Name: Laura Harrison
Dream: My dream is to help developing countries establish sustainable food systems
About: After traveling in South America and discovering the problems many developing countries have when it comes to producing their own food I became interested in learning more about food systems all over the world.
Many countries are harming their own environments to produce food for more powerful nations such as the United States. I want to learn more about agriculture so that I can eventually help these countries understand that producing food in a sustainable manner for their own communities is essential for the survival of those communities.
You should discover aquaponics. This is a method of growing food that requires less space than hydroponics and produces two types of food. It is eco friendly and cost little to start it can be done indoors or outdoors and produces edible produce and fish.
The concept is you keep a pond of any size I think it is like 1 gallon of water produces 1 lb of fish and you need one cubic foot of water for one cubic foot of grow bed.
Here is how it works you have two containers one filled with water and fish and one with grow medium such as gravel. The dirty fish water is pumped from the fish tank to the grow bed the grow bed with no chemicals or anything filters the water. The plants and gravel remove nitrates, ammonia, and solid waste. The result is natural food to grow plants and clean happy fish. People could feed themselves and their whole small community with one green house, or garden in colder climates a green house is needed to grow 10 months out of the year. The green hous lets you grow whn it is otherwise too cold to crow. Most people can grow from march to December in a green house, in myclimate. In warm climates growth is possible all year. Check out peoples pet project on youtube. There ar tones of groups online as well, like aquaponics source.
Get someone to help you fund an aquaponics project and you will teach people to feed themselves with just a little start up from you. I’ve seen people build an aquaponics system with 55 gallon Rubbermaid containers waist PVC, gravel from a creek, a used water pump and wild caught fish they cultivate. That’s practically free.
Uses the three R’s
I hope this helps.
If I could just have a farm I’d love it and I’d never ask for more.
Your dream is wonderful. Not too many people dream of just helping others.
I want to be an organic farmer and teach others to be self sufficient organic farmers as well. It’s a small dream but it’s mine.