No organic certification for aquaponic products in the EU
This article was featured in Eurofish Magazine 2 2022.
Aquaponic systems create an opportunity to produce fish and plant products in an efficient, environmentally friendly and sustainable way. In 2015, the European Parliament even characterised aquaponics as one of the “Ten technologies that could change our lives”. Despite its importance and the advances it has made in certain respects, it has been difficult for this much-praised technology to gain wider acceptance. Why is this the case?
Aquaponics is an innovative production method for the cultivation of fish as well as other aquatic animals in combination with crop plants, primarily vegetables and herbs. Both areas are connected via the flow of water. Water used for fish farming (aquaculture) is enriched with nutrients from fish excrement, nitrates in particular. These nutrients are processed by microorganisms so that they can serve as valuable fertiliser for cultivating the plants. The plants do not grow in typical horticultural soil beds, they are instead grown hydroponically, i.e. directly in an aqueous nutrient solution. In a nutshell, aquaponics is therefore the combination of aquaculture and hydroponics in artificially created environments that are optimally designed to meet the demands and needs of the fish and plants occupying them. Modern aquaponics systems are high-tech, designed for efficiency and computer-controlled. Sensors record all important water values and other relevant data. This data is transmitted to the central control unit, which constantly analyses and optimises the operation of the system. Depending on their technical concept, aquaponics systems can be divided into coupled and decoupled systems. In coupled systems, the water flows back into the fish area once it has passed through the plant area. This creates a genuine cycle, making it possible to use the same water multiple times. In decoupled systems, the water remains in the horticultural area and is largely fixed in place in plant biomass.
Aquaponics could therefore contribute to solving several problems that we need to solve in order to stop climate change and secure food supplies for growing populations. Because fish production takes place almost exclusively in recirculating aquaculture systems (RAS), aquaponics maximises the production quantities generated, while at the same time minimising the consumption of resources. The productivity and resource efficiency of these systems are significant. They also save water, prevent the pollution of natural bodies of water and do not require any fertiliser. Since aquaponics is based on recirculation technologies, these operations are relatively location-independent and can be located in urban areas. The production of food close to where it will later go to market shortens transport routes and reduces the carbon footprint of the value chain. Because anything that could harm the system-sustaining microorganisms must be avoided in aquaponics systems, no chemicals harmful to bacteria, pesticides, antibiotics or other drugs may be used. This ensures a high degree of biosecurity as the food is produced in a healthy environment.
Despite these advantages however, aquaponics is viewed critically by many. What appears to make sense from an environmental perspective is disputed from an economic perspective. The coupling of fish and plant production via the nutrient-rich flow of water (liquid fertiliser) requires a carefully balanced relationship between the two areas, with highly complex and demanding technology that is difficult to manage. There are justified doubts as to whether this connection would actually be more profitable if separate production facilities were created that focused in a more targeted way on the needs of fish and plants. Moving aquaculture production on land as a solution for climate problems is also controversial. Due to their high energy requirements, RAS systems are one of the biggest CO2 emitters in aquaculture. From a climate politics perspective, land-based production could perhaps prove to be a “boomerang”.
Interest in recirculation technologies remains high
Despite these criticisms, aquaponics systems are undergoing a minor boom in Europe and North America. Europe’s aquaponics market was estimated at a value of almost 200 million USD in 2021 and is predicted to grow at an annual CAGR growth rate of almost 15 percent to approximately 330 million USD by 2026. However, it is not expected that this technology will make an appreciable contribution to global food production, as it makes up a barely measurable proportion of food production, in the tenths of a percent range. Many aquaponics startups that have received significant attention and widespread media coverage seldom produce more than 4 to 20 tonnes of fish and 50 tonnes of plants per year on average. These companies are also often initially supported by subsidies, crowdfunding or donations from sponsors that are fascinated by the idea. It is often only evident whether or not an aquaponics project is actually economically viable in the long term when the operation stands on its own feet and must make a profit.
