INTRO:
An agricultural technique called "Aquaponics" could help to deal with droughts across the world. Aquaponics involves growing plants using natural waste from fish and saves 90 per cent more water compared to normal farming.
While it's already being used on a handful of farms - some say it could be used to help more drought stricken areas. Frances Read reports from California.
IN: "In this small home…"
OUT: SOC
DUR: 2,05"
http://www.fsnradionews.com/feeds/0526Aqua-fr-gen.mp3
PKG:
VO1: In a small home in rural California, thousands of plants are being grown inside. But these need no daily watering, no weeding and there's no wastage - in fact there's no soil to be seen.
"This is 160 square foot space and we grow almost 1500 plants."
VO2: Shari Rightmer has created her own aquaponics system, inside her house, which uses natural waste from fish to feed the plants.
"It's really basically very simple, we have the water with the fish, and then the water is pumped up and the plants gather the nutrients from the water and then the water returns back clean to the fish."
VO3: And many supporters of aquaponics, think this could be the solution to growing food in droughts.
"We utilise 95% less water than regular agriculture. Our produce grows three times larger, three times faster."
VO4: Just down the road farmers use thousands of gallons of water to irrigate this dry arid land - keeping up with the constant demand for food. But not everyone thinks aquaponics is the answer. Professor Donal Manahan is from the University of Southern California. He says no single technique can be scaled up to the size needed, to meet global demand.
"I don't see a magic bullet, one system working globally. We have roughly 7 billion people on the planet today and approximately in 20 or 30 years from now we may have 9 billion people so roughly speaking we need a third more food within a generation. The concept of thinking about sustainable food production from the local to the global is one of the greatest challenges facing human sustainability in the 21st century."
VO5: But supporters of Aquaponics say that means it has to be part of the solution. Because where there's no water, there can be no food at all. Frances Read, California.
An agricultural technique called "Aquaponics" could help to deal with droughts across the world. Aquaponics involves growing plants using natural waste from fish and saves 90 per cent more water compared to normal farming.
While it's already being used on a handful of farms - some say it could be used to help more drought stricken areas. Frances Read reports from California.
IN: "In this small home…"
OUT: SOC
DUR: 2,05"
http://www.fsnradionews.com/feeds/0526Aqua-fr-gen.mp3
PKG:
VO1: In a small home in rural California, thousands of plants are being grown inside. But these need no daily watering, no weeding and there's no wastage - in fact there's no soil to be seen.
"This is 160 square foot space and we grow almost 1500 plants."
VO2: Shari Rightmer has created her own aquaponics system, inside her house, which uses natural waste from fish to feed the plants.
"It's really basically very simple, we have the water with the fish, and then the water is pumped up and the plants gather the nutrients from the water and then the water returns back clean to the fish."
VO3: And many supporters of aquaponics, think this could be the solution to growing food in droughts.
"We utilise 95% less water than regular agriculture. Our produce grows three times larger, three times faster."
VO4: Just down the road farmers use thousands of gallons of water to irrigate this dry arid land - keeping up with the constant demand for food. But not everyone thinks aquaponics is the answer. Professor Donal Manahan is from the University of Southern California. He says no single technique can be scaled up to the size needed, to meet global demand.
"I don't see a magic bullet, one system working globally. We have roughly 7 billion people on the planet today and approximately in 20 or 30 years from now we may have 9 billion people so roughly speaking we need a third more food within a generation. The concept of thinking about sustainable food production from the local to the global is one of the greatest challenges facing human sustainability in the 21st century."
VO5: But supporters of Aquaponics say that means it has to be part of the solution. Because where there's no water, there can be no food at all. Frances Read, California.