When we see the future of agriculture, perhaps we imagine lab-grown meat, massive seaweed farms, robots, and indoor farming. These farmers are marked by their size and run with an app to monitor and regulate everything including automating lighting and temperatures. It’s an attractive prospect; farming, in our imagined future, could become glossy and high-tech, with farmers becoming celebrities. In this future, farming remains industry dominated, requires substantial investment and highly-educated workforces — a venture that excludes many that make their living through farming today.

The question of how we feed the future billions is made even more pressing by climate change. The future of food is complicated by the seemingly intractable nature of global poverty — according to World Vision, in 2019, 689 million people were living in extreme poverty. When it comes to food production, low incomes and poverty are often marked by inequitable access to fertile land, poor methods of agricultural production, and a low-skilled workforce.

The world’s population is set to reach 9.7 billion by 2050. As we see cities grow, fewer children raised in proximity to agricultural production, and larger numbers of climate refugees, we will see a growing number of people without the means to attain food security.

Furthermore, this disconnection from food production is intensified for the poor because they lack the income needed to sustain themselves as consumers in the modern economy.

It’s acknowledged that food security is more than being able to purchase food from a supermarket, it’s also about creating sustainable systems for production, especially in the context of climate change. Furthermore, with an increase in urbanization, these methods of food production must be able to function in smaller and smaller spaces.

Enter aquaponics — a relatively low-tech solution to boosting food security. Aquaponics enables food production by families, communities, and entrepreneurs in limited spaces.

Read the full article about aquaponics at Medium.