Aquaponic mariculture in Västernorrland - EU financed project

It's a news of last Monday the visit of the County Governor of Västernorrland, Mr. Gerhard Larsson, to the closed loop mariculture implantation of Kattastrand near Härnösand, where are farmed perch and vegetables, exploiting the different aspects of the two production cycles.
Kattastrands Abborreodling is an EU-project started in 2002 which applies the principles of the "aquaponic" mariculture system to the production of top market fishes (perch) and vegetables in an indoor production plant.
"Both fish farms and agricultural farms are industrialized and contibute massivly to the pollution of the oceans. To change this we have to grow our food differently and aquaponics is a technique, which contibute very much to avoid murky waters. In aquaponics, the fish waste provides a food source for the growing plants and the plants provide a natural filter for the fish. This creates a mini ecosystem with no outlet. Both plants and fish can thrive. Aquaponics is the ideal answer to a fish farmers problem of disposing of nutrient rich water and a hydroponic growers need for nutrient rich water." (...) (Font: http://rainbow.konto.itv.se/mailgroup/index.html)

Here is the link to the article (in Swedish) on Allehanda.se. If you're interested in a deepening about this project in Härnösand, please jump to Sött&Salt, the house organ of Fiskeriverket (the Swedish Board of Fisheries). Here is the link to Kattastrands Abborreodling's website.

About the advantages of these closed loop mariculture systems, we published some months ago two interesting deepening articles about two european implantations, in Germany and in the Netherlands.
Best Available Technology in Fish Farming - The IFFT 
Happy Shrimp (Rotterdam) - Europe’s first tropical shrimp farm in a closed inland system

Foto: Gunnar Stattin - Allehanda.se