controlled environment. The whole process surprised the two who discovered they could grow cattle feed on a fraction of the water normally used. Altering the process for human food consumption was a natural step.

MARTIN: The whole idea borders on genius with Bennett and Arthur starting an expansion that will triple production capacity in Colorado and perhaps take the business as far as Arizona, Ohio and even outside the U.S. They’ve signed with food distributing giant Sysco and produce distributor FreshPoint to get their herbs in restaurant kitchens the same day they are harvested.

And that’s Colorado Ag Today. I’m Greg Martin, thanks for listening on the Ag Information Network of the West.