Aquaponics: Jeamme Chia & Teresa Phiri at TEDxSLC
Channel: TEDx Talks
Date: 2013-07-10

Jeamme, born and raised in Malaysia, is a graduating senior who is excited to see where the world takes her. At SLC she studied Economics, Geography, and Politics. She specializes in international commodity markets and geopolitics. Her other interests include entrepreneurship, technology, and finance. She is driven by the belief that 'People Create Change' and sees the Millennial Generation as more poised than ever to do so. Jeamme is inspired by people who take the world by storm, even in the smallest of ways.

Teresa's background growing up in three different Southern African countries—Malawi, Mozambique and Swaziland— inspired her passion is for poverty alleviation. At Sarah Lawrence she has concentrated in Political-Economics and will soon pursue her Masters in Public Policy at Oxford University. Her passion is to reform the practice of public policy through private sector consulting. She am inspired by the potential that lies in international collaboration- it is by reconciling our differences that we can make a sustainable impact.
Aquaponics: When People Create Food

As we accelerate towards an increasingly urbanized world, new and existing cities will experience stresses on their resources and infrastructure. Central to the problems facing urban slums is the issue of food insecurity, especially in (but not exclusive to) developing countries. Of the 1 billion people that face food insecurity, 200 million live in urban slums. And that number will only grow. Maintaining food security in Urban landscapes and especially slum communities faces a specific sets of constraints that conventional understandings of agriculture cannot resolve. A sustainable solution is one that forces a paradigm shift in the way we view food in cities. We propose aquaponics as a solution that can address the multiple constraints that urban communities face in maintaining food security. Urban slums lack arable land, access to water for farming and access to nutritious food. Aquaponics is a closed system that uses fish waste as fertilizer for plants to produce nutritious food. Fresh vegetables and grains can be grown on a bed that does not require soil. It is space efficient and uses less water than most production systems. We propose that Aquaponics is not only the solution to food insecurity in urban slums but the food production system for future cities.

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