Chapter 16 Aquaponics for the Anthropocene: Towards a 'Sustainability First' Agenda
16.8 Conclusion: Aquaponic Research into the Anthropocene
The social—biophysical pressures of and on our food system converge in the Anthropocene towards what becomes seen as an unprecedented task for the global community, requiring ’nothing less than a planetary food revolution’ (Rockström et al. 2017). The Anthropocene requires food production innovations that exceed traditional paradigms, whilst at the same time are able to acknowledge the complexity arising from the sustainability and food security issues that mark our times. Aquaponics is one technological innovation that promises to contribute much towards these imperatives.
· Aquaponics Food Production Systems16.7 'Critical Sustainability Knowledge' for Aquaponics
16.7.1 Partiality Despite contemporary accounts of sustainability that underline its complex, multidimensional and contested character, in practice, much of the science that engages with sustainability issues remains fixed to traditional, disciplinary perspectives and actions (Miller et al. 2014). Disciplinary knowledge, it must be said, has obvious value and has delivered huge advances in understanding since antiquity. Nevertheless, the appreciation and application of sustainability issues through traditional disciplinary channels has been characterised by the historic failure to facilitate the deeper societal change needed for issues such as the one we contend with here—-the sustainable transformation of the food system paradigm (Fischer et al.
· Aquaponics Food Production Systems16.6 Towards a 'Sustainability First' Paradigm
As we saw earlier, it has been stressed that the goal to move towards sustainable intensification grows from the acknowledgment of the limits of the conventional agricultural development paradigm and its systems of innovation. Acknowledging the need for food system innovations that exceed the traditional paradigm and that can account for the complexity arising from sustainability and food security issues, Fischer et al. (2007) have called for no less than ‘a new model of sustainability’ altogether.
· Aquaponics Food Production Systems16.5 Aquaponic Potential or Misplaced Hope?
Contemporary aquaponic research has shown keen awareness of particular concerns raised in the Anthropocene problematic. Justifications for aquaponic research have tended to foreground the challenge of food security on a globe with an increasing human population and ever strained resource base. For instance, König et al. (2016) precisely situate aquaponics within the planetary concerns of Anthropocene discourse when they state: ‘Assuring food security in the twenty-first century within sustainable planetary boundaries requires a multi-faceted agro-ecological intensification of food production and the decoupling from unsustainable resource use’.
· Aquaponics Food Production Systems16.4 Paradigm Shift for a New Food System
To claim that Agriculture is ‘at a crossroads’ (Kiers et al. 2008) does not quite do justice to the magnitude of the situation. The gaping ‘sustainability gap’ (Fischer et al. 2007) amidst unanimous calls for sustainability are increasingly being met with common response amongst researchers: pleas for revolutionary measures and paradigm shifts. Foley et al. (2011: 5) put it quite directly: ‘The challenges facing agriculture today are unlike anything we have experienced before, and they require revolutionary approaches to solving food production and sustainability problems.
· Aquaponics Food Production Systems16.3 Getting Beyond the Green Revolution
The Anthropocene marks a step change in the relation between humans and our planet. It demands a rethink of the current modes of production that currently propel us on unsustainable trajectories. Until now, such reflexive commitments have not been required of agriscience research and development. It is worth remembering that the Green Revolution, in both its ambitions and methods, was for some time uncontroversial; agriculture was to be intensified and productivity per unit of land or labour increased (Struik 2006).
· Aquaponics Food Production Systems16.2 The Anthropocene and Agriscience
‘Today, humankind has begun to match and even exceed some of the great forces of nature […] [T]he Earth System is now in a no analogue situation, best referred to as a new era in the geological history, the Anthropocene’ (Oldfield et al. 2004: 81). The scientific proposal that the Earth has entered a new epoch—-’the Anthropocene’—-as a result of human activities was put forward at the turn of the new millennium by the chemist and Nobel Laureate Paul Crutzen and biologist Eugene Stoermer (Crutzen and Stoermer 2000a).
· Aquaponics Food Production Systems16.1 Introduction
Key drivers stated for aquaponic research are the global environmental, social and economic challenges identified by supranational authorities like the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) of the United Nations (UN) (DESA 2015) whose calls for sustainable and stable food production advance the ’need for new and improved solutions for food production and consumption’ (1) (Junge et al. 2017; Konig et al. 2016). There is growing recognition that current agricultural modes of production cause wasteful overconsumption of environmental resources, rely on increasingly scarce and expensive fossil fuel, exacerbate environmental contamination and ultimately contribute to climate change (Pearson 2007).
· Aquaponics Food Production Systems