Aquaponics for Trinidad and Tobago: Advancing Sustainable Farming for Low-carbon Economy

Abstract

Trinidad and Tobago (T&T) is a net importer of food. Thus, the country is vulnerable to high food prices, high food imports, and food insecurity. These problems can be addressed through the development of the aquaponics industry locally. Moreover, aquaponics offers a sustainable solution as it encourages the conservation of water, and eliminates the need for synthetic fertilizer, which generates high greenhouse gas (GHGs) emissions in its production process. The objectives of this study are to analyze and forecast T&T’s food imports, and to examine the technical and economic policy requirements for an aquaponics industry in T&T. An Empirical Mode Decomposition (EMD)-Artificial Neural Network (ANN) forecast of T&T’s food imports suggests that T&T’s food imports will increase, and by month 12 to will be TT$1,224,329,616.27. With regards to the economic framework, the major obstacle to the development of T&T’s aquaponics industry appears to be the upfront costs. To establish a professional aquaponics farm that maintains supplies of fish and plant produce, the farmer must incur an upfront capital cost. If the cost of the greenhouse is included, it can take a farmer up to 6 years to recover this cost before they earn a profit. Therefore, government support is required to alleviate this cost burden for farmers.