Organic Food and
Vegetables in Trinidad& Tobago
Definitions
Organic Food Production
• Organic production is farming which
adheres to the regulations, production and processing requirements of the
certifying agency eg. USDA. Typically these regulations and processes
include:
• conserving natural resources
•
preventing
commingling with nonorganic products)
• Non- use of most synthetic
pesticides and fertilizers, growth hormones, sewage sludge, irradiation, and
genetic engineering (genetically modified organisms or GMOs) .
Hydroponic Food Production
Hydroponics is a method of
growing plants without using soil (i.e., soil less). This technique instead
uses a mineral nutrient solution in a water solvent, allowing rapid nutrient
uptake. https://www.maximumyield.com/definition/70/hydroponics
Aquaponic Food Production
Aquaponics is the combination of aquaculture (raising fish) and
hydroponics (the soil-less growing of plants) that
grows fish and plants together
in one integrated system. The fish waste provides an organic food source for
the plants, and the plants naturally filter the water for the fish.
The third participants are microbes (nitrifying
bacteria). These bacteria convert ammonia from the fish waste first into
nitrites, and then into nitrates. Nitrates are the form of nitrogen that
plants can uptake and use to grow. Solid fish waste is turned into
vermicompost that also acts as food for the plants.
In combining both hydroponic and aquaculture systems, aquaponics
capitalizes on their benefits, and eliminates the drawbacks of each.
Conventional
Agricultural Food Production
“Conventional farming,
also known as industrial agriculture, refers to farming systems
which include the use of synthetic chemical fertilizers, pesticides,
herbicides and other continual inputs, genetically modified organisms,
concentrated animal feeding operations, heavy irrigation, heavy irrigation,
or concentrated monoculture production.
Despite its name, conventional agricultural methods have only
been in development since the late Nineteenth Century, and did not become
widespread until after World War 2.
