Who says that growing food has to mean polluting the air and water with pesticides and herbicides?
Certainly not Tom Hopkins (PhD ’68), a leading proponent of aquaponics. Imagine, for a moment, a farm on which fish are raised in tanks, vegetables are grown in water or soilless engineered medium, and nothing is wasted. That’s right, nothing. The water the fish are raised in recirculates, and their wastes fertilize the hydroponic crops. The concept is known as “total resource recovery,” and it’s one for which biologist Tom Hopkins, president of Maryland’s Aquaculture Association, is an ardent spokesman. “Although there are a host of possible refinements, the basic principles are the same as you’d use in a home aquarium,” Hopkins explains. “Keep good water circulating and exposed to air so that the fish have enough dissolved oxygen to breathe–remember the trickling sound you hear from a tropical fish tank? Then, feed them and do something with the wastes they produce.” At present, food growing is a net environmental loss, Hopkins points out. Irreplaceable topsoil is washed away; by- p
