Dateland, Ariz. It pulls a trailer filled with beef, chicken, fish and food behind it, and ready to shoot from a pelvic cannon below.
It’s time to feed the fish.
Moheng releases the machine and flies food in a rainbow. Then the water comes alive. Hundreds of crushing, sticking barramundi to the surface, and they all fight for a piece. Even in a few months, they will become food themselves.
In the non -coastal Arizona desert, where the Colorado River crisis has put the use of water under a microscope, the dominant aquatic biology has a fish farm where the Parameondi tropical species, also known as the Asian Sea Pass, grows for American restaurants.
The main current sees it as a sustainable alternative to seafood that is hunting in the ocean. They say conscious chefs and consumers, such as that food has a shorter distance for travel, which eliminates some pollution that comes from Huge ships transport products around the world. They and some aquaculture experts argue that it is effective to use water twice, because foods rich in nutrients can be raised crops such as Bermuda’s herb sold to feed livestock.
“We are in the field of water,” said Matt Manjan, head of the prevailing American business department in Australia. “We want to be here for 20 years and 30 years.”
But some experts are wondering whether the growing fish are widely in an arid area can work without high environmental costs.
This question is due to what people collectively decide is a good use of water. In Arizona, some places run water with more power than others. But the entire country deals with the effects of climate change, which makes the region more dry and more precious water.
The farm uses groundwater, not the water of the Colorado River. It is an indulgent resource, such as mining, in different people and industries, different philosophies about whether they should be extracted.
“As long as groundwater is treated as an open supplier in these rural parts of Arizona, it is subject to the upcoming new industries and the use of groundwater for that industry,” said Sarah Porter, director of the Keel Water Policy Center at the Maurison Institute at Arizona State University.
Some scientists believe that aquaculture can play a role in protecting the ecosystems of wild oceans from overfishing. It may play at least a small role in homogeneous any problems in the display resulting from the Trump administration tariff for imports from dozens of countries, including those that the United States sends about 80 % of seafood, According to the Ministry of Agriculture in the United States.
A two -to -one deal?
In greenhouses at the Arizona University Laboratory, Professor Kevin Fitzmimins in Toxon, Tilapia circle is written in tanks that are nominated down to the ponds filled with mussels and floating spots of vegetables and lettuce. FitzsimMons directed the student who started the tilapia farm that the main current bought in the end about three years ago as they now raised Barramundi.
“I don’t think desert agriculture is disappearing,” he said. “Obviously, we want to do it as efficiency in water as much as possible.”
But not everyone agrees to this.
“The artificial ponds in the desert are stupid,” said Jay Familyte, a professor at Arizona State University and Director of Science at the Arizona Innovation Initiative. He was concerned about heavy water losses to evaporate.
Mangan says evaporation was not as much as heat loss in the winter. This has required to pump more water since it is warm when it reaches the surface helps keep Barramundi comfortable. But Manjan says they are working to improve the design of the nigella to retain heat better and have found, after the last year of research and development, that they can reduce water requirements by about half a result.
In addition, he says that the water that comes out of the aquarium is “mainly liquid fertilizers”, and although they are slightly salty, they use them for crops that can tolerate them, such as grass cows, Bermuda can eat.
But this supports the cattle industry, which contributes more than its share of greenhouse gas emissions.
“Doing two optimal order does not make it better,” he said.
Determine the use of “reasonable” groundwater, which is a limited resource
Purple flowers germinate alongside mujahid wheels. Krunch Underfoot fish bones. The smell of light water and ammonia is hunting in the breeze.
Without groundwater, none of them will be possible.
Some farmers in Arizona depend on the water from the Colorado River, but many others use well water to irrigate crops such as alfalfa to make dairy, lettuce, cucumber and watermelon throughout the year.
Arizona has seven regions throughout the state where groundwater is managed accurately. Ret Larson, who knows the water law at Arizona State University, said that the only rule that you really govern is a law that if you are landing there, you can pump a “reasonable” amount of groundwater.
What can be considered “reasonable” depends from crops to crops, and there is no precedent for aquatic biology, an industry that has not yet spread commercially at the state level.
Using the numbers provided by the prevailing, according to Porter, the fish farm will demand a “very large amount” of water, equally with a large farm or more of some of the suburbs of Phoenix. I noticed that although the use of water is maximized using it twice, it still exhausts the groundwater layer.
When the company came out of Arizona to expand, Manjan said they had not seen almost the same kind of regulations in Australia.
As part of its growth strategy, the prevailing also hoped to work with other farmers in the region so that he can use wastewater in nutrient -rich fish to produce straw. They say a few of his attention.
An alternative to wild fish
“The manufacture of seafood needs to reduce its dependence on hunting small wild fish to feed the largest cultivated fish that humans eat. He said that marine birds and mammals depend on small species such as Anchiah and mackerel usually used in a fish meal.
“We should not rely on the ocean fish to grow fish in order to raise aquatic neighborhoods to meet the demand for humans,” said Sarker.
The main current gets fish feeding from two suppliers, the grinding of the stars, but Manjan and Mohang said they do not know for sure where these suppliers got their basic components.
Fitzmimins, from the University of Arizona, also pointed out that the commercial hunting industry between pollution and development in overfishing and ocean development for entertainment was already facing problems. Don’t think that Trump‘s This spring moves To open Marine Reserve Areas Commercial hunting This situation will improve the way water neighborhoods can breed.
“We cannot continue hunting and gathering from the ocean,” said Fitzmimins.
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