Good morning everyone and thank you for inviting us. We have joined this initiative with pleasure
because the issues we are talking about 
are issues that concern
substantially an earlier future that awaits us, 
in respect of which we must
make our contribution to change. 
We've been mainly committed
on the development of these
off-soil cultivation technologies for over
twenty years starting from a university background.
My name is Alessandro, Alessandro Arioli and
I am an agronomist and a university professor and
I have been working for twenty years 
to determine an evolution of
methods of cultivation outside the soil.
Outside the soil because travelling the world, 
especially in Africa
I have become aware of the limits of the soil 
and many times for contingent reasons.
For example there is not enough water 
or the soil is saline,
or you are in an environment closer to cities or
even within cities.
And therefore our aim is to optimise the impact
that cultivation systems have 
on the environment, to reduce water consumption,
to reduce energy consumption,
and therefore the emission into the atmosphere 
and the consequent greenhouse gases.
All of this combined made us 
focusing on the evolution of
the off-soil cultivation systems.
I say evolution because
the off-soil cultivation is about forty years old,
in particular the first trials where conducted 
by the Israelis
who have always treasured the scarcity 
of water resources, transforming
a problem into an opportunity, 
bringing cultivation systems to life
also in the desert.
We have borrowed these
technologies developing them and, above all, 
we have inaugurated a trend,
a particular trend that is very ethical.
Practically speaking
we have and we are continuously 
dematerializing investments in
terms of automatic control systems.
Our plant is essentially devoid of electronics, 
devoid of electronics
in a world that instead aims to make 
more complex systems.
Our system is based on the 
technique called aquaponics.
Aquaponics is a term that traces its origins 
in the time where there were
aquaponics models, which means 
using fish farming and
simultaneous cultivation of plant species 
in the same environment.
The first known experiments 
were the Hanging Gardens of Babylon
which were made with tubs that were placed
on the roofs, water was supplied separately for the fish
and plants, and therefore the population was able 
to obtain results in a great and
interesting way, which obviously avoided electronics.
With a sort of return to the future
we have completed the operation of
take away from hydroponics and aeroponics systems - that are the ones established
in the last two decades, 
precisely with an increase in technology sophistication
that we have instead abolished.
We basically replaced
the model with electronic control - that moreover
works simply on the breeding of the single species cultivated, trying to eliminate the biodiversity
anyway existing in the cultivation systems, that is all other species other than those grown,
in aquaponic and hydroponic systems 
tend to be eliminated
just for making a sort of pneumatic biological void, 
for the benefit of the grown species.
But instead we've worked in a completely different way,
we have been able to eliminate electronics 
specially because we resorted
to the opposite way, which means that we have increased to the maximum possible
biodiversity
and so what did we have associate? 
We have associated first of all
the formation of microalgae which are increased
in the most exhaustively way inside tubs 
that remind a bit, in the professional version 
for open field farmers,
they are somewhat reminiscent 
of the species of waterproofed Pétanque field,
and in the version
instead from the urban farming - therefore reduced in dimension and with the necessary flexibility
to be able to grow crops in the city,
these tubs are reduced to sizes that can go, 
to make a comparison,
from the bath tub to be placed on the balcony,
up to systems
a little more complex and sophisticated to be placed for example on hanging gardens
on houses or plants' rooftops.
The system lends itself very well in our mode also for
urban design which has a productive functionality
therefore a new way of using urban spaces 
which creates culture
because we are actually talking about 
making a cultural shift towards an
absolute sustainable production from this point of view,
and combining instead a technological simplification
that allows to cultivate also to
people who do not have the knowledge 
or someone who for example 
doesn't have a high school
or university diploma in the agriculture field.
So as I told you, the system was created 
by increasing biodiversity.
The first components are the microalgae,  
microalgae that form inside
of these water cushions which are basically a blanket of water
of 25 to 40cm height, 
that gets positioned within these tubs,
these tubs are not separated, they are seamless
they are simply tubs and in this tubs we place fish,
fish of different species and varieties
that we have selected over the years,
so that they were totally compatible with vegetables.
These fish are of different species and varieties
so they respond to diversified climatic situations, therefore we have fish that
allow cultivation in a colder environment 
even in Northern Europe,
or fish that on the contrary allow you
to apply these cultivation systems in tropical, 
sub tropical areas.
This fish mix, because fish can also be of more species,
has the job of stabilizing the system. 
In practice among our technical-scientific discoveries
that we have integrated within this model that
on the market takes the name of Aquaponix, 
this integration
allows the fish to be fed on part of the microalgae
which gets formed as a blanket 
on the surface of the water and after that
fish are fed also from part of the roots systems
of the plants that we grow. 
How do we grow the plants?
Plants are placed in the tubs, 
backed by specific floating rafts,
a sort of water lily to try to better describe it,
as the model quite recalls the primordial wild pond
in wild and natural environmental conditions, 
and it simulates substantially
and reproduces the processes.
The processes make the system
totally circular, a real model that is 
100% based on circular economy
Why? Because basically the whole
system metabolism is the result of the summation,
but also above all
of the integration between the metabolism and the host species, therefore if it is true
that fish eat algae 
and they eat a part of the plants' apparatus,
plants are very happy because 
of the work that fish do
because the removal of the plants's roots 
which continues daily,
forces the plants to produce a new radical apparatus
as a replacement and so we have eliminated 
the time necessary for
diseases such as inoculum to grow. 
Substantially the system
is disease free system, 
because we eliminate the assumption of the
parasitic disease from plants and therefore consequently zero phytochemistry.
This system which has other major inventions, 
has totally eliminated
one hundred percent the use of phytochemistry
which is the chemistry of pesticide treatments.
This to the advantage of all, obviously:
the ecosystem, the consumers and the environment. Now from this point of view
the system therefore has a high added value in environmental terms. Why?
Because as per environmental terms, 
the system
doesn't consume synthetic chemical products.
We consume and use only 
components of mineral salts that we add
to the water. These mineral salts are added
so that they match the diet of the fish, 
going to satisfy what fish eat
and once they have complemented the fish diet
fish emit their faeces the natural way, 
and these mineral faeces
go to nourish the plants which grow lush
with exceptional quality. 
When we talk about quality we don't speak
only about sanitary qualities, we are talking about organoleptic characteristics
which are much better,
much more sapid in a broad sense.
As we speak we go through just a few slides that show
basically the information we've described
in a consecutive way. 
The acquaponic module in greenhouse
can be realized both for professional agriculture
and for the realization that we mentioned earlier 
of more smaller tubs systems
that can be traced back to a use, let's say not only rural
but even urban.
The system has other extraordinary features
it has so many inventions,
one of them is that it doesn't have recirculation.
In almost all other aquaponics systems, I would say in all of them a part from this one,
these systems evacuate
the excess of nutritional and bring it outside the tubs and therefore the excess is treated,
managed, remodeled, filtered to eliminate the problem which all of the
the other traditional hydroponics and aeroponics systems face
by wanting to make that famous biological vacuum void
they actually find themselves with very serious risks of starting diseases.
For this reason the recycling of the solution
is a must as well as the
eliminations of the nutritional solution 
on a frequent basis
even more than once in a week,
creating  a problem for disposal.
Our system doesn't even have a drain, so we have
tubs where we've been growing continuously 
for over five years,
in which we simply fill water accordingly to water consumption.
The water consumption is really very low,
as this system has basically the world's best water consumption performance,
which means the lower water consumption per unit
of weight let's say per kg
of food produced. 
This system is suitable for different performances,
as you can see here in the slide in where you understand what is the development
of the ordinary radical apparatus in crops, 
in what is called floating system,
a buoyancy raft system.
This is the root system that you
would develop if there were no fish.
Fish feed on these roots made of starch, an excellent diet and after that fish themselves
can be used as food in more or less 
six-monthly frequency
because the system needs to have a balanced load
between presence of fish and presence of plants. Among other things, the system
is also very interesting from an income point of view because it allows with
small areas not only of integrating income 
but also in semi-professional plants
and upwards it permits financial autonomy 
for the farmer on duty with
a few square meters of surface. 
Now I leave it to Patrizia
which will explain better the plant engineering methods
that we resorted to and she will talk about 
the company that produces
the project called Aquaponix.  
Good morning I am Patrizia Guglielmotto,
Aquaponix's project administrator.
We've been building these plants and its systems
that have been tested for more than five years, 
we have a showroom too
that anyone who is interested can access 
and see how it works, on our website
you can find different tubs models, 
all of them off-soil, and that are housing
different products. 
We have studied different methods for both
horizontal and vertical crops.
All of them, however, have been developed with fish under it, without water recirculation
and built with the utmost simplicity even for those who are not practical with it, don't know about it,
those who have never done anything related to nature.
So we give manuals that teach
how to manage everything, and then to who wants more info and get on more specific products,
we give them also have the opportunity to grow.
All our systems are protected, therefore each tub has its own protection system,
this because both a tunnel 
and a greenhouse protect them
from any possible animals, so we don't need to give them pesticides as the crops are protected.
We use coloured covers as we don't cool the tubs, 
at nine we warm them up;
we only produce seasonal products and provide them with a mix of nutrients, as the professor was saying,
that is calibrated on tanks which allow us 
to give the exact quantities.
This is because we were born as a business, 
which is now more than 50 years old,
dealing with engineering, heavy carpentry and 
last generation mechanics, but
we've been starting right from this, 
because we have seen what is happening in the world
and we decided to eliminate everything 
that we could eliminate.
We see that, when there is a problem to deal with,
the mechanical and automation aspect in theory should solve it, but in practice it is not so.
We don't want that whoever manages the plant
must be an engineer
always on to the computer, or when the power goes out or a sensor does not work he needs
do throw away everything and doesn't understand anything anymore. We've focused
on the simple things, aiming always to the simplest things in order to be able to develop any kind of crop.
There is one more thing that I want to say to the students: when visioning the future
everything can be thought of, 
but everything that isn't exasperating.
Let's try to cut out a part of the future 
that is logical and feasible for everyone,
let's always think of working in grou
where not everyone is so technical,
 where not everyone is so advanced
because the simple solutions 
for the complicated things
in the end you can find them. 
You only need to look for them.
So we must make things that are accessible to everyone, as our systems that are accessible
also to the disable people, because being outside the soil they reach a suitable height for disabled people.
We also took particular care of the safety,
we follow the 81/2008 and therefore everything related to safety it's been applied to our systems.
And with this I want to finish my part, thank you.
As final input as regards to our vision 
for the future that awaits us,
we are strongly committed to the future,
to play a part in it and not to undergo it. 
Definitely we believe in eating better and eating less
is a key element as regards to our prospects but
not only in health terms but also to be more aware 
of the environmental impact
that it has on the planet. 
If we ate with the North American habits
we would need two and a half planets already today,
and therefore the existing land 
and livestock would not be enough.
The intensive animal farming produces
the earth's 18% of greenhouse gases alone
from the belching of the animals when they ruminate.
Therefore there are models 
beyond which we must proceed and
these methodologies that we have 
developed are the most advanced in terms
of results and the relationship 
between the resources used
divided by the product obtained, 
equals we have a coefficient k which
is totally unknown to the unsustainable systems.
So this is the modality that we try to lead and to push
and to take on with this project.
Thanks for your attention.
