(…) One of the results of our LEADER project was the mapping of education in Europe. There are short courses on aquaponics around Europe as well as PhD courses, but these are at a higher level. Even the master level lacks courses on aquaponics. Maybe there are a few seminars, but systematic education does not exist. That is why Campus Roslagen applied for vocational training in aquaponics.
(…) Besides being a great technology to grow food in cities, it also helps to foster entrepreneurship in rural areas. Farmers can diversify their activities, and still work with agriculture, with fish farming. It is something innovative. It also indirectly contributes to biodiversity conservation because it curbs nutrients run-off in the environment and does not use antibiotics nor pesticides.
(…) I still don't understand when I find people that say immediately, no (to aquaponics) while other emerging fields are already so advanced. I mean, if we think of Artificial Intelligence, the progress made in this field are incredible. The same with transplants or genetically modified food. These are very complex fields (systems). So why do people say aquaponics is too difficult to handle? (…) Yeah, maybe it's just a question of competition, for economic reasons.
Who is the farmer of nowadays? Maybe he doesn't work on a farm, but perhaps he works in architecture firms or municipalities.
(…) We have a very broad disciplinary approach in our university. We have seven faculties, (…) so it's possible for students to find a topic they're interested in, and to be qualified. This format is attractive not only for plant sciences or biology candidates but also for people with other educational backgrounds. We have students with bachelor’s degrees in fine arts, business, nursing, geography, landscape engineering, economics amongst others.
(…) Everybody has something they can bring to the table and please respect both yourself and the others (…) and learn how to collaborate and teach each other. Nevertheless, there are disciplinary terms, what I call the tribal language of a discipline. It's something that they need to get acquainted with (…) to be able to work together. And then they have us as teachers to ask for advice, to help find suitable literature and so on.
(..) That's one barrier we need to tear down. This can actually be a hobby, but it's important for people's health and well-being. But it's so much more.
Look at nutrients, we need to recycle sewage because this is the sustainable way of treating our resources. Because it is not waste, it's resources astray. In Oslo for instance, they started with water closets a bit more than 100 years ago. Before that, this was an important resource that was used by the farmers (…). So, we look at the recycling of resources, both the nutrients and the water and how we can clean and save water using vacuum toilets and making biogas from the black water. And if we look at energy, both recycling energy and green energy that we can obtain from the sun and storing energy, using energy from the summer in the winter (…). We look at the whole sustainable society and urban agriculture in our view as the whole. That's why we would like to change it to circular urban agriculture. So urban agriculture is much more than growing carrots.
We see a great potential of this research area as both AREI and the Institute of Horticulture complement each other in their expertise and will be able to deliver relevant, and currently unavailable, information on how to grow food on rooftops.
A range of different vegetable crops are included in the project to represent leafy vegetables (lettuce), herbs (basil), root vegetables (radish), fruit-yielding vegetables (tomato), and legumes (sugar pea) to clarify their growing peculiarities in the urban gardening approach. The nutritional value of vegetables must be analysed to determine urban-grown food quality in comparison to rural-grown. Besides main nutritional elements (N, P, K, Ca, Mg, S) functional components (phenols, antioxidant activity, carotenes, vitamins and sugars) and undesired heavy metals will be detected in the vegetables.
We have a great potential to develop green infrastructure of the cities, with a great number of buildings with a flat roof that seem to have the structural capacity to host and develop urban farms.
Everyone who has a suitable place can develop a rooftop farm. It is also a great opportunity for educational institutions (kindergartens and schools) to show children how vegetables are produced in a sustainable and circular approach and teach them to care for plants. In this case, financing bodies, educational institutions, and other stakeholders are invited to consider urban gardening when planning the budget.
In recent years, urban gardening has been rapidly developing and spreading in Latvia. We are happy about this and willing to foster its development. Thus, we look forward to participating in the research projects in future related to this topic.