Backyard Aquaponics
A place to discuss aquaponics

Hi All

My name is Dusty and I work for The British Aquaponic Association (BAQUA) here in sunny UK.

We have taken it upon ourselves to promote aquaponic in the UK and worldwide and are currently working on a few projects locally and internationally.

We feel that the UK has for too long, been behind other countries like Australia and the USA in growing food for a sustainable future and we will change that.

To start with, we're having a small conference at the end of the month right here in the UK and would love to meet some of our local enthusiasts.

If you’d like to attend please see our website for details (www.baqua.org.uk)

Hopefully soon we can get to meet Murray and Sylvia in a true global context.

See you there.

Hi Dusty,
I can see now how fast is aquaponic spreading, it has been 2 and a half year since I've myself started this fantastic venture and had always keept an eye in the UK scene, have been working at FARM:shop and now I'm building my aquaponic farm, I will try to make it for the conferance.

Good luck and let's get going mate!

Welcome Dusty....

I'm curious... your website lists the formation as April 2012... yet there appears to be "archived" blog entries... (all the same post)... going back to March 2008....

P.S ... Dusty... are you Kevin, or Maria??

@Bioaquafarm You guys at FARM:shop are exactly what we are about. We're hoping to promote urban farming to the councils and get them to use some of the old disused building for the good of the community.

@Rupert yea the web-designer is a bit of a waste of good oxygen :-) we are aware of the problem, and thanks for having such a good look at the site. Kevin and maria are advisor's, I'm just plain old Dusty lol that's my name as well

Thanks for all the good wishes guys

Dusty, do you... or Kevin/Maria... or the actually organisation... have systems, or demo installations that you can post pics of...

We luv pics of peoples systems... and although there's a few UK members.. there's not a lot of systems been shown...

Hard to get a handle on just how aquaponics is progressing over there...

Hi Rupe

Over the last couple of years we have had over 60 people on our courses but the majority wish to learn about hydroponics and aquaponics to take to Africa, Indian sub-continent and West Indies. However, there is a slow growth in people starting up in the UK and we think that given a year or two it will get much better.
The big problem in the UK, and this is from people we speak to face to face, is being able to provide consistency of supply through the late autumn and winter months when natural light levels are diminished. Introducing false lighting eats a great big hole in the profits and don't mention the cost of heating. We have struggled to maintain supplies using our hydroponic systems but fortunately we have catering customers who are very understanding about the loss of growth over the bad months and come back to us in the early Spring. (Fingers crossed).

WD and OH.

Dusty,
sorry to dissapoint you but I'm not in any way associated to Farm;shop, all I did for them was give them consultancy and I've reapaired part of the system for them, I'm the owner of Bioaquafam in Somerset, probably the second commercial aquaponic farm in Europe at present, our website will be ready in march and the farm will open the door in May when produce will be ready to harvest (fish will be available in July).
Our farm will supply mainly farmers market, restaurant and the private catering sector, we have an hybrid system made of Ebb'nFlow, DWC, NFT, Aeroponic and soon will add vertical. I've design and built the farm myself, all from scratch and in a muddy field!
I've been in aquaponic for a number of years and currently studing in recirculating aquaculture and horticulture to consolidate my knowledge.
I would love to attend the conference but unfortunately I can't drive yet, could you put me in touch with anybody that comes from around Somerset or Cornwal area that could pick me up on the way?
Thanks

Hi Dusty, good to see AP being promoted in the UK. I've just been looking at your website and notice that one of your objectives is income generation for the disabled and young offenders.

Do you have figures regarding the viability of this ? I wonder given the issues of winter supply that Welshdragon has highlighted how realistic it is for smaller systems to generate much income ? I've been watching the progress of a big community allotment scheme which had 140k invested into it but failed to generate the level of income expected and to keep the level of interest up from the Community Groups who have been gradually dropping out of a scheme that looked like a sure fire success on paper.

Pipkin you have put your finger on the button when you mention community projects and their promotion.
The trouble is that they are promoted with lots of money in terms of grants, like your 140K scheme and they are beefed up without any idea of how to grow, harvest, package and most importantly how to sell the product to the public. If the money is in terms of a non-returnable grant then maintaining a commitment from those charged with doing the grunt work is very hard. If the community project required a financial input from each member then you would get commitment. We speak to lots of people who have had wads of money waved at them to get community schemes going and 90% of the projects have collapsed when members realise that they have to get mud on their boots and get digging in the cold and wet.

This may appear to be a very negative and cynical view of what happens in the UK but unless those promoting these schemes inject loads of realism into their terms of reference, very many people will be disappointed and money will be wasted.

The best projects we have seen have usually been a Mum and Dad set-up using their own money and growing slowly and steadily.

WD and OH.

Sounds a little like some of the stuff happening in the US as well.. Like one particular aquaponics organisation who claim they are a commercial running enterprise, but they run on city grants provided so long as they meet certain local employment targets (which it seems like they have been fudging) and volunteer unpaid labour...

EU grants scheme are changing the tactics for this very reason, many grants released by them cover no more than 50% of the eligible cost, so if you are injecting money in the business there is more commitment involved at this point.

It sems the EU wasted far too much, now they converge this money to more realistic/feaseble and serious business.

Most of US "commercial" aquaponic enterprises... either have interns, or other volunteer unpaid labour... and/or don't pay themselves....

The latter probably can't... on a direct market model.... and the rest probably wouldn't survive paying labour.... and on a production scale of wholesale pricing...

IMO... 99% of the so called "commercial" aquaponics "farms"... are seriously flawed.. both in design.. and business model..