ANNIE - Aquaponics New Novelties In Education- feeding tomorrow's cities is a project in which all participating countries will start to create a network of educational institutions, rural and urban companies/farmers and regional governments and local authorities and to share good practices. The global trend of urbanisation brings new challenges on food production and processing, and the needs of the citizens. Today's citizens acquire safe food and water, food quality and origin of the products are of major importance. The ANNIE network has as underlying goal to establish Aquaponics Training Centres in which all kind of target groups will be trained on any EQF level. The target groups Aquaponics focus on are youth, unemployed youngsters (up to 27), disabled people who are not easily placed in the labour market, the lifelong learners - with qualification EQF 2, immigrants and career changers. Working in Aquaponics requires both high tech skills and hands on labour. The partners in this project are from different European areas with potential needs. Spain, Greece and Portugal because of the lack of fresh water, Romania, Portugal and Slovenia to develop their rural areas and UK and the Netherlands as knowledge-based economies and too much (dirty) water, which should be re-used more sustainable.Education play an important role in these new developments, because they teach the workers of the future and make them aware of the food problems of the future.The main goal of this project is to expand a network with educational institutions and farmers interested in aquaponics production and local governments which are aware of the ecologic and economic advantages of the system of aquaponics. Not only agricultural subjects are relevant in aquaponics, there are many cross overs. Water technology and innovative, sustainable breeding techniques need new curricula. In this ANNIE project we would like to increase the network in which education, farmers (business) and governments work together collectively to raise awareness what to do about the enormous changes as a result of the water scarcity, technical revolutions and consumer requirements until 2050. Education have to change into international knowledge centres and with this project we will investigate opportunities of Aquaponics Training Centres, where students, young and elder, acquire knowledge and skills and competences to set up an aquaponics business themselves, to become the providers of fresh and healthy food locally. Entrepreneurial attitude will be promoted. Aquaponics give people the opportunity to start their own business with small investments. Aquaponics is the food production technique for the future, scholars say; it means there is a big market open for all sorts of activities around it.Aquaponics create jobs in all EQF levels and cross over sectors. The food sector in which Aquaponics will be part of has a tremendous challenge for the future to feed all inhabitants of the world in coming 40 years, as more than 50% of the world population lives in urban areas and aquaponics becomes a part of the food supply on small scale but close to the consumers. Fresh food, fish and vegetables are available everywhere where an aquaponics system is working. For these new way of thinking to produce food on an effective, but sustainable way green education needs to change their curricula in the future and that only happens when the market ( business and local governments) is involved to change the curricula. And this network partners are very much aware of the things that need to change to feed the next generation as good as today! This network can help to establish an optional part of the green curricula or as a new course for the lifelong learning programs of the institutions.Outcomes of ANNIE: All partners test the dimensional cross sector cooperation between triple helix partners in their own region- in every national network all three sections of the triple helix are represented and all of them have contributed at least one good practice- 6 good practices from the educational partner institutions implemented/used abroad;- 6 good practices of business partners watched/covered in the project;- 2 good practices of the governmental partners; (Rijnmond/Rotterdam and Murcia)- 8 new relationships from the triple helix in the network;- 4 guest lecturers implemented;- 5 field visits organised.- 30 student exchanges and practical placements from the educational partnersThe most important result of ANNIE will be the commitment of the triple helix partners in each region to continue in the next phase, to implement the good practices of this project in a new to established Aquaponics Training Centres, in joint ventures to pave new roads for youngsters in the ever fast changing European labour market.
ANNIE (Aquaponics, New Novelty In Education) is essentially the combination of Aquaculture and Hydroponics. Both aquaculture and hydroponics have some negative aspects. Re-circulating aquaculture needs to have excess nutrients removed from the system, normally this means that a percentage of the water is removed, generally daily. Hydroponics requires expensive nutrients to feed the plants, and also requires periodic flushing of the systems which can lead to waste disposal issues. This nutrient rich water in both systems needs to be disposed of and replaced with clean fresh water. When both systems are combined, these negative aspects are turned into positives, as the nutrient rich water from the aquaculture system is recirculated into the hydroponics system to grow produce. This water is then filtered (clean) into the aquaculture system. Many different species of fish can be grown in an aquaponics system, and the species selection will depend on a number of factors, including climate; freshwater or saline loving fish and plants; the density of fish per cubic metre and fish stratification preferences (the preferred water depth of different species). Aquaponics systems can be used in ‘local for local’ food production situations, is biological and organic and aquaponics need no extra toxic additions like antibiotics, manure or artificial fertilizers, and don't need weeding. Aquaponics has a significant reduction of water usage, compared with traditional growing methods. Plants grow faster and the whole year round; healthier food is produced because of a reduction in chemical applications; water usage is reduced and is cleaner (with only 10% of recycled water lost by vaporization, reducing the water footprint); reduction of transport, reducing the CO2 footprint. Aquaponics will be one of the solutions to the food shortages the world is facing. ‘To satisfy a peak global population of 9.7 billion people in 2050, agricultural economists project that total agricultural demand will increase by 60 percent to 100 percent compared with 2005 levels’ (Zeigler, M.M (2017) http://www.globalharvestinitiative.org/2017/03/sustainably-doubling-agricultural-productivity-the-right-global-goal-for-2050/) Objectives: This project is a starting point to change regional food production strategies all over Europe. As well as the potential applications for urban areas, this project is also applicable for rural areas. Education played an important role in this project, because this teaches the workers of the future and makes them aware of emerging food problems. The main goal of this project is to expand a network between educational institutions, food producers and local governments. Schools can integrate this topic into current curricula and on any EQF level. ANNIE increased this network where education providers, farmers (business) and governments worked together to raise awareness of water scarcity, water purity and food productivity issues. Number and profile of participating organisations: 13 organisations, Agri Vet- schools EQF level 1-4; Vet schools A.D.; Applied Science Universities, Secondary Schools with LLL-aspects; Business & Development Consultants and Entrepreneurs. Description of undertaken main activities: National: founding of aquaponics platforms in which knowledge and skills are shared, founding aquaponics training centres to provide information and share knowledge and skills; raising awareness by organising workshops for pupils, students and staff within the institutions and outside with partner schools; training activities in the project by the experienced company LandingAquaculture, an international company in aquaculture. There were 4 Steering group meetings and 3 partner meetings and an ANNIElympics, the final meeting was an event in which all participants participated in frivolous items related to fish and plants, healthy and safe food and innovations. The final result included the creation of a database of shared documents to be used to assist start-up aquaponics projects; leaflets in all languages with basic information about aquaponics; 4 training centres (ES,NL, RO and PT) to provide workshops and short training events on aquaponics; 2 working models for educational events; exposures on school days and at national and international meetings like European Parliament, European Committee of the regions (CIFEA MdS) and meetings about sustainability; World Food Day 15th of October 2017 NL; 2 instruction films available for everybody (on YouTube); 4 master classes organised by students. 5 Students will graduate on aquaponics through ANNIE. Thousands of people know about aquaponics because of the ANNIE project. Longer-term benefits: new partnerships, a continuation of the partnerships in a new project with the partners, the pioneers become experts in aquaponics in education, pioneers became trainers.