India: How to Grow 63 Varieties of Vegetables on Your Terrace Using a Few Buckets & Fish
Since 2016, Pune-based Sameer has been growing vegetables using aquaponics, and has experimented with different kinds of fish to refine his technique
By Himanshu Nitnaware
Better India
Dec 28, 2020
Excerpt:
Sameer says the vegetables grown on the upper tub, while the fish live in another tub installed below. The water from the lower tub is pumped upwards to water the plants, which again drains down into the lower tub for recycling.
Sameer has experimented with different types of fish to refine his technique. These include the catfish, guppy, rohu, katla, and koi. “Koi helps yield the highest amount of produce, but is expensive,” he says. Apart from fish, the entrepreneur-turned-farmer has also worked on methods to balance the water and nutrition content for the plants.
“I had no one to help me, which is why it took a couple of years to get the system to function smoothly,” he says, adding, “When I was not on the terrace looking after the plants, I spent time learning more about the process through books, videos, and online courses.”
The urban farmer feels that more people should grow their own food. “It is time that more food is grown inside cities and sold hyper-locally. Such practices will help prevent food wastage, and make fresh vegetables more accessible,” he says.
