Could AP solve the famine crisis in Africa?

TCLynx

Muscovy ducks are also a good for such situations.

And if one has access to some means of running a bio-ponics system, a duck-aponics could likely grow much fodder for the birds and probably even some cereal crops. I am going to be experimenting with ways to grow cereal crops myself.

One possible staple crops which does well in aquaponics for growing the greens and even the roots is sweet potato and it is well suited to the recirculating wicking bed set up that Sahib has been trialing.

kthignight24

@earthbound - So if I understand, you're planning... The chicken shelter in the middle. The chickens have access to 1/4 of the land at a time. They scratch bugs from the ground and eat the grains sprouting from the ground. The chickens are rotated, so the manure has time to compost and the bugs/sprouts have time to regrow. Did you also say the chickens would be wandering amongst plants you plan on eating? Would there be an issue with the chicken manure "burning" the plants or pathogens from the manure contaminating the veggies/grains? The input to the system would be scraps from a local restaurant... or for a family implementing this, maybe table scraps. Cool idea. If you implement this would you post the process/results on this forum?

fishtopia

TCL wrote:

Quote:

One possible staple crops which does well in aquaponics for growing the greens and even the roots is sweet potato and it is well suited to the recirculating wicking bed set up that Sahib has been trialing.

Hello TCL, I have searched for "Sahib plus wicking beds" without luck, can you tell me where I might find some details about those recirculating wicking beds?

earthbound

Oh yes, will mainly be vegetables grown in the 4 areas, harvest the vegetables, then send in the chooks to clean cultivate and manure the next 1/4 for perhaps 4-5 weeks, then move them into the next one.. Once they have moved into an area they will clear the whole area and we will plant fairly quickly afterwards once they are moved out of an area and into the next area.

I'm not too worried about the plants burning, they cultivate it pretty well.. Contamination? This sort of thing has been done for centuries.

We'll probably document this all on the backyard farming website as we go along...

donone

NO. There are several problems that I have read about in Africa for farming. First is the lack of water problems. You just cant drill a well or bore just any where your heart desires cause there is no water under lots of the land. So Aquaponic could be a viable help to the problem but not a solution. The second problem is that the land is so arid and been that way for a long time. There is a lack of nutrients and micro organism in the soil and it needs a lot of help to make it viable. I forget the name of that condition in the land. If you used a city landfill for a composting heap and plowed the stuff into the soil after it composted and started to plant stuff that would help rebuild the soil it might start to recover. It just gets back again to no water and no good soil for farming.

Axl

Joel, can you please help me? I have looked at this chicken ponics system plan of yours, but I can't see how the chooks get pumped back into the growbeds!!! please explain???!!

RupertofOZ

Maaybe this might help Axl.... a response to a question regarding septic systems... :dontknow:

Quote:

I'm just glad you didn't ask me the "dead chicken question." It goes like this: "If I regularly toss a whole dead chicken into my septic tank, will that reduce or even eliminate the need to pump the tank?" We used to be asked that question quite frequently. The thinking was that the bacterial activity created by the chicken carcass was so great that it reduced or eliminated the need to pump sludge and scum from the tank. There are still people who fervently believe in the chicken hypothesis, swearing that they haven't had to pump their tank in years, if ever. Really, all that these people are doing is contributing to groundwater pollution by sending bacteria-laden filth out of an over-burdened tank into the system's leaching field (the buried pipes that receive the outflow from the septic tank). I'm thankful that interest in the technique seems to be dying off.

TCLynx

fishtopia wrote:

TCL wrote:

Quote:

One possible staple crops which does well in aquaponics for growing the greens and even the roots is sweet potato and it is well suited to the recirculating wicking bed set up that Sahib has been trialing.

Hello TCL, I have searched for "Sahib plus wicking beds" without luck, can you tell me where I might find some details about those recirculating wicking beds?

Sorry, I don't think Sahib is on this forum. I'll see if he has posted much info on his wicking beds yet though. He is running an aquaponics system in some wasted space between a commercial building and the fence in an urban area and the wicking beds stretch out from that along the car park. Unfortunately I didn't get to visit his place during the Aquaponic Association conference since I was too busy giving tours of my place that day. Great set up though, it has a little of everything going on, gravel beds, Raft, towers, NFT, wicking beds, etc.
Ok going to see If I can find a link.

Here is Sahib's page over on Aquaponic Gardening, I've asked him to share some more info or let me know where it's posted so I can link it for you. http://aquaponicscommunity.com/profile/SahibPunjabi

earthbound

Axl wrote:

Joel, can you please help me? I have looked at this chicken ponics system plan of yours, but I can't see how the chooks get pumped back into the growbeds!!! please explain???!!

No we don't pump the chickens back into the growbeds, they fly back in of course...

Axl

silly me, well that will save on power I guess

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Could AP solve the famine crisis in Africa?

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A place to discuss aquaponics