Kangaroo Island’s School Students Float Out Aquaponics for Southern Ocean Lodge

The project not only produces barramundi and herbs but is also remarkably water-friendly, as water is re-used three times over the aquaponics process. First up, the pools are filtered with continuously flowing fresh water to keep the barramundi active. Next, the waste water from the pools is filtered through pipes to a glass house outside, where a series of pipes with cut outs fit rows of hydroponic plants that are nourished by, and in turn cleanse the waste water. Once it’s passed through the hydroponics system, the water is then filtered to paddocks outside, where the school’s horticulture students raise sheep and tend a vegetable patch.

Southern Ocean Lodge remains the school’s largest customer. The team in the kitchen has steadily increased its orders of barramundi over time, and has worked with the students to introduce special requests for herbs. The relationship between the school and the lodge has flourished as everyone embraces the possibilities on offer to both the students and the lodge. Deliveries from the school now come in boxes decorated with colourful pictures drawn by the infant school children.

Buoyed by this sustained commercial support the facility now incorporates with a new food processing centre, dedicated classroom and dining room with a ‘paddock to plate’ experience of the school’s produce imagined for visiting customers. The school’s syllabus will expand accordingly to offer students more practical culinary skills including baking, fish-smoking and coffee service for a broader experience of the possibilities of sustainable produce and tourism. In a fitting accolade, Barbara is the recent winner of the 2015 Fleurieu and Kangaroo Island Women’s Community Awards for her contribution to the region’s agriculture. Congratulations Barb!