Aquaponia no Vale de Acór

Food production project, to implement an aquaponics system in the Portuguese NGO: Associação Vale de Acór (for the treatment of drug addiction).

We are a group of people willing to develop food production projects using the varied aquaponics technologies.

Aquaponics:

Aquaponics blends together aquaculture (breeding fish in ponds or tanks) and hydroponics (growth of vegetables on water), working as a closed dynamic system where the fish excrements will be used as nutrients for the vegetables, which in their turn filter the water, returning it to the fish in good conditions, so they may grow in healthy conditions.

In comparison to the traditional growing methods, aquaponics has huge advantages in terms of yield and environmental benefits:

-       no need for a high quality soil, as any terrain will do, provided water and energy are available.

-       no use of chemicals

-       food production is 8 to 10 times higher (less space and higher growth speed)

-       being a closed system, it uses only 2 to 5% of the water and 1/3 the energy that are typically needed in traditional agriculture

-       Since the production facilities are built close to cities and the end consumer, transportation is reduced to a minimum (fresher products and a lighter ecological footprint)

-       It is a simple to teach and easily replicable system, which can be implemented under the scope of policies to help unfavoured communities

Project:

We aim to install an aquaponics system at Associação Vale de Acór, located in the Almada municipality. This association is an NGO dedicated to the treatment and recovery of drug addicts, where this project may greatly contribute to provide for their daily food needs (ca. 100 people), as well as to contribute as a therapeutic tool for the interns.

It consists of a system composed of two fish tanks (tilapia, carp, …) and six growth beds for several vegetables (lettuce, tomato, cucumber, rucola, …) sheltered under a green house. First crops are expected to be harvested within the first two months and we expect to achieve an annual production of just over 1,000 Kg of vegetables and 70 Kg of fish.

We estimate an implementation cost of approximately 5,000 euros (detailed budget stored in the platform), of which 1,000 euros will be covered by the promoters, hence we need around 4,000 euros.

We intend to further replicate this experience both in a commercial project (production and sales of fresh food close to the end consumer), and close to unfavoured communities, NGO’s, schools, etc.

We have created an email address and a blog, that will be used primarily for sharing information about our venture and to receive comments and suggestions from whoever may be interested in the project.

Links to a few sites concerning aquaponics and how to use it are listed below.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xxxdh70fWw4&feature=related

http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=7nIL9hWW3-Q

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2009/08/27/what-is-aquaponics-video_n_269919.html

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=26xpMCXP9bw

http://www.friendlyaquaponics.com/

About the author

Luis Nogueira Ramos

Graduated as a Civil Engineer, specialised in urban issues, worked the last 25 years in several areas within the real estate business (banking, real estate promoters and assessment organizations), in positions of technical and sales management. 

As the current economic crisis strongly disturbed the real estate business, I had to rethink my professional career and started to consider the possibility to focus on the urban agriculture activity, meaning food production close to the end consumer, as a way to diminish the ecological footprint.

As the result of my research I found a still quite unknown food production system in Portugal (aquaponics) and started to investigate it, which led me, together with some friends, to getting very excited with the idea.

I intend to dedicate the best part of my next years to developing this technique, and to spread the knowledge in order to help people (especially those less favoured) to produce their own food on their living zones, in an accessible way.

Pedro Torre do Vale

Entrepreneur in Cascais, having an international consultant career and long experience in business development.

Having done several jobs in Moçambique (consultancy and training in the management field – Maputo and Beira) and Brasil (CEO in a shrimp plant), returned back to Portugal in order to manage companies in several areas, mainly advertisement, logistics, consultancy and a franchise in the professional training field.

Currently intends to focus on a new challenge, the high yield, low investment agriculture project (aquaponics), with a high social concern.

Manuel Arriaga e Cunha

Graduated in Electronics and Communications Engineering, I had a career of more than 30 years in the computer business, with both technical and management focus, taking the responsibility for the organization and management of business units and related projects.

Amateur artist – classic guitar, painting and ballroom dancing – I have since very long had a special concern in the cooperation with human help organizations.

Having had, all my life, a high fascination for the agricultural activity, I never considered it seriously though, as it would not fit my industry/engineering mind, oriented for activities less prone to suffer from nature whims.

As soon as I realized that agriculture today can be approached in a much more controlled fashion, and in a much closer relation to a typical industrial activity, I immediately decided to grab it at once, having presently the best opportunity to perform it in this project for the implementation of an aquaponics system at Vale de Acór.

Besides the immediate usefulness of this project in the daily life of the association, it has a very high potential as the seed to a future organization focused on the development and support of similar or larger projects in the unflavoured communities

Others

Besides the 3 promoters, there will be a team of consultants, experts in the various fields, namely bioengineering, food production engineering and pisciculture.

Budget and due dates

Documents

• Apresentação

  vnd.openxmlformats-officedocument.presentationml.presentation • 9.08 MB

• Orçamento.pdf

  pdf • 191.51 KB