Aquaponic as sustainable innovation for food production

To better understand aquaponic, it is important to describe the socio-demographic context and the role of agriculture in a future perspective. Due to the increasing world population, by 2050 food production should be increased of not less than 70%. Nowadays the agriculture sector is playing a key role in ensuring food security and in the upcoming context it should also face one of the greatest dilemmas of the modern age, which consist in producing more food using less resources and minimizing the environmental impacts. To cope with this challenge, the aquaculture technology seems to be one of the most suitable production systems able to face this dilemma. In this paper, the technical and technological aspects of the Integrated Aquaponic System (IAS) are described. The integration of an aquaponic system with algae, worms and insects production it is also suggested for improving sustainability.