IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/plo/pone00/0102662.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

An International Survey of Aquaponics Practitioners

Author

Listed:
  • David C Love
  • Jillian P Fry
  • Laura Genello
  • Elizabeth S Hill
  • J Adam Frederick
  • Ximin Li
  • Ken Semmens

Abstract

Aquaponics, a combination of fish farming and soilless plant farming, is growing in popularity and gaining attention as an important and potentially more sustainable method of food production. The aim of this study was to document and analyze the production methods, experiences, motivations, and demographics of aquaponics practitioners in the United States (US) and internationally. The survey was distributed online using a chain sampling method that relied on referrals from initial respondents, with 809 respondents meeting the inclusion criteria. The majority of respondents were from the US (80%), male (78%), and had at least a high school degree (91%). The mean age of respondents was 47±13 years old. Most respondents (52%) had three years or less of aquaponics experience. Respondents typically raised tilapia or ornamental fish and a variety of leafy green vegetables, herbs, and fruiting crops. Respondents were most often motivated to become involved in aquaponics to grow their own food, for environmental sustainability reasons, and for personal health reasons. Many respondents employed more than one method to raise crops, and used alternative or environmentally sustainable sources of energy, water, and fish feed. In general, our findings suggest that aquaponics is a dynamic and rapidly growing field with participants who are actively experimenting with and adopting new technologies. Additional research and outreach is needed to evaluate and communicate best practices within the field. This survey is the first large-scale effort to track aquaponics in the US and provides information that can better inform policy, research, and education efforts regarding aquaponics as it matures and possibly evolves into a mainstream form of agriculture.

Suggested Citation

  • David C Love & Jillian P Fry & Laura Genello & Elizabeth S Hill & J Adam Frederick & Ximin Li & Ken Semmens, 2014. "An International Survey of Aquaponics Practitioners," PLOS ONE, Public Library of Science, vol. 9(7), pages 1-10, July.
  • Handle: RePEc:plo:pone00:0102662
    DOI: 10.1371/journal.pone.0102662
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0102662
    Download Restriction: no

    File URL: https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article/file?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0102662&type=printable
    Download Restriction: no

    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1371/journal.pone.0102662?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    More about this item

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:plo:pone00:0102662. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    We have no bibliographic references for this item. You can help adding them by using this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: plosone (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://journals.plos.org/plosone/ .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.