This aside, there are impressive initiatives and startups in numerous European countries that are attracting attention. Belgium appears to be far ahead of the pack in this regard. For example, Smart Farmers won the Ghent Innovation Award for Short Chain Food Production in 2015 with its project The Urban Smart Containerfarm, which produces tilapia, shrimp, leafy vegetables and microgreens. The Schoolvis project, which produces strawberries and trout in a glasshouse farm, was started in 2017. Vasch Aquaponics, located in Beerlegem in Belgium, has been in the market since 2007 and, among other things, tries to network aquaponics specialists across Europe. The Brussels aquaponics company BIGH, which was established in 2015, was created following a previous initiative of the consulting firm Lateral Thinking Factory, which had been promoting the idea of a circular economy for years. In 2016, the Brussels Aquaponic Farm model was developed as a decoupled system. Its products have been marketed since May 2018 in the Brussels region. BIGH wants to establish a European network of municipal farms that are concentrated in urban locations with gross production areas between 2,500 and 3,000m² or more.
Blue Acres Aquaponics, which was founded in 2014 in Vortum-Mullem, was the first professional aquaponics company in the Netherlands. It produces trout and catfish in combination with lettuce, herbs, various vegetables and edible flowers. In 2016, Blue Acres began the Stichting Duurzame Kost project in Eindhoven. The French startup Les Nouvelles Fermes in Bordeaux has invested 2 million euro in subsidies in the construction of an aquaponics farm that is probably one of the largest in Europe. It intends to benefit from experience gained since 2019 in the Pauline test facility in Lormont. Pauline produces 2 tonnes of rainbow trout and 20 tonnes of fresh vegetables per year. The planned Odette project, a 5,000m² urban farm, began at the end of 2021 and is to employ up to 17 people. The aquaponics philosophy is also receiving increasing attention in North America. A professional network intended to serve as a shop window for these technologies and for concept development and to meet the rising demand for aquaponics was set up as part of the Noma project, which ran from 2011 to 2014. Bioforsk, the Norwegian Institute for Agricultural and Environmental Research, has also founded an aquaponics centre to bundle the expertise and knowledge regarding these technologies in one place.
While most aquaponics concepts are designed for freshwater species, Simtap in Brazil is trying out a marine system on an experimental basis. The feasibility study is examining whether cultivating Pacific white shrimp (Litopenaeus vannamei) can be combined with growing marine salt-tolerant plants such as perennial glasswort (Sarcocornia ambigua). In one study, researchers from the federal university of Santa Catarina gave the project good prospects for success. Stadtfarm in Berlin, which has been operating what it claims is Europe’s largest AquaTerraPonik farm since 2017, also seems to be quite successful. The insertion of “Terra” into the name indicates the special feature of this system, in which the plant production – unusually – takes place in soil beds. The glazed Stadtfarm produces 50 tonnes of African sharptooth catfish and 30 tonnes of lettuce, herbs, tomatoes and cucumbers as well as bananas, Ceylon spinach or passion fruit in a closed circuit.
Actual practical impact still very limited
The Stadtfarm in Berlin is one of the few operations on the aquaponics scene that is actually primarily designed for production. Many other companies are more focused on research and concept development, building networks or selling specialised aquaponics equipment. The level of organisation within the sector is still relatively limited. In some countries there are national associations for aquaponics, but aquaponics is still not represented in the EAPO, the European Association of Fish Producers Organizations. As part of COST (Cooperation in Science and Technology) however, the four-year EU Aquaponics Hub networking action was started, which brings scientists, researchers and SMEs together in order to promote aquaponics in the narrow sense and sustainable fish and plant production more broadly. The EU Aquaponics Association (EUAA), based in Vienna, was founded in 2018 as a representative body. The need for research in the aquaponics sector is indisputable. However, the industry is currently running the risk of going too far in this direction and losing sight somewhat of actual production.
This is also indicated by the online Survey of Aquaponics in Europe, which was carried out by Morris Villarroel and his team on aquaponics research and production. Of the 68 respondents in
21 European countries, 43% were working at a university and only 19% were commercial producers. Only 11.8% of respondents had sold any fish or plants at all in the previous 12 months. The overwhelming majority of respondents (80.4%) indicated that aquaponics was not their main source of income. The production quantities were correspondingly low: not even 10 respondents produced over 1 tonne of fish or plants per year (mainly tilapia or catfish and herbs or lettuce). Over a third of facilities were financed by state subsidies. Most respondents indicated that they wanted to use their aquaponics systems mainly for educational purposes. Only 25% saw in them an opportunity to produce their own food.
