Backyard Aquaponics
A place to discuss aquaponics

Hello everyone,

This is a great web resource and I am looking forward to learn and participate more in the learning process of designing these infrastructures.

I am originally from Ecuador. I moved to USA over 20 years ago and I studied Civil engineering water resources at the University of Minnesota - Twin Cities. I have good experience working and using my technical skills with undeveloped communities in Central and South America. I am looking to return to live and work at the Andes regions.

I am interested in learning to design aquaponics infrastructures that can be customized accordingly to the environmental conditions of the Andes in South America: Colombia, Ecuador, Peru and Bolivia. The goal is to recover the health of the watershed environmental conditions. This initiative follows under Climate Change concerns and Food Justice and Sustainability, topics addressed at the UN Rio+20 Conference on Sustainable Development.

Building aquaponics infrastructures - micro level small infrastructures that fits the budget for people/or groups living in rural/poor communities. At the same time these infrastructures can serve as an educational tool to local governments or institutions or neighborhoods (churches, schools, hospitals) to teach sustainability and good habits to preserve and save water resources and land.

Water source infrastructures besides lakes, rivers, and aquifers, can be rainwater harvested, recycled, stored and used for the aquaponic system whenever possible. These systems will sustain growing local fish and vegetables.

I want to use these infrastructures as a Best Management Practices BMPs to recover the health of small micro watersheds. Overtime, spatially in their local watershed this can make a difference if more people get engaged. The right tools and designs needs to be successfully implemented to become a sustainable community: eating right, improving local economies, creating jobs in small scale and watershed recovering. I am in the process of developing connections with local governments in Ecuador and Colombia.

I am looking for recommendations on any specific books that walks through the design of these infrastructures either small or big scale already happening in the Andes?

Please let me know.

Welcome Andesaquaponics! It is strange to think that the region that has given the word one of its most valuable crops, ( and the crop that is the reason English became Lingua Franca) is in need of food justice. But then food equality there ended over 500 years, and the society has beed stratified since. There is "civilization" for you...