With few accredited training programs, some urban farmers have developed their own methods of learning and farmer-to-farmer networks to explore whether aquaponics can benefit their communities.

On a sunny September day, Dominique Villanueva and Chris Gooden began digging a 4-by-16 foot pit next to their Birmingham, Alabama, home. Gooden grasped a pick ax and lashed the ground to loosen the dense mixture of soil, rock, clay, and brick—remnants of a decades-old demolished house that once stood on the vacant plot. Taking a shovel, he heaved dirt outside the pit to smooth and gradually deepen the impression.

Villanueva, toting their 9-month-old baby on her back and with their 3-year-old trailing behind her, piled the excess dirt into a wheelbarrow and steered it toward the back of the greenhouse where she dumped the load. Over the course of a week, the couple dug four more pits, earthen grow beds outfitted with wood panels and lined in plastic.

Ricky Davis, a farmer in the nearby suburb of Bessemer, said it took him two years to convince the couple that they could start raising tilapia using aquaponics at Fountain Heights Farm, a produce farm they founded just a few miles from Birmingham’s city center in 2017.

Aquaponics combines hydroponics—growing plants in water without soil—and aquaculture—farming fish in a controlled environment. Over the last 50 years or so, this ancient method—once practiced by the Aztecs and throughout Asia—has grown from the pursuit of a few scientific researchers and backyard hobbyists to a subject that increasingly appears in university-led workshops, short-term courses, and bills in the U.S. Senate.

But despite the heightened interest in the method, many of the new courses lack scientific rigor and can run hundreds, if not thousands, of dollars; few accredited semester-length university courses or degree programs exist. So many aquaponics growers still rely on self-teaching, learning from each other in real life, and “YouTube University” or social media platforms.

Read the full article about aquaponics growers by Safiya Charles at The Counter.