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- All Subjects: Hydroponics
- Creators: Craft, Joshua
- Creators: Field, John William
Local organic gardening once experienced great popularity with Americans. At one time promoted and prominent, local gardens became obscure, old-fashioned, and outmoded. However, in the last few decades, for various reasons, local organic gardening has made some progress. This study seeks to assist high-density, low-income, inner-city Americans, who often do not have have easy or affordable access to fresh whole food by creating sustainable, resilient, local, urban gardens. However, this effort does not attempt to address the needs of entire populations of census tracts, rather one suburban home, one small apartment complex, or one small community garden. O ne solution to the problems associated with food insecurity is to put the creativity and responsibility into the hands of those who need the food, allow them to work within a self-sustaining garden, and decide what to do with any excess food. W ith the help of Greg Peterson, Phoenix’s own urban farmer, this project set out to create a system using Phoenix’s limited amount of rainfall to create a aquaponic gardening system which will be used in micro-communities such as multi-family complexes, middle schools, or high schools, in order to help grow food for these communities and alleviate some of the difficulties of finding fresh food in the desert.
In arid environments such as Arizona, agricultural producers are burdened by constraints placed on them by inhospitable weather and limited access to water and fertile soil when attempting to grow produce. Farms in the arid Southwest often have to build greenhouses to overcome such constraints; however, such greenhouses may be relatively space, water, and pesticide intensive and often have demanding maintenance needs and overhead costs. In addition, many current agricultural practices exhaust land resources disparagingly, leading to irreversible environmental degradation. In an effort to improve agricultural production for those limited by weather and resource constraints while simultaneously increasing sustainability in land, resource and pesticide use, we have created Valleyponics, a hydroponic growth services company centered around creating a minimal farming footprint. The company uses a consultative services approach, leveraging NASA Veggie Growth System Technology to provide solutions to large businesses by automating their agricultural production processes and minimizing resource use year-round. Valleyponics aims to cultivate consultative partnerships which will allow our clients, their communities, and the environment to flourish.
In arid environments such as Arizona, agricultural producers are burdened by constraints placed on them by inhospitable weather and limited access to water and fertile soil when attempting to grow produce. Farms in the arid Southwest often have to build greenhouses to overcome such constraints; however, such greenhouses may be relatively space, water, and pesticide intensive and often have demanding maintenance needs and overhead costs. In addition, many current agricultural practices exhaust land resources disparagingly, leading to irreversible environmental degradation. In an effort to improve agricultural production for those limited by weather and resource constraints while simultaneously increasing sustainability in land, resource and pesticide use, we have created Valleyponics, a hydroponic growth services company centered around creating a minimal farming footprint. The company uses a consultative services approach, leveraging NASA Veggie Growth System Technology to provide solutions to large businesses by automating their agricultural production processes and minimizing resource use year-round. Valleyponics aims to cultivate consultative partnerships which will allow our clients, their communities, and the environment to flourish.