Aquaponics comes to the classroom in Gauteng

Lesedi la Kreste Anglican Primary School in Gauteng has incorporated aquaponics into its curriculum and feeding scheme for over a decade. Susan Marais visited the school to find out more about the project.

- Susan Marais

Technology and innovation need not be the exclusive domain of mega farmers and multinational organisations. With the right help, even a township school can lead the way.

This is well illustrated by the story of Lesedi la Kreste Anglican Primary, a state-owned school in Orange Farm, a township approximately 45km south of Johannesburg alongside the N1 and R553 highways.

For over a decade, this school’s 1 427 learners have had the opportunity to join the school’s environmental club, where they are taught the basics of recycling, aquaponics and agriculture. The school also has a functioning aquaponics system where a variety of vegetables are grown in gravel with the help of catfish.

Simply put, aquaponics relies on a natural cycle where the waste from the fish serves as fertiliser for the plants, while the plants filter the water, keeping it clean for the fish. The system is entirely closed: in other words, the water is recirculated through the system, and no chemicals are used.

Although aquaponics has become a buzzword amongst backyard farming enthusiasts in recent years, it was not quite as well known in South Africa back in 2011 when it was introduced at the school. In fact, this was one of the first aquaponics systems installed in the country by INMED South Africa.

INMED Partnerships for Children is an international non-profit organisation dedicated to helping vulnerable children, families and communities “achieve well-being and self-reliance”. And its Aquaponics Social Enterprise programme aims to mitigate poverty and malnutrition by helping “subsistence producers and their communities adapt to climate change, while conserving natural resources and increasing access to economic and technical assets”.