Women of the Earth

There's lots of barriers to wh people are not getting foo I think the biggest barrier is the knowledge.

Schools are not teaching it.

It's not part of our basic educatio Most people don't have yards.

So that's another barrier th #Yes, I'm interested in food, ut now do I even have the space?

It is human right to be able to grow food for yourself.

To me, that's what aquaponics represents.

This power and ability to feed yourself regardl your circumstances are.

Morning.

Stop that.

Biting my finger, stop.

I'm just checking the water quality before I feed them.

This is the ammonia here.

If there's too much ammonia, that's like literally waste So I do that every morning so that we know as soon as we get started th essentially work.

So aquaponics can be defined in a lot of different ways.

I like to define it as a multi-species approach to growing food in water.

And what you're doing is raising wa ter as a food source for both microbe and plants.

So the three species in an aquaponics system are fish, plants, and microorganisms.

Microorganisms exist everywhere on earth.

In us, on us, everywhere.

We're breathing them in right now.

They also exist in water.

What they do is break down organic matter and turn it into something useful in aquatic environments.

They take that fish waste that would other nitrogen, phosphorus, potassium, all of that that plants are able to take up.

And as soon as the plants take up all of that, the water is now clean for the fish.

And it's called an aquaponics cycle.

So fish produce waste, that#s he ammonia that The microbes break down the fish waste and then produce their own waste as a byproduct, which is nitrate.

And then the plants take up the nitrates through their roots, and then in return, the water is clean for the fish.

So it's a multi-species approach to food production, and it's also this symbiotic, reciprocal relationship between fish, plants, and microbes.

So the aquaponics cycle essentially begins by feeding your fish.

And that water you see coming out over there, that's water that's actually been filtered by plant roots and coming back into the fish tank.

And that water leads through So me of the actual physical solids of the poop settles here and then the rest of the water flows outside.

So you have a constant loop, fish tanks out to grow beds, into the pumps, back to fish tank, out to grow beds.

And I'll walk you outside so that you can see.

Hey guys, here you go.

So we call this our deep water bed.

A deep water bed is just a pool of water, typically 8 to 12 inches deep, where the roots are submerged in water and the rest of the plant is growin And these boards here are just like floating installation And those microbes I was telling you about, they are all over the system.

Same thing you would have in soil.

That's what healthy soil i Healthy soil is just That's what compost is.

We're just creating comp But this is just one of the differe It doesn't matter how you do it.

It's up to your own creativity, An d there's so many places where you can incorporate it.

In classrooms, in basements, in partment buildings, in your backyard.

And you never have to worry about watering the plants.

I cannot overestimate how great that i As long as you have a container to hold your fish, and a container to hold your plants, and you#re able to move your water from your fish tank to your plant roots, you have aquaponics.

It's that simple and it's that basic, and literally anybody can do it.

When I tell people I#m a farmer- I actually don because I always get the, #What?# #How?# #Where?# #In Brooklyn?

No.# Aquaponics is often presented as this high technology, controlled environ expensive system.

But there are people all around wh o are using it to address real hun And it does play a role.

It plays a role in New York City where accessing fresh food is still a hu for the average person, especial y for black and brown communities.

It doesn't make sense.

Low income neighborhoods And then those who live in higher income environments are able to access fresh f and vegetables.

So it creates this horrible, vicious cycle, like the foundation of a healthy life is a good diet.

We can't get around that.

We at Oko Farms work really hard to eliminate those barriers by actually creating a So we donate almost 50% of what we grow, but we are the only aquaponics farmers in New York City that is not jus growing food for the public, but actively engaging We want people to come in and be like, #This is really cool.

Can I do it?# And not just, #Can I do it?# #How can I do it?# I grew up in Lagos, Nigeria, a city of 20 million plus people.

And I moved to New York City in 1996.

I was 16 years old.

In Nigeria, our diets are just rooted in fruits and vegetables, and I took that for granted.

When I moved here.

I was so excited by all of the junk food.

I was excited to go to McDonald's.

And it wasn't until I was in col ege that I Oh, actually this is not normal.

So I set out wanting to be an nutrition educator, and farming grew out of that.

I never set out to be a farmer.

I was just running into a lot of frustrations wi being able to afford healthy food options.

And that's how my journey of growing food started.

It was just putting a couple of lants on the roof, and that's it.

I was just thrown into food production.

I am thinning out some of these plants here.

We have several growing in here.

I want to thin them out, but be That's what I'm doing here, whic believe it or not, this is not soil.

People always are like, #What do you mean it's not soil?# It#s actually not.

It's a soil substitute.

And we start all of our seeds in it.

This actually is called waterleaf, or efo gbure.