This study reveals a very different picture to the numerous reports in the media about aquaponics. Serious production remains in the background for many operators, aquaponics continues to be a playground for research, particularly as the technology offers many starting points for ever more exciting studies. The impression given to the public, on the other hand, is that the paradigm shift in aquaculture and food production is advancing rapidly. The disparity between research and production is also demonstrated by an interactive map that shows the locations of research institutes and companies actively engaged in aquaponics in Europe. It was created in 2017 during a meeting of Working Group 1 (Aquaponics Overview, Strategic Focus on Aquaponics in the EU) of COST FA1305 in Dubrovnik and at that time it listed 50 research centres (in blue) and 45 companies (in red). The participants saw this as a good balance between research and production, but it can of course be interpreted differently.
Sustainable yes, but not organic or environmentally friendly
Given the importance that aquaponics could have for our food production in the future as an emerging technology, and the widespread public popularity that it enjoys, it is astonishing how ambivalently the EU is behaving in this regard. On the one hand, the technology is enthusiastically desired and sought-after. In Resolution 2017/2118 (INI) of the EU Parliament, the member states were called upon to promote innovative and environmentally friendly technologies such as aquaponics. In the “Report on technological solutions for sustainable agriculture in the EU”, aquaponics is mentioned as a research and financing priority. The EU umbrella programme Horizon 2020 already provides subsidies for aquaponics initiatives. As part of the EU-financed project INAPRO, aquaponics facilities were developed on an industrial scale in order to demonstrate resource-efficient solutions under a variety of geographic and climatic conditions in Spain, Germany, Belgium and China. However, this model has failed to produce any ripple effects since, much less imitators.
On the other hand, however, the EU is not doing much to mitigate or entirely clear away administrative hurdles and bureaucracy that are preventing real advances in aquaponics. Currently there are no specific regulations or directives for aquaponics either at EU level or in most member states. Potential investors and innovators are subject to numerous different and sometimes contradictory regulations that put the brakes on almost any prospects for the development of aquaponics projects by making them absurdly difficult. One reason for this may be that aquaponics touches on many areas of licensing law, as it lies on an interface for which hardly anyone feels responsible. Is it industrial or municipal aquaculture? There are usually different regulations in peripheral regions than in city centres. Are aquaponics farms commercial operations or agriculture? This comes down to the details with regard to water rights and wastewater recycling. Because plants in aquaponics facilities very seldom grow in the ground, i.e. in “real soil”, some authorities do not see them as agricultural enough for rural regions. For urban areas, they are frequently too agricultural and so will not receive regulatory approval in commercial, industrial and residential areas. Some applications manage to get to grips with the administrative nightmare, but many more remain stuck with their projects in a bureaucratic jungle and eventually give up their investment plans in exasperation.
Anyone who has managed to get an aquaponics facility off the ground will finally be confronted with harsh reality when their products are finally brought to market and they wish to make vital profits. Given the sustainable and water-saving concepts of aquaponics, which dispenses with pesticides and inorganic fertiliser, the sector is determinedly lobbying for organic status, which would justify significantly higher proceeds, would better cover the high investment and operation costs of production and would also create a more secure future for aquaponics in general. This hope was dashed, however, by Regulation (EU) 2018/848, which specifically excludes aquaponics systems from the chance to be certified organic. The reasons for this decision include that aquaponics is at the interface of two technologies, namely horticulture and agriculture, for which different environmental production regulations apply and for which different regulatory and political areas are responsible. In the EU they are administered by separate Directorates General, the DG for agriculture and rural development (AGRI) and the DG for maritime affairs and fisheries (MARE). Also, aquaponics production is being driven by technological measures and not by organic agroenvironmental advances which should be one of the core principles of organic production. In reality it may be very difficult to explain to consumers, who imagine pure nature, green meadows and clear streams when they hear words such as “organic” and “environment”, that highly intensive, comprehensively technical and computer-controlled facilities made from glass, plastic and concrete are also somehow organic.
In the EU certification system for organic agriculture, aquaponics is not mentioned, as it qualifies as a hydroponics technology, which is not permissible for this method of production. Article 4 of Regulation (EC) 889/2008 explicitly forbids the use of hydroponics systems in organic agriculture. Since January 2022, plants may only be grown in the ground in organic agriculture. Organic plants must receive their nutrition primarily from the soil ecosystem. Regulation (EC) 710.2009 excludes the use of recirculating aquaculture systems from organic certifications. The EU clearly distinguishes itself from Canada here, where aquaponics products can be certified as organic in accordance with the standard CAN/CGSB-32.312-2018. In the USA, aquaponic plants can carry an organic designation (USDA National Organic Program NOP) but not aquaculture products, as they continue to be excluded from organic certification.
mk
