The Department of Agricultural Sciences at Texas State has received a $250,000 grant from the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) Hispanic Serving Institution Education Grants Program to help improve the retention and graduation rates of underrepresented students while developing a zero-waste agricultural business model.
Bahram Asiabanpour, a professor in the Ingram School of Engineering, will serve as the principal investigator on “Bluewater: A Smart Circular Economy for Integrated Organic Hydroponic-Aquaponic Farming to Empower an Underrepresented Workforce."
“We noticed that there was plant waste and fertilizer waste produced, so we added the aquaponics component, which is farming fish,” Asiabanpour said. “Before it was just adding fertilizer and growing plants. By growing fish, the plant waste can become food for the fish, and the fish waste can become food for plants. We are cutting the waste from both sides, and now we have two products for the market, plants as well as fish.
“There are lots of processed products and byproducts that could be developed from this system. From the fertilizer waste, we can grow halophytes for animal feed and grow algae for use in biofuel. Also, vermicomposting can produce compost tea for plants and many other things. Everything is value-added. The opportunity’s unlimited,” he said. “We expanded into aquaponics to form a zero-waste circular economy. Nothing should go into trash in this process."
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