Jonesboro, GA |
A decade’s worth of planning, researching, and building finally came to fruition as Forever Young Aquaponics celebrated the grand opening of its new state-of-the-art facility in Jonesboro. Inside, old-school production principles meet new-school technology, combining fish farming and plant cultivation in a closed-loop system designed to maximize every inch of land and every drop of water available.
“The fish produce nutrient-rich water for the plants to grow in. And since you plant everything in water, you plant it very densely — so you get ten times more produce in much less time, using only ten percent of the water it would take in soil-based agriculture,” said Gaurav Kumar, President of the Andrew J. Young Foundation.
That efficiency extends to every part of the system. According to Arvind Venkat, CEO and Managing Partner of Forever Young Aquaponics, the closed-loop design means virtually nothing goes to waste.
“The crops are in water all the time, and because they’re in water all the time, they consume water and nutrients as needed. There’s no wastage, nothing runs off into the environment. What the plants require, they consume. What is not required just continues to recirculate in the system,” Venkat said.
The location of the new facility wasn’t chosen by accident. Situated just fifteen minutes from Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta International Airport, the Andrew J. Young Foundation hopes the Jonesboro operation will serve as a model for countries around the globe looking to expand access to fresh, sustainable produce.
“People from all over the world can come here, visit the farm, take the idea behind it with them — and we’ll provide our operational intelligence and intellectual expertise that we’ve learned over the last two or three years building this,” Kumar said. “We want to empower other countries around the world to become food sovereign.”
For Venkat, two principles have driven the design from the start: water conservation and low energy consumption — both critical for countries where those resources aren’t guaranteed.
“In any country that’s not as blessed as the US, where you have a strong energy grid and strong water infrastructure, you often run into situations where water is scarce and energy is scarce as well,” Venkat said. “The energy footprint of this greenhouse is less than one refrigerator — that’s as much as one acre of greenhouse consumes. If we can take that to countries that are energy and water deficient, we can do farming that is environmentally responsible and responsible for human health as well.”
While aquaponics isn’t designed to replace traditional farming, the Forever Young team is clear about the role it can play — particularly in major urban centers like Atlanta, which are often classified as food deserts.
“Aquaponics doesn’t compete with the traditional farmer. The traditional farmer still focuses on the staples — corn, the heavy consumption crops that are required. You can’t do that in aquaponics, not today at least,” Venkat said. “What we focus on is short shelf-life crops. And most of these crops are consumed by urban cities — they’re not actually consumed in the larger part of the rural country.”
For Jonesboro and the broader Atlanta metro, the opening of Forever Young Aquaponics represents more than a new farm. It’s a proof of concept — one its founders hope will ripple far beyond Georgia’s borders.