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Producing energy efficient homes with a good carbon footprint is only the start of the journey. As well as reducing pollution and increasing recycling one of the next big issues is food production, reducing the carbon output from transportation and also its 'water footprint'. The water footprint is the amount of water we consume per head or as a nation. The UK is a water rich nation but we consume a lot of water in the form of food and other produce from elsewhere - often from water poor nations. As the other nations of the world 'level up' and their people move towards a more comfortable lifestyle (like the one we enjoy) we will need to produce food in a much more efficient manner.
One of the exciting technologies that will help here is AQUAPONICS. This is a system where plants are grown hydroponically in the water fertilised by farmed fish. The plants take the nitrates out of the water which can then be circulated back to the fish. If this is combined with vertical farming where LEDs are used as a substitute for sunlight and the plants are racked on top of each other then this provides an incredibly productive setup in a very small space.
A small residential aquaponic set up would be the ideal addition to an earth sheltered eco home like those proposed for Timsbury Deeping. The local production of electricity using solar arrays and the stable heat levels provided by earth sheltering would be a perfect combination. These two factor aquaponic setups (plants and fish) can also be augmented with a third animal factor where the animal waste will be eaten by the fish and also enrich the water. The animals (for example rabbits or chickens) while still enriching the water for the plants, do not contribute that much for the fish to eat and the trick is to minimise the amount of animal food that needs be imported into the system. The article by Kate Humble below talks about breading worms and flies to feed the fish and it should be possible to augment the animal food with these as well. Insects are are also looking to be a good option for the third factor. Insects are incredibly efficient in turning water and food into protein and can be eaten by humans and fish alike. There is much research to be done on this however!
Another exciting example of ecological food production is the Knepp Estate rewilding project. This project has recreated as close as possible the pre-human UK landscape using animals representative of the types that would have existed pro provide a fatastically ecologically diverse farm where humans (acting as the predators) can harvest animal for consumption in a fully sustainable manner. Read more about this on their web site: https://knepp.co.uk/home
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