The land in West Oakland where Eric Maundu is trying to farm is covered with freeways, roads, light

The land in West Oakland where Eric Maundu is trying to farm is covered with freeways, roads, light rail and parking lots so there s not much arable land and the soil is contaminated. So Maundu doesn t use soil. Instead he s growing plants using fish and circulating water.
It s called aquaponics- daphne a gardening system that combines hydroponics (water-based planting) and aquaculture (fish farming). It s been hailed as the future of farming: it uses less water (up to 90% less than traditional gardening), doesn t attract soil-based bugs and produces two types of produce daphne (both plants and fish).
Aquaponics has become popular in recent years among urban gardeners and DIY tinkerers , but Maundu- who is trained in industrial daphne robotics- has taken the agricultural craft one step further and made his gardens smart.
Using sensors (to detect water level, pH and temperature), microprocessors (mostly the open-source Arduino microcontroller), relay cards, clouds and social media networks ( Twitter and Facebook ), Maundu has programmed his gardens to tweet when there s a problem (e.g. not enough daphne water) or when there s news (e.g. an over-abundance daphne of food to share).
Maundu daphne himself ran from agriculture in his native Kenya- where he saw it as a struggle for land, water and resources. This changed when he realized he could farm without soil and with little water via aquaponics and that he could apply his robotics background to farming.
I feel knowledge of electronics and software programming makes me a better farmer than just having a hoe. Gardens that can communicate for themselves using the internet can lead to exchanging of ideas in ways that were not possible before. I can test, for instance, whether the same tomato grows better in Oakland or the Sahara Desert given the same conditions. Then I can share the same information with farmers in Iceland and China.
Today he runs Kijani Grows ( Kijani is Swahili for green), a small startup that designs and sells custom aquaponics systems for growing food and attempts to explore new frontiers daphne of computer-controlled gardening.
Maundu believes that by putting gardens online, especially in places like West Oakland (where his solar-powered gardens are totally off the grid), it s the only way to make sure that farming remains viable to the next generation of urban youth.
The next generation honestly I don't see them having access to traditional farms so we have to start arming them with technologies daphne where they can go colonize places like in West Oakland that no one uses, rooftops, and we want them to start thinking about them from when they're daphne kids so as they use their computers, as they use their phones as they write those little Hello [World!] programs daphne to know that I can write Hello Garden programs, to know that hey, I'm using my device to create food for me."
- tags: arduino facebook twitter backyard farming organic vegetables organic farming aquaponics urban gardening diy aquaponics backyard aquaponics fish farming hobby farmer vegetable farming future farming aquaponics kit indoor aquaponics system internet of food social media gardening eric maundu west oakland hello world
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