Farmer combines organics with aquaponics
Print Edition
ZHANG Qian chucked his lucrative job as a chip designer for Hewlett Packard to pursue his love. The 45-year-old Chinese who was living in Houston decided to return to China and become a farmer, preferring soil and water to algorithms and silicon.
But Zhang became no ordinary farmer. He is a pioneer in China of aquaponics techniques to plant organic vegetables on a large scale.
“After the mid-term testing, we’ll expand our planting area to more than 20,000 square meters next March, with more vegetable varieties,” he said, pointing at the almost ceiling-high, thriving leaves of Russian Black Prince, a variety of black tomato with high nutritional value.
Aquaponics is a food-production system that combines conventional aquaculture (raising aquatic animals such as fish in tanks) with hydroponics (cultivating plants in water) in a symbiotic environment.
In normal aquaculture, excretions from the animals being raised can accumulate in the water, increasing toxicity. In an aquaponic system, water from an aquaculture system is fed to a hydroponic system where the byproducts are broken down by nitrogen-fixing bacteria into nitrates and nitrites, which are utilized by the plants as nutrients. The water is then recirculated back to the aquaculture system.
In his Verdant Organic Farm in Suzhou, Zhang has three large tanks (each 6 meters in diameter) where he raises xiangyun fish and triploid crucian carp. The tanks, which receive clean water of minerals and active substances needed for vegetables after double filtration, are used for high-intensity breeding of the fish.
“The water is even better than our potable water,” Zhang said.
The carps’ excretions, after being bio-degradated and fermented in the water, are pumped to the nearby greenhouse and become the rich nutrition to fertilize the vegetables there. The water then is recirculated to the aquaculture system.
“The nutrition-added water after constant recirculation will become increasingly clean,” Zhang said. “And what’s more important, the nutrients in the water can grow quality organic vegetables with production levels that are several times the normal culture method.”
Water from the three fish tanks can irrigate about 1,000 square meters of vegetables. The soil is organic and imported from Germany. After the mid-term testing, more tanks and a larger planting area are planned.
Each tank contains about 500 kilograms of carp, a figure that can double when the carp grow up. Because the fish are raised in clean, nutritious water without any antibiotics, they are of high quality. The fish food is a special formula that includes probiotics.
The 20,000-square-meter planting area is planned for next March, and if the project goes well, it will be enlarged to 200,000 square meters in about a year.
Aquaponics was invented about three decades ago but in China few turned it into a commercial enterprise on a large scale. After testing the water in Houston for three years, Zhang decided to bring the technique to China.
“I think this eco-green, organic culture with higher yield is what Chinese just need right now,” he said.
It all started from a pastime of the former chip designer. Zhang, from Xiangtan, Hunan Province, studied radio technology at Tsinghua University during the late 1980s. In 1994, he flew to the United States to study electrical and computer engineering at the University of Houston. After graduation, he worked for HP as a chip designer for 11 years.
Zhang settled down there, started a family and fostered the hobby of raising carp. At first, in order to control the ammonia and nitrogen compounds, he tried growing taro in the fish tank. Surprisingly, he found the water became cleaner, the fish were more energetic and the taro grew bigger than normal size with larger leaves and faster speed. In 2006, the engineer decided to industrialize his “backyard aquaponics system.” He bought a 40,000-square meter farm in Houston to grow organic vegetables.
“I had to bring two guns to the farm everyday because the vegetables were growing so well that they attracted a large number of snakes and raccoons,” he recalled.
In 2009, after he felt his Houston farm was on solid ground, Zhang quit his job at HP and dedicated himself full time to his aquaponics business.
After about three years, he went from Texas to Suzhou to fulfill his aquaponics ambition in China.
With more than a decade of working experience in the IT field, Zhang and his team with a strong background in science and engineering developed their own system.
Zhang chose Xiangcheng District Agricultural and High-tech Park as his location.
“I’ve been to many places in China, but Suzhou is the best,” he said. Located near Shanghai and with its own booming economy, Suzhou has a huge market and the local government gives a series of preferential policies to his farm. They included start-up funds, offices, land and housing subsidies for Zhang’s expert team.
Last year, Zhang’s Verdant Organic Farm was the only agricultural project listed among 63 entities in “Suzhou’s Pioneering Talents Program,” sponsored by the local government to encourage entrepreneurs.
“It will be my lifetime cause,” Zhang said, adding he prefers to be called a farmer.
“I always have a dream that in the near future all the Chinese will no longer worry about the food safety problem and everyone in China can have healthy, nutritious, safe and cheap vegetables.”
- About Us
- |
- Terms of Use
- |
-
RSS - |
- Privacy Policy
- |
- Contact Us
- |
- Shanghai Call Center: 962288
- |
- Tip-off hotline: 52920043
- 沪ICP证：沪ICP备05050403号-1
- |
- 互联网新闻信息服务许可证：31120180004
- |
- 网络视听许可证：0909346
- |
- 广播电视节目制作许可证：沪字第354号
- |
- 增值电信业务经营许可证：沪B2-20120012
Copyright © 1999- Shanghai Daily. All rights reserved.Preferably viewed with Internet Explorer 8 or newer browsers.
