1 MILLION pounds of Food on 3 acres. 10,000 fish 500 yards compost

Growing power seems to have a winning combo going. I underestimated what they are doing. Based on the information in these videos, IF true, then on 3 acres they are producing 1,000,000 pounds of food each year! How are they doing this? Well, based on the information given in the video...

10,000 fish
300-500 yards worm compost
3 acres of land in green houses
Grow all year using heat from compost piles.
Using vertical space

A packed greenhouse produces a crop value of $5 Square Foot! ($200,000/acre).

Now, just to be clear I am not growing power or will allen. Also, a pound of plant or fish product is not the same thing as eatable food unless you process all parts of them for food. i.e. eating the fish bones and using plant stalks in stews. Generally, nations that are well fed throw away most of the plant and eat only the best parts thus lowing the yield of food.

Growing power depends on and runs on the HUGE amounts of compost they make from food waste that is taken from the city. With out this compost there would be no heat for the greenhouses and no fuel for the plants to grow. Its a great thing to divert this from the landfill and provide cheap food for the community.

My personal experience is that growing 7 pounds of food per square foot in a year is not that hard to do especially if you grow year around. You have to select plants that produce a lot of food in a small space which means you may not get a nutritionally complete diet if thats all you grow. Also layering of growth to use all space is important.

I personally use a 12 foot diameter round pond 2.5 feet deep to grow annually 300+ pounds of fish in an aquaponic system and the bulk of my produce is grow using the biointensive method, in the ground, which is watered from the nitrogen rich fish water. My typical yield is between 6 and 9 pounds of food per square foot per year. This does require that I grow over winter which most people do not do. I find that growing in fall and winter months I actually get more production over fall and winter because there are NO bug problems! The crops do mature much slower, but they will mature! Think of it this way, the standard planted row may have 2 or 3 rows of veggies. Bio intensive will plant 12 rows; thats already 4 times the produce. Now add in onions, for example, that grow vertically above sweet potato vines, this increases production a lot. Now add to that 4 harvest per year vs the standard one season growing season. Now you have X4 more productivity. This brings us to X4X4 or 16 times the productivity of the standard growing methods. If you add to that hanging pot or what ever to add more growing space you have again increased productivity again. I personally have not used vertical space in that way. An snap shot of my experience is growing one sweat potato per 1.5' x 1.5' area (2.25 square feet) this one plant produces on average 12 pounds of root per plant and in that space I grow 4 to 6 leeks adding a pond of produce. Now, the vines grow all over the place, and I tie some up, are not confined to that 2.25 square feet of soil space. From each plant you can easily average 3 pounds of eatable leaves as you pick them over the growing season. At this point alone I am averaging 16 pounds of eatable food in 2.25 square feet or 16/2.5=7 pounds of food per square foot. Now that is in ONE GROWING SEASON. As I also grow fava beans, wheat, and fodder greens for two more seasons so my yelid is averaging 8 to 10 pounds in a year. IF I did this on 3 acres of growing space, excluding foot paths and green house walls ect then my production would be 8 pounds per square foot * 43560 feet acre * 3 = 1,045,440 pounds of food. It is possible to get even more by choosing the right crops and getting 4 harvest per year. I have settled on 4000 square feet of growing space per person for providing pretty much all the food a person needs. I suggest anyone starting out begin with a very small garden and do it well. Something like a 5' by 20' growing bed would be the most you would start with.

SUGGESTED READING:
backyardaquaponics [dot] com/forum
Food Now by bountiful gardens
One Mexican Diet by bountiful gardens
Four Season Harvest by Eliot Coleman
Winter Harvest Handbook by Eliot Coleman

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[susie newport]

Great concept, but wonder whom is the food you grow going to? Are you selling or giving to charity or both and if charity does any of it go to our americans that are starving and homeless? Do you donate a portion to food banks? Just curious not judging anyone. I think it is amazing how this is done. Would love to do it myself for profit and charity but only charity in my country first then if I could I would serve other countries.

[GreenLearning]

The food goes to the community as very affordable box food programs.

[TheEclipsenow]

One cannot simply claim 1 million pounds of food on 3 acres without explaining how many external inputs there are. What do the fish eat? Grain or soybeans or something?? Where and how was this external food grown? How much fossil fuel energy grew the grain? What were the Co2 outputs of that? I'm always keen to hear good news stories about better farming, but what are the *real* external inputs into this 3 acres?

[GreenLearning]

Its explained very clearly in relate videos. Compost.. It is made from the huge urban resource of food waste. Its a smarter way to deal with waste rather than sending it to the landfill. This is NOT a model to save the world, but it reduces the total harm. If you want food that will let us last with the earth forever in paradise then learn permaculture, learn to do it your self at geofflawton {dot} com/sq/15449-geoff-lawton

[Jeff Schneider]

I live in MI. I believe this system is in WI. What I cannot seem to wrap my thick head around is winter growing. Any suggestions?

[GreenLearning]

backyardaquaponics {dot} com

[GreenLearning]

This year I am doing duck-o-ponics and eating the eggs. No killing in this system. Guess I'll need to make a video of it..

[GreenLearning]

If you have fertility, yes.

[DriveFastDieFASTER]

I hope you make a book or something and I don't mind if you sold it. This info needs to be known by the masses. All these bullshit government regulations and shrinking our crops and forcing us to eat GM Crops.

[larchoye]

How much would it cost to completely duplicate the setup on another property (say, here in MN)?

[Faiber loaiza pulgarin]

interesante, por favor me guían de como puedo realizar dicho proyecto en pequeña escala en mi comunidad,

[Song Weaver]

Grow Power!!! =D



[thatguyjoe007]

There is no starvation in the US. With all the food banks and Christian churches everywhere, giving away tons of food and clothes to the needy. They also get food stamps from the tax payers, welfare, homeless shelters...ect.

[GreenLearning]

Hehe, there are countless millions of bugs,  and even human lives lost to pesticides for those nice clean veggies they eat eating and million more bugs on the windshield to deliver, lol. This whole no kill thing is a moot point. People should eat as they want and be mindful of the cost our eating brings to all live and the environment.

[Yolmal1]

What did you use for fish tanks? Plastic?