A community project that promotes the social, nutritional and environmental benefits of hydroponics is collaborating with a hydroponic equipment supplier to communicate the environmental benefits of growing using water rather than soil.
Great Stuff Hydroponics has provided the FREdome Project, which plans to encourage ‘as many young and disadvantaged people as possible’ to turn to hydroponics, with its first system.
The project will experiment with different types of nutrients, in particular sea solids, whilst advocating a ‘positive focus’ in schools and the wider community that aims to help promote self-sustainability. One of the key goals will be to use sea salt to cultivate algal blooms hydroponically on land, which, says project leader Greg Peachey, provides a route towards tackling climate change and the energy crisis.
The project will begin at St Michael’s Catholic High School & Humanities College in Watford. Peachey said: “St Michael’s has had the vision to recognise the vast potential benefits from innovative application of hydroponics, and FREdome is very grateful for the equipment and support that Great Stuff Hydroponics has offered towards turning these into a reality.”
Steven Parker, managing director of Great Stuff, said the company was impressed by the project’s aims to allow communities to grow their own vegetables and promote self-sustainability in the wider community. He said: “It’s a very exciting initiative and something we have wanted to be involved in for a while now. I felt there could be no better pilot project to put hydroponics to the test than the FREdome Project, mainly because it begins at grassroots level and will illustrate a series of benefits at a level that will be both environmental and social.”
Following completion of the pilot part of the scheme, it will eventually aim to eventually raise funding from government sources and commecial sponsorship as well as from initiatives like the Lottery Fund to implement the system on a wider scale.
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