US school children learning about aquaculture
Canada: New York State project introduces all aspects of fish farming to students that are paid for summer jobs.
Odd
Grydeland
Another sign of the increased acceptance of aquaculture as a means
to help provide the world’s growing population with high
quality protein appeared in a
Reuter’s blog this week, courtesy
of reporter Nick Carey;
A tropical
fish farm was not quite what we expected when we arranged to meet
some of the people running the Massachusetts Avenue Project, an
urban farming group in this rusty Rust Belt city. Walking in from a
torrential rain into a greenhouse on a city street, we found
ourselves in a warm enclosure full of running water and a tank full
of fish in the floor. Jesse Meeder, who runs the fish farm, told us
how it works. A heated water tank sunk into the floor contains
hundreds of tilapia – a tropical fish that needs warm water
to survive. Water containing fish waste is pumped up to a large
wooden case above, where watercress and spinach is growing. The
fish waste fertilizes the soil before it passes back to the fish
tank below.Meeder told us
that once the fish reach between a pound and a pound and a half in
weight - this takes about nine months – they are then sold to
local restaurants. The fish farm sells about 2,000 to 3,000 fish a
year. It is the main revenue source for MAP, a nonprofit set up to
educate local schoolchildren about farming and running a business.
The organization hires about 50 schoolchildren a year to work
through the summer months, and keeps the top performers on for the
winter months when there is less work, growing vegetables in
outdoor plots where abandoned homes once stood, or tending to the
fish farm. Altogether, the farm covers about half an acre.
“It is important to pay them, as it teaches them
responsibility and about earning a wage,” said MAP executive
director Diane Picard.As well as
farming, the schoolchildren have developed and marketed their own
products that the farm sells to local retailers. So far the
children have come up with a chilli sauce, a salsa and are working
on a salad dressing. “They learn how to write a marketing
plan, how to write a business plan and how to come up with a
strategy,” said Erin Sharkey. “These are important
skills that they can apply out in the real world.” Picard
said that the project’s success is clearly demonstrated by
what the children go on to do after working for MAP. “One
hundred percent of the high school seniors who have worked here
have gone onto college,” she said. “In almost every
case they were the first in their family to go beyond high
school.”
The farm is
located in the West Side of Buffalo, where around 47 percent of
children graduate from high school.
Publisert: 25.11.09 kl 07:00
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