Chapter 19 Aquaponics: The Ugly Duckling in Organic Regulation
19.3 Discussion and Conclusions
This chapter has attempted to clarify the regulatory aspects relevant to understanding why aquaponics presently is not eligible for organic certification in the EU and the USA. As in the EU, the main paradigm behind organic farming in the USA is briefly, to manage soils in a natural way. In the EU, organic certification decisions for organic aquaponics are not carried out by local authorities, whereas the USA has seen a growth in this type of action in the last few years as well as an increase in private peer-review certifications and decisions of individual organic certification agencies.
· Aquaponics Food Production Systems19.2 Organic Regulations
19.2.1 Organic Rules in Horticulture The hydroponic production technology in the absence of an organic growth media cannot be certified as organic, which has proven to be a long-time effective barrier for the conversion of existing greenhouse vegetable producers to organic farming schemes (König 2004). For horticultural products, the specific EU regulation preventing products produced under ‘classical’ aquaponics systems to obtain an organic certification are the following: 834/2007 Regulation (12): ….
· Aquaponics Food Production Systems19.1 Introduction
Aquaponics is an integrated closed-loop multi-trophic food production system that combines elements of a recirculating aquaculture system (RAS) and hydroponics (Endut et al. 2011; Goddek et al. 2015; Graber and Junge 2009). Aquaponics is therefore discussed as a sustainable eco-friendly food production system, where nutrient-enriched water from fish tanks is recirculated and used to fertilize vegetable production beds, thus making good use of the valuable nutrients that in conventional aquaculture systems are discarded (Shafahi and Woolston 2014) and presents a potential solution to an environmental problem usually referred to as eutrophication of aquatic ecosystems.
· Aquaponics Food Production Systems