It's a vegetable that's popular in Nigeria.

It#s a leafy green.

We make soup When I think about what to grow in the aquaponics system versus what to grow in soil, oftentimes I just, the first thing I think is, Have I seen anybody else do it in a If the answer is no, then I'm going to do it.

That's my criteria.

But we grow a wide variety of leafy greens.

We do grains even.

We've done rice in the past.

We do sorghum, we do m We try to do, you know, a wide variety of plants.

I also select vegetables that I grew up eating and I miss, and I just can't find in supermarkets here.

And even if you do find them, you go to African stores to th e quality is really, really poor.

So if I'm feeling that way, I'm ure that there are oth who are feeling that way, and wanting food that represents their culture or just like And I like, I like that we can, e can play that role for folks.

Yeah.

But every and then we transfer from here to either the deep water or these, the media.

That's what this section here An d media just means that the plants are growing in some Yo u can see here.

It's the same mix we s and it's just there to add as a structure.

This, for instance, is edamame.

Edamame is going to get big and, It's easier to manage in a system like this than it is to manage in the deep water bed.

But the medium could be whatever you want it to be, as long as it's able to hold the plant up.

You put that medium, you can put it in a or you could just spread it in the bed, same We have the bags because it allo s us a little bit of control and to move things around.

And they're durable and they An d if there's a rip, I patch it up.

So this medium wicks up water to the plant roots and that's how the plants stay both hydrated and also get nutrients that come from the fish.

These are our koi and goldfish.

We've had them for about eight years now.

So the more fish you have, the more plants you need.

If you have too many fish and not enough plants, then you don't have enough filtration s to clean the water for your fish.

Remember, the plants are playing an essen in keeping the water clean for the fish.

That's why it's this symbiotic, reciprocal sys If there are no fish, there's no hing for your microbes to consume, and then there's nothing for you plants to take up as nutrients.

If there are no microbes, your fish will drown in their waste and your plants have nothing to grow on.

If there are no plants, your fish are producing waste, then there are microbes, but there's So eventually your system also collapses.

So you need all living things to be working and to be healthy and thriving.

We don't know enough about fish, and because we don't know en For me, doing aq making the argument for fish.

So it goes beyond just farming fish for foo It's also about creating awareness and knowledge about these aquatic animals.

They're not cuddly.

We can't hold them and pet them.

But if they don't exist, we cease to exist.

Without the fish in the ocean, t en we also lose aquatic plants, like phytoplankton, which do about 30% of removing carbon dioxide from the environment.

So for the most part, they are on the frontline of an environmental crisis.

Two degrees in global temperatur incre Overfishing is killing them.

All of the pesticides and the from farming is killing them.

We need to start talking about fish more.

We need to start talking about water more and water use in food production because water kind of a limited resource and we treat it as if it's not.

And if you're someone who's growing food, you should know that incorporating aquaponics into is also in some way a form of environmental activism.

It's a form of addressing global crisis because your work Unlike soil, we're using the sam body of water indefinitely.

With soil, you water your plants, a lot of it drains out and then gets washed out.

And then you also lose a lot of it to evaporation.

So because we're constantly recycling water, we use about 50 to 80% less water than soil for every square foot of plant you are growing.

I fell in love with aquaponics, initially thinking about health and wellness.

And I realized that this is bigger than just like, Oh,I'm growing fruit and vegetables.

Like, this system of gro while also directly addressing water conservation, the environment, and eliminating th to healthy eating options.

When I have kids on the farm, and I ask them, #What does a farmer l All of them will say, #A guy in overalls.# #That's who a farmer is.# So if you don't even see as being, you know, as someone who grows food, why would you grow it?

So, access to spac and then seeing people who look like you who are doing it.

And in cities, where do you find all of those things in one place?

It's rare.

Yeah.

So that's what we#re representing.

In my language, #Ara oko#, - oko means farm.

And when you say, #Ara oko#, you're literally referring to someone who's backwards, who' uneducated, basically a farmer.

But farmers are brilliant people.

They are scientists.

They are designers.

The They#re doing all this stuff daily.

I started this not knowing anything.

I jumped into aquaponics not kno ing a sing not knowing much about fish.

And I've learned so much along the way.

And I think farming actually teaches you those things.

It teaches you to be creative.

It teaches you to be to be flexible.

It teaches you to accept failure.

It teaches you persistence, just because that's exactly what nature requires.

Nature requires resilience.

Nature requires balance.

Sometimes things are catastrophic, and they fai But nature bounces back.

And in the same way, you got up Be cause it is through your failures that you you learn.

I want young people, regardless of wher to be able to look at me and be ike, Oh, if she ca I can do it too.