For many years now, we have been working with the lads at Urban Ecological Systems Australia during the development stages of their pilot commercial scale integrated aquaculture farm at Nimbin Australia, to the first large-scale closed loop food production system in Sydney Australia.
This is an exciting time Australian farming and food security, with the first of its type in the world build on Australian ingenuity and skills.
Is it aquaponics? The system uses our proprietary intensive recirculating aquaculture system which drives the nutrients for the plants through UESA proprietary integration system for optimum plant production on a moving gully. So in principle it is an integrated aquaculture system, however it is much more than that.
The foot print of the Blue Farm allows it to be built close to large, central markets in major population areas. With capacity to produce 4,000,000 plants per hectare per year is a remarkable improvement on greenhouse growing and it is driven by tonnes of fish production in that same area.
The first stage of the fish farm is within that same hectare plant production and runs at 25 tonne which the current fish of choice being Barramundi. In Sydney, fresh grown barra. 10,000 juveniles have gone into the system to cycle it up and assist in firing up the plant system which is about 1/3 stocked and supplying retails outlets. There may be a chance you are buying this fresh produce already. The next stages roll out another 75 tonne to make a total of 100 tonne of fish per year.
This is really only the start of a much larger project and the “Bluehouse” currently has room for at least another 100 tonne of fish or perhaps we will introduce our proprietary passive freshwater crayfish technology. This would complete such a high tech closed loop system, providing fresh, locally grown fish, veggies and crustaceans all out of one farm would be a remarkable achievement.
I am please to say it has been a pleasure and an honor working with Hogan Gleeson, Andrew Bodlovich and Adam Steel over the years and with Rod Missen and Gerard Adam in the design and construction of the recirculating aquaculture system that supports the growth in the Blue Smart Farm. We look forward to building many more in the future.
You can read more about the Blue Smart Farm here
And
[download id="6"]
Regards
Paul
Now that would be a place to put on the bucket list for a visit.
Fascinating system, I would love to find our more about their growing medium and how the worm based biofilter system works as I see this as potentially providing an even more nutritious growing solution for the plants.
I wonder if they would be interested in opening their doors for a tour by your members?
Perhaps they will when it is completed and fully commissioned, which may take a year or two. We were set for an expansion in March, however I think that may be delayed for 6 months while they work on getting the production underway.
[...] is the same for any project, small or large, the end game is what you are aiming for. For example the recent integrated aquaculture build we were involved in is staged, 25 tonne of fish and the equivalent of 8,000 square meters of NFT is in the first stage [...]
[...] on options for integrating aquaculture systems with possibly Dr. Wilson Lennard. The guys from UESA will also be presenting their Blue Smart Farm to attendees. Among other speakers, workshops and farm/market [...]