CALDWELL, TEXAS — Getting enough to eat? That's the question one local farmer is trying to solve with a not-so-new way to farm.
At Wolff Farms, aquaponics, a centuries-old farming technique, is being used. No constant watering, no fertilizing and no weeding is needed. The fish do most of the work.
"With us, you know what you are getting and it came from right down the road," said David Wolff, farmer and landowner of Wolff Farms.
Nestled off of County Road 324 sits Wolff Farms. The over 200-acres of land has been passed down in the Wolff family for over a century. Inside Wolff's greenhouse, plants are grown aquaponically.
"We use fish. We feed the fish in the water. The fish make the nutrients that feed the plants, and the plants filter the water that feed the fish. It's a closed system," he explained.
It's symbiotic system. Farmers only need to add a high-protein fish food for the magic to happen.
"We can grow out of season and year-round and offer things in the middle of August that you wouldn't have here unless it was cold and in the winter time like lettuce, which is what we primarily grow," Wolff said.
The nice thing about aquaponics is its efficient and sustainable. You don't get many of the harmful environmental impacts that come with traditional farming.
"So they sit in these rafts, and the rafts are floating on the water, and that's where they grow. They go straight to market and straight to your house on your table," Wolff added.
Wolff has gone to the Brazos Valley Farmers Market for about three years and says there is always a demand for locally-grown produce. He says one supplement in particular has gained a lot of popularity- microgreens.
"You can use them in soups, salads, wraps, tacos," Wolff said.
Joe Masabni with Texas A&M AgrilLife Extension says aquaponics isn't for the meek farmer, but if done right, it can be enormously rewarding.
"You can have an area where you have small plants like lettuce and onion and parsley and cilantro, and you can have a bigger area for tomatoes, cucumbers and peppers. You can do that with aquaponics if you build it right, but it's not for the faint of heart," Masabni explained.
Wolff says he can grow around 3,000 plants at one time. Every Saturday you can see him bring around 300 aquaponic plants to the Brazos Valley Farmers Market.