fish food
My friend Bruno sent me a link to this awesome video. It’s a great presentation by Chef Dan Barber about a very special fish farm in Southern Spain. The farm is called Veta La Palma, and from the Collaborative Journeys website we learn…
Veta la Palama is a fish farm in southern Spain, located in an island in an estuary 16 kilometres from the Atlantic Ocean. Tides sweep in estuary water, which a pumping station distributes throughout the farm’s 45 ponds. Because it comes directly from the ocean, that water teems with microalgae and tiny translucent shrimp, which provide natural food for the fish that Veta la Palma raises.
Veta la Palma produces 1,200 tonnes of sea bass, bream, red mullet and shrimp each year. The land also acts as the largest private bird sanctuary in Europe; including flamingos that travel in the morning to feast on shrimp at the farm, and return the same day, to their brooding ground 150 miles away! 20% of fish and fish eggs are lost to birds each year, and this is good, says the farm’s biologist Miguel Medialdea. “We farm extensively, not intensively. This is an ecological network. The flamingos eat the shrimp. The shrimp eat the phytoplankton. So the pinker the (flamingo) belly, the better the system.”
Veta la Palma provides an alternative to the more common agribusiness model; i.e., high on capital, chemistry, machines, and questionable-tasting food!
I like how, Miguel Medialdea, describes their approach — they farm “extensively” not intensively. I like that word, “extensively.” When I heard that word I saw open arms, room enough for everyone, farming the way God himself might farm. Life and living instead death and dying. Veta La Palma looks like an amazing example of sustainability.
Click HERE to access and view the video (~20 mins).
Organic Horizon 