A new company in Utah County is constructing “modular farms,” which they claim use very little water and can also be used as trout farms.
According to the people at Future Fresh Farms, they do this while retaining over 90% of their water in a closed-loop system, which includes tower systems and the containers you see at the grocery store.
First, the fish. These enormous two-thousand-gallon tanks hold thousands of trout. They are residing inside the farm’s water supply. Future Fresh Farms was founded and is led by Sean Burrows. It began as a family pastime.
“It’s a really small footprint and you can put it anywhere,” Burrows said. “My father and I, about ten years ago, were doing something similar to this in our backyard.”
However, they continued to improve it, adding trout to create an aquaponic system. They are currently developing and marketing the system in what they refer to as farmtainers.
“This system can grow up to 6,000 plants a month,” Burrows said. “Lettuce, basil or anything you want to grow.”
However, they needed to ensure that the farmer could sell the produce at market value and earn a profit for himself.
“There’s a lot of power associated if we had to lower the power costs and the lower hours with it,” Burrows said.
Fish waste kept in the containers is a major source of it. According to Burrows, it produces a soil conditioner that works better than fertiliser.
“Now we’ve arrived at that point where proving that it’s working,” Burrows said. “Now, we want to have others adopt the technology and be successful at being aquaponic farmers themselves.”
They were able to create it all to be stored in farmtainers and easily expanded into farmplexes that they claim can go anywhere thanks to a grant from the governor’s office of economic opportunity that was focused on water conservation.
There are no pesticides or herbicides because the system is well confined. Four of these systems are presently being set up throughout the state.
“We get fresh produce all year round,” Burrows stated.
