We were about an hour into a far-ranging two-and-a-half interview over pancakes, omelet, bacon-veggie melts and hash browns at the Breakfast Club (394-3238) when I asked aquaponics mastermind Jon Parr if he understood exactly what he had on his hands.
"You know, for a segment of the population, this is like sex, right?"
"Yes," he replied. "It is for me too."
This is an expansive greenhouse farm of his design where beautiful (and tasty) sturgeon help feed the beautiful (and tasty) bib lettuce, the lettuce filters the water for the fish, and we get to eat both.
Here's what it looks like:
Get more on Viridis and aquaponics—including the ways it uses normal byproducts, waste streams and toxins like wood chips and fish poop as ample available fuel for greater and greater yields—with last week's cover story, "Big Fish, Little Ponds: Upstart farm Viridis Aquaponics aims to set a world standard in sustainable food production."