Aquaponic first for London

GrowUp Urban Farms has been granted planning permission to build the city's first commercial scale aquaponic farm. The majority of the produce will be sold to local restaurants. Aquaponics combines fish farming with hydroponics – growing plants in a nutrient-rich solution without soil. The trick lies in giving dirty water from fish tanks to the plants, which eat the waste. The clean water then goes back to the fish.

The farm will cut food wastage and transport costs by bringing production closer to the market. 

A company spokesperson said: "We’ll be using a stacked vertical growing system with LED lights to grow the plants and we’ll be managing the whole environment (both on the aquaculture side and on the hydroponics side) much more closely – to make sure we can be as efficient as possible with our energy and resource use and to make sure we can grow high-quality produce all year round.

"We’re also including a small visitors' centre at the farm – because we know how much people want to see what we’re doing, and we think learning about sustainable food production is the best way to get people to make healthy and sustainable choices about the food they buy and eat."