A Chicago Aquaponics Update

Photo by: Dave 48Earlier this winter I wrote a story for the Chicago magazine Mindful Metropolis about the possibility of urban farmers to start farming with aquaponics in Chicago (read the full article here). One of the people I interviewed for the story is John Edel, an entrepreneur who hopes to convert a large, unused building into a vertical farm with aquaponics grow beds.

When I met Edel in November, he took me to another building he had rehabbed in Chicago's Bridgeport neighborhood. Edel showed the basement where he hoped to start experimenting with some small-scale aquaponics with the help of some Illinois Institute of Technology students, but none of the systems had been finished when I visited.

Recently, I got an update from Edel, along with these neat wide-angle photos of the kits he's working on. "The system keeps improving, we have 100 tilapia fingerlings in the tank now and aeroponics above," Edel says. There's no word yet on whether Edel will be able to obtain the property he's been eying, or how soon he'd be able to get his vertical farming operation off the ground, but he's hopeful that it will happen sometime this year.

You can keep up with Edel's project by following his blog, The Plant Chicago.

-Mark

Photo: Dave 48

Fish Food: Chicago's Appetite for Aquaponics

The February issue of Mindful Metropolis, a Chicago magazine about green living, is on newsstands, and it features an article I wrote about several organic aquaponics farms that are planned for the city.

Here's a excerpt:

In aquaponics, the plants are fertilized with nutrients and bacteria from fish water, and the plant roots filter the water so that it can be circulated back into the fish tanks, creating a symbiotic loop between fish and plants. Growing Power actually has several urban farms in Chicago that are managed by Allen’s daughter Erika, but none of them incorporate aquaponics technology. In fact, no commercial aquaponics operations exist in Chicago, because Chicago law doesn’t currently allow it, but several key players would like to see that change. 

“There’s nothing on the books in terms of the zoning as far as fish are concerned, but because they’re living beings they’re considered livestock,” says 46th Ward Alderman Helen Shiller. “Well, obviously we have to separate that.” 

Shiller hopes to convert the former Salvation Army building at the corner of Broadway and Sunnyside Avenue in Uptown into a multi-use building that would house aquaponics fish tanks and grow beds, an educational center, a community kitchen, and an on-site market. But she needs to address zoning issues in order for that to become a reality. 

Allen caught a break with the Growing Power property, because it was already zoned for agricultural use when he bought it. “He’s the last farmer in Milwaukee,” Shiller says. “You could probably not do what he’s doing anywhere else in a city without having the same problems that we’re having.” Shiller recently raised the aquaponics issue with the Chicago Departments of Zoning and Community Development, and she hopes to see the livestock designation change within the next year. “More and more of our colleagues are saying, ‘We really want to do that, so as soon as you figure it out we’re going to do it,’” she says.

Read the whole story at Mindful Metropolis, where you can read a digital version of the entire magazine.

-Mark