Andrew Young Went Looking at a Dam in Africa. The Journey Helped Lead to a Farm Outside Atlanta

By Stacy M. Brown Senior National Correspondent

CLAYTON COUNTY, Ga. — About 40,000 hybrid striped bass swim inside tanks at a farm just south of Atlanta, producing something that ordinarily creates an expensive problem for fish farmers: waste.

Here, they need it.

The nutrients produced by the fish travel through water to thousands of lettuce plants, Swiss chard, spinach, and other greens growing nearby. The plants take what they need from the water, which is recycled through a system designed to grow fish and vegetables together while using a fraction of the water required by conventional agriculture.

For Ambassador Andrew Young, the journey to Forever Young Aquaponics began years ago in Africa, where a fast-growing plant clogging a dam caught his attention.

Young, the 94-year-old former Atlanta mayor, congressman, United Nations ambassador, and civil rights leader, recalled learning the troublesome plant was duckweed and could double rapidly.

Rather than dismissing it as a weed, Young wanted to know what it was.

“They were telling them it doubles in size in 48 hours or something crazy,” he recalled before organizing a recent tour of the Clayton County farm. “We took it over, studied it, and found 57% protein. It’s got all these wonderful nutrients.”

The plant growing in Africa is not what is cultivated at the Georgia farm, but the discovery helped fuel Young’s fascination with using water, plants, and natural biological processes to produce food.

That interest eventually brought together Young, aquaponics expert Arvind Venkat, and a collection of companies and specialists whose equipment and technology now operate within the one-acre facility.

“This is really a new technology here in the United States,” Carmal, our personal tour guide through the facility, said. “It has been done in different parts of the world but usually at a smaller scale. This is one of the few commercial-scale operations like this, and nobody else in the U.S. has some of the pieces of technology that we have here at the farm.”

The concept itself is surprisingly simple.

Hydroponic farms grow plants in water and must supply nutrients. Fish farms raise fish in water and must manage the waste they produce. Aquaponics brings the two together, using nutrients from the fish to feed the plants.

“The main overhead, the main cost of a hydroponics farm is the fertilizer that you’re putting in,” said Carmal, identified only by his first name. “Now the main cost for a fish farm is getting rid of that waste.”

Connecting the two, he said, attacks both costs at once.

The Clayton County facility is the result of a decade-long effort by Young and the Andrew Young Foundation to explore food production that uses less land and water, creates jobs, and brings fresh food closer to the communities where it is consumed.

The farm officially opened in June.

Inside the fish house, each large tank holds about 2,000 fish, for a total of approximately 40,000 fish across the operation. Hybrid striped bass are a popular food and game fish and are sometimes sold in restaurants as rockfish.

The vegetables begin their lives elsewhere in the building.

Seeds are planted on reusable, food-grade boards that can remain in service for years. According to the tour guide, a seeding machine can process about 700 boards per hour, with approximately 800 plants per board.

After about two days in a warm, humid germination room, workers move the newly sprouted plants into the greenhouse.

From there, the growing cycle is remarkably precise.

“Twenty-one days,” Carmal said when asked how long the plants remain in the greenhouse. “Almost to the day, actually. It’s very consistent.”

That consistency lets buyers order a specific amount of a crop each week and helps the farm move closer to what customers need, rather than harvesting large quantities and hoping they sell.

The short growing period also helps with insect control.

“Part of the reason why we harvest at 21 days is that that is shorter than the life cycle of most common pest insects,” Carmal noted.

The boards are harvested and cleaned before the next crop begins. Carmal said the operation does not add herbicides or pesticides to the growing system.

The greenhouse itself is constantly changing.

Its walls and roof can open and close, and a weather station and about 13 computer algorithms respond to temperature, humidity, and other conditions. The system can anticipate rain and close the greenhouse before it arrives. Shade can move into place when sunlight becomes too intense.

On a pleasant day, much of the greenhouse can remain open under protective netting.

The operation can grow baby lettuce, spinach, Swiss chard, kale, chives, and other leafy greens and herbs. Other aquaponics configurations can support tomatoes, cucumbers, and peppers.

Once a crop reaches the end of its 21-day cycle, machinery resumes operation.

A harvester with a surgical-grade steel blade cuts the greens from the boards. The produce moves along a conveyor for collection, while the used boards continue toward cleaning equipment with brushes and sprayers. A second stage sanitizes the boards with hydrogen peroxide before returning them to production.

The harvested greens are quickly moved into temperature-controlled rooms.

Carmal added that every minute the produce remains in heat can shorten its usable life. The farm therefore cools the greens soon after cutting and uses refrigerated transport for deliveries.

“We’re committed to getting our produce to our buyers within 24 hours of the harvest,” Carmal declared. “We don’t harvest more than we need, and we don’t let it sit here.”

Tests at the farm, he said, have shown that some greens remain usable for more than 20 days when properly stored.

Basil requires special treatment because refrigeration can cause it to blacken and wilt. The farm stores basil in a room at about 55 degrees, cool enough to slow deterioration without damaging the herb.

Food safety is another aspect of the operation.

Carmal said the facility was approaching Global G.A.P. certification and working toward organic certification. He said water is periodically tested for pesticides, and E. coli, Salmonella, and Listeria are tested monthly.

The enclosed growing system also changes how the farm addresses some foodborne illnesses.

Carmal consulted University of Georgia researchers about Cyclospora, a parasite that can contaminate fresh produce. Because the Clayton County plants draw nutrients from water beneath them rather than from overhead irrigation that can splash contaminated water onto leaves, he said the researchers told him the growing method makes Cyclospora contamination extremely unlikely.

The farm’s ambitions extend beyond what is currently growing there.

The Andrew Young Foundation says aquaponics can produce significantly more food on the same amount of land while using far less water than conventional farming. Because the system does not depend on fertile soil, similar farms could operate in urban communities, food deserts, and arid regions where conventional agriculture is difficult.

A second Forever Young Aquaponics project is being developed on a half-acre in Walsenburg, Colorado, an arid area where the foundation aims to demonstrate that food can be grown commercially on land that would otherwise have little agricultural use.

The foundation also plans to establish a training institute connected to its aquaponics work, aiming to prepare people for future work at commercial farms.

Young has already shared the idea with children.

For about a decade, the foundation has operated an aquaponics program with the Andrew and Walter Young YMCA in Atlanta, where young people learn about food production, science, and sustainability.

For a man whose public biography is usually told through Selma, King, Congress, the United Nations, and Atlanta City Hall, a greenhouse filled with fish tanks and leafy greens might seem far removed from the work that made Young famous.

Young does not describe his life’s work so narrowly.

The Andrew Young Foundation says its mission is to “feed the hungry, heal the sick, clothe and house the poor, and set at liberty those who are oppressed.” Young’s work on aquaponics brings the first of those goals into a greenhouse, where fish waste becomes plant food, water circulates, and another crop can be ready three weeks after the last harvest.

The farm is not yet operating at full capacity. Trials and smaller orders continue as the operation expands, and some areas of the greenhouse were nearly empty during the recent tour because crops had just been harvested.

Other rows were starting again.

Tiny Swiss chard sprouts were already pushing through the newly planted boards, their stems showing the first hints of pink.

In about 21 days, if everything works as designed, they will be gone, and another crop will take their place.

“It’s about the present and the future,” Young chimed in.