Bluefields Farms’ initial research and development started as the Aquaponic Research Center in 2013, with a goal to bring awareness to the alternative to growing food and its benefit to the country. In 2016, they began their commercial aquaponic operation servicing hotels, restaurants, supermarkets, purveyors and chefs. In 2019, the center rebranded to what is now known as Bluefield Farms with the same restaurant quality salad lines to supermarkets, while making them available to the wider public. For Tom Stack, Bluefields Farms operations manager, the goal of the farms is to get people eating more healthily, as well.
“The whole goal for it is really about two things – the health factor and the health food movement, which is a huge thing, and the other reason is just food security, which is just so important. And after last year [as the pandemic unfolded], we saw exactly what happened. We could not keep the supermarket shelves filled with product. As soon as our product went on the shelves, it would disappear and they kept calling, can we get more, and it just was not possible.”
Bluefield Farms produces leafy greens including salad mixes with various kinds of lettuces; live herbs including basil, cilantro, chives, parsley, mint, oregano and thyme; and microgreens, which typically would be sold to restaurants and which is now available to the public. They also produce vegetables for restaurants such as Swiss chard, kale, bok choy, spring onions and edible flowers, which Stack hopes they can have moved to grocery stores in the near future.
At Bluefields Farms, there is also ongoing research into new crops.
Bluefields Farms now offers such a bumper crop of produce, that they are producing a surplus of goods, according to the operations manager. Those fresh greens and herbs now end up in their farm store, which opened earlier this year and is managed by Letitia McKenzie, directly from the Bluefields Farms greenhouse.
“We are producing a lot more than we can sell at the supermarkets and supply to the restaurants, and we have a lot of research going on into new crops, so what I found is we needed an outlet where we can sell it. For some things, we’re not producing enough volume yet that we can sell to the supermarkets, as there’s still a lot of research and development going into what we can grow, so we place what we grow into the outlet to cover some of the costs of that research.”
Walking into the Bluefields Farms storefront is a sight to behold. The freshness of the product draws you in and you will want to take home everything.
The store also markets fresh produce from partner farmers in their farm store.
“The whole philosophy for me is we are all stronger together. We are not competing with any other Bahamian farmer; we are all in this together. The competition is the imports,” said Stack.
During a recent visit to Bluefields Farms, I got to take in a behind-the-scenes tour of their 25,000-square feet production area that sits on a five-acre farm in western New Providence, where they produce approximately 2,500 pounds of fresh produce every week.
It was a treat to absorb the farm in all its glory and traipse along the rows of beds with Stack on a tour as he pointed out the various herbs and lettuces growing, from a seedling to a mature plant, the edible flowers, and their aquaponics farm, including the farm’s personal farm for employees where they grow native produce like pigeon peas that they harvest to take home.
I was allowed to pluck one of the farm’s heirloom Clementine tomatoes from the vine and sink my teeth into the sweet-tart fruit to enjoy. At the end of the tour, I was tempted to pick up a container of the tomatoes from the storefront to take home, with a variety of herbs and lettuces.
I was also given a tour of their aquaponics set up that combines aquaculture (raising fish) and hydroponics (cultivating plants in water) in a closed recirculating system, which allows the farm to have complete control over the production of their produce. Nutrient-rich water from the fish production provides fertilizer for their plant. In return, the plants filter and purify the water for their fish. Stack said beneficial microbes keep the system healthy.
“The whole philosophy behind it is how to grow in a climate that’s not conducive to growing,” said the operations manager. “Everyone can grow in the winter in The Bahamas very easily, but summer is the challenge – it’s so hot and the ground is so dry. So, the things we fight is the heat, the water quality, which is not very good, and the soil, which is not very good, because it’s limestone, which makes it very hard for plants to absorb nutrients. So, what we’ve done is taken the soil out of the equation, taken the ground water out of the equation, as there is sodium in the ground water as well, which is not good for plants. We catch all of our rainwater through the summer, and then use it year-round.”
Bluefield Farms has one million liters of rainwater stored for use throughout the year.
Most crops take six weeks from seed to a mature product. Everything starts in their germination room, which is climate-controlled and kept cool to maximize germination. On Mondays and Thursdays, Stack’s team sets up trays and they are seeded.
Bluefield Farms produces about 1,000 pounds of spring mix a week, and about 1,000 to 1,200 pounds of herbs. Other produce such as bok choy and spring onion account for another 400 pounds of other things that they’re developing to try to get into the market and to continue to encourage people to eat healthy.
My takeaway from the tour is the benefits of aquaponics – produces protein (fish) and vegetables in one system; the fish are fed and the fish make sure the plants are fed; produces three to five times the amount of food per square meter as opposed to conventional agricultural operations; an aquaponic operation can be implemented in arid areas as no soil is needed; they use up to 90 percent less water than conventional agriculture using only rain water; the product is naturally organic since harmful pesticides and harsh chemicals aren’t used; and Bluefields Farms stresses that they do not use any pesticides that are not organic grade, opting for biological pesticides, which they explain do not harm the produce, the fish or the consumer. The end result is great-tasting produce.
Bluefield Farms spends between $25,000 and $30,000 a year on seed just running the operation.
Bluefield Farms’ store is open 8 a.m. to 4 p.m., Monday through Friday, and 8 a.m. to 1 p.m. on Saturday.
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source https://thenassauguardian.com/healthy-and-fresh/
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