Renaissance Farms: Open-Source Aquaponics Is the Future!

Imagine living in a community that doesn’t fear of having to choose between paying for your groceries or paying your electric bill. Imagine there were open-source aquaponic farms widely available throughout each local area, producing and delivering fresh, healthy food – from veggies to fish – at the ready. As we near closer to the Age of Abundance, these ideas should not only be welcomed, but subsequently being developed here and now.

Thanks to both Sulaman Chaudhry and Andy Cole – two friends with nearly eight years of experience in both aquaponics and hydroponics – these ideas are now finally materializing. Say hello to Renaissance Farms!

Serious Wonder spoke with both Sulaman Chaudhry and Andy Cole, as we briefly talked about Renaissance Farms, their goals, and the implications that might arise as a result:

With plans of a 365-day year long growing season, Renaissance Farms has the goal in mind of feeding the world. While in developed nations there’s the problem of overeating, the rest of the world continues suffering from malnutrition and starvation. This kind of problem shouldn’t exist in the 21st century, giving Renaissance Farms the opportunity to change everything for good.

Using a closed-loop system of aquaculture, Renaissance Farms will be able to produce farmed fish using waste to supply all the necessary nutrients to grow their veggies via hydroponics. Adhering to a 1 for 1 open-source system, Renaissance Farms doesn’t plan on patenting their creation and encourages everyone else, in each community, to build on their idea and perfect it. They’re just here to light the match and watch the future of farming grow!

Renaissance Farms needs your help though. The team are using the power of crowdfunding to help reach their funding goal of $250,000 to help pay for equipment and resources. As I write this their crowdfunding page has only reached 5% of their funding goal (just over $13,000), but they still have 39 days left in their campaign. So if you wish to help make Renaissance Farms a reality, be sure to check out their page on Indiegogo and donate what you can.

FUTURE IMPLICATIONS

Farming of the 21st century is finally upon us! The world changed forever when it was introduced to agriculture. Since then, however, it’s been a slow transition from where it started and where it’s heading. The biggest development in agriculture was the production of transgenic crops (GMOs), but even there it isn’t enough. While genetically modifying crops to be resistant to climate changes and vitamin A deficiencies is incredibly important, Renaissance Farms plans on pushing the market of organic foods to a whole new level in itself. Even as supporters of GMOs ourselves, we welcome this move as well. After all, the more abundant food becomes, the better this world will be!

But that isn’t all for Renaissance Farms. To ensure they’re keeping up with the times – remember, this is farming of the 21st century – Sulaman and Andy made it very clear that Earth won’t be the only planet that’ll benefit from their open-source aquaponics farm. As we continue our transformation into a spacefaring species (Elon Musk stated serious plans of getting over 80,000 colonists living on Mars in the next 25 years), acquiring fresh food on another planet will need to be devised if we ever wish to survive our next important journey.

Photo Credit: Indiegogo / Sulaman Chaudhry and Andy Cole