‘The time is right’ for seafood farming in the city, proponents say

Student Melanie Christion, 17, tends to the fish farm at Chicago High School of Agricultural Science, which is raising 1,000 tilapia. The school’s farm operates at commercial grade, but not on a commercial scale. Photo by Zbigniew Bzdak, Chicago Tribune

Raising fish in an urban areas

By Lisa Pevtzow,
Chicago Tribune
April 16, 2010

Excerpt:

The idea of a fish farm in the middle of the city can seem quirky. Sometimes when 6th Ward Ald. Freddrenna Lyle brings up the subject, “people look at me as if they thought I had two heads,” she said.

But raising fish in an urban area is a clean, organic way to grow food, proponents say. It puts vacant lots and old industrial buildings to good use, which is why another alderman has become a proponent, and creates jobs. If done right, advocates say, there’s no smell and no pollution, since the fish wastewater is recirculated to irrigate vegetables and herbs.

“And you never have to worry about a loose fish bothering the neighbors,” says Myles Harston, who owns AquaRanch Industries in Flanagan, Ill., and has set up about 500 systems nationwide.

But it will be a while before the idea may catch on in Chicago.

Fish cannot be farmed in the city on a commercial scale. Although Chicago’s zoning codes say nothing explicitly about fish, they are classified as livestock, said Ald. Helen Schiller, who is working to build an aquaponic fish farm in a boarded-up building in her 46th Ward.

So far, only institutions that raise fish for educational purposes can do it. But Schiller, Lyleand urban agriculture advocates are trying to change that.

They are working with the city to write comprehensive guidelines for growing food in the city. An ad hoc committee, consisting of staff members from the departments of zoning and land use planning, buildings, environment and public health, are looking at such things as health requirements and building standards, waste disposal and where the soil comes from. For now, the committee is focusing on plant-based farming, but eventually it will take a look at urban fish farming.

“I think it’s a matter of how to do it,” said Peter Strazzabosco, spokesman for the Department of Zoning and Land Use Planning. “The city is well aware of the increase in interest in urban agriculture.”

In Milwaukee, Growing Poweris an aquaponic fish farm that operates on three acres. “This is a great option for inner cities,” said owner Will Allen. “It is cheap, simple and clean.”

Allen, who received a MacArthur Foundation “genius” grant in 2008, estimates that he feeds 10,000 people a year with the fish and produce he raises. He runs four urban gardening operations in Chicago and hopes to begin farming fish at one of them within a year or two.

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