Developing a Legal and Regulatory Framework Model Governing Aquaponics: A Viable Food Production System for Singapore and the World.

Abstract

Aquaponics is a rapidly emerging agricultural practice and environmentally sustainable food-producing technology to raise fresh fish and vegetables year-round in any climate. Aquaponics is an important technology and technique to help countries address land and water scarcity and food insecurity issues by adapting to urban contexts, essentially areas with high population density but limited land space. However, aquaponics raises legal and policy issues because it is an activity that impinges on natural resources and interacts with the environment - water and aquatic species - to produce a product safe for human consumption. Presently, policymakers can rely upon no single legal and policy framework to administrate aquaponics in fish waste management, land-use optimization, and water resource utilization. Instead, companies must base their business models on existing legislation regulating aquaculture and hydroponics cultivation separately. With a combination of the two systems, aquaponics development in cities and urban areas further adds conflicts to present legislation. Without dedicated and harmonized legislation, it is difficult for entrepreneurs to formulate a business plan for urban aquaponics and address banks and investors. To analyze and evaluate aquaponics as a viable food production system, I constructed a financial spreadsheet cost-benefit model evaluating the feasibility of investment in aquaponics. In addition, I developed a new generic model of a legal and policy framework for promoting and regulating aquaponics. The cost-benefit spreadsheet model can thoroughly analyze and evaluate key financial and economic metrics like net present value, capital cost outlay, gross profit margins, and breakeven analysis for a typical aquaponics business. In contrast, the generic legal and policy framework model, in the form of a conditional logic tree, encompasses the areas of the licensing system, environmental management, food safety, and health issues, effluent regulation, financial incentives, enforcement actions, etc. will provide a clear legal and regulatory framework for the effective governance of aquaponics. My analyses, encompassing both the cost-benefit and the generic legal and policy framework models, provide informed evidence-based policy recommendations to any country's policymaker and business community worldwide. These models help set a precedent and provide guidance for the legal status of regulating and promoting aquaponics in Singapore and around the world.