Opinion

Aquaponic urban farms - a commercial reality and vital step for sustainable cities

Kate Hofman, GrowUp Urban Farms

As London start-up GrowUp Urban Farms announces plans for the UK’s first commercial aquaponic urban farm, founder Kate Hofman explains the challenge - and the opportunities.

This week we’re excited to announce that GrowUp Urban Farms been given planning permission to start building our first large-scale farm in Beckton, East London.

We’re converting a warehouse into the UK’s first commercial aquaponic farm, creating a pioneering new model for sustainable, ethical food production in cities. The farm will use aquaculture and hydroponic technology to produce more than 20,000kg of sustainable salads and herbs (enough for 200,000 salad bags) and 4,000kg of fish each year, and we hope to start harvesting in September. 

"If we can reconnect people with the story of their food, they are much more likely to make better decisions about what food they buy and eat."

The farm will combine two well-established farming practices – aquaculture (farming fish) and hydroponics (growing plants in a nutrient solution without soil) in a recirculating system. Waste water from fish tanks is pumped through hydroponic growing beds where salad plants absorb waste nutrients from the water and clean the water for the fish as the system continually recirculates. 

In a city like London, where space and resources are at a premium, taking on existing warehouses and converting them to productive growing spaces is a model that can be replicated and scaled in cities across the UK and the world. 

Using agricultural systems like aquaponics and growing food closer to consumers has the potential to cut down on the environmental impacts of food production, but it also means we can bring food production closer to urban communities.

This allows people to see how food is grown and what it takes to produce it.

"Increasing urbanisation and growing populations mean we have to find new ways to feed people in cities."

If we can reconnect people with the story of their food, they are much more likely to make better decisions about what food they buy and eat.

The farm will include a visitor centre allowing people to understand more about sustainable food production in cities, and means that at GrowUp Urban Farms we can increase our social and environmental impact in the local community and engage more people in learning about urban farming. It will provide eight jobs, with three positions created specifically for local young people with a history of poor educational attainment and with all employees receiving at least London Living Wage.

Increasing urbanisation and growing populations mean we have to find new ways to feed people in cities. Aquaponic urban farming is resource-efficient way of feeding local communities, cutting down on the costs and impacts of transportation and helping address the challenge of feeding growing urban populations.

Using this growing model, we’ll be able to grow salads and herbs year-round using specialist horticultural LED lighting designed and manufactured by Philips. We will also produce tilapia, a fish used in many different cuisines and the majority of the produce from the farm will be sold to local restaurants. 

Kate Hofman founded GrowUp Urban Farms with business partner Tom Webster in 2012. For more information see www.growup.org.uk.