When Jill Chen wants fish for dinner, she walks down to her basement aquarium.

Net in hand, she approaches a 100-gallon tank — about the size of a coffee table — filled with pink-bellied tilapia. Above the fish hangs a trough filled with kale, herbs and swiss chard, which feed off the tank’s nutrient-rich water and bright fluorescent bulbs.

Chen scoops up a fish, carries it upstairs to the kitchen sink and swiftly ends its wriggling it with a wooden rolling pin. After a quick steam and a ginger garnish — voila! Dinner is served.

It may be unconventional, but urban farmers like Chen have embraced the basement tank-and-trough system, known as aquaponics. The system is a combination of aquaculture, or fish farming, and hydroponics, a soil-free greenhouse method of growing plants.

Aquaponics operates as a complete ecosystem: Farmer feeds fish, fish poop in water, effluent-rich water is pumped to vegetable roots.

When dinnertime arrives in the Chen house, the family can grab a bunch of kale or catch a fish fresh from the basement.

“The tilapia is delicious. It’s fresh, it’s clean, it has a sweet kind of flavour and just a wonderful texture,” said Chen, a professional photographer and mother of four.

The do-it-yourself farm — built from an aquarium, a garden trough, a pump and grow lights — only cost her about $300. It’s been so handy that Chen built another aquaponics system in her backyard with two ducks, