Central State University is pushing forward with new aquaculture ventures, despite the collapse of a plan to grow plants in a hydroponic trailer outside the Center for Education and Natural Resources.
The university’s food service contractor, Sodexo, arranged to bring a Freight Farms hydroponic trailer to campus last year. The trailer was placed on concrete footings outside the greenhouse. Sodexo reportedly planned to grow vegetables in the trailer for use in the Marauders Café. Students were expected to participate in growing the plants.
In a hydroponic system, plants are grown in water instead of soil.
For reasons that remain unclear, the Freight Farms trailer disappeared early in spring term. However, faculty working in the university’s Land Grant programs remain convinced that aquaculture – growing plants and breeding fish – is a useful idea.
Biology Professor Cadance Lowell said that the university has received a $600,000 capacity building grant from the U.S. Department of Agriculture to foster aquaculture programs over the next three years. The university is constructing a new aquaculture system, in its existing greenhouse facility, which should be up and running by summer.
In addition, the university is using Land Grant money to build another aquaculture system in a new greenhouse next to the water tower across State Route 42. There is even talk of bringing in a another hydroponic trailer to replace the Freight Farm trailer.
Dr. Alton Johnson, dean of the College of Engineering, Science, Technology, and Agriculture, said that aquaculture is a way to feed the world’s growing populations. Central State’s push into aquaculture will focus on water resource management, agriculture technology, food, nutrition and health. The university hopes to give students agriculture experience that can lead to jobs in the field.
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