JD Sawyer, founder and CEO of Colorado Aquaponics and Flourish Farms in Denver, Colorado, talks about his business partnership with The GrowHaus, fusing a for-profit aquaponics farm with a non-profit food justice organization. Using what JD calls "business permaculture," Colorado Aquaponics operates Flourish Farms, a large aquaponic farm and workshops space inside the GrowHaus, an old greenhouse converted into a food access hub which is split between aquaponics, hydroponics, and a tropical indoor food forest. Additionally, Colorado Aquaponics donates 10% of the food produced at Flourish Farms to the GrowHaus, which then distributes affordable food baskets to the community, offers cooking classes in their community kitchen, sells to restaurants, provides flexible-use community programming space, composting, permaculture systems, education, and a mushroom-growing lab!
JD also talks about their systems design, what's growing in their farm, and risk management strategies such as decoupled systems and backup systems as well as monitoring systems, sensors, and devices for emergency situations. Learn about how they dealt with the Fish Apocalypse (aka "FishPocalypse") that struck their system! Other topics covered include nutrient solutions for plants (iron chelate, seaweed extract), feed rate, solid waste management, and the 3-stage filtration system and heat exchangers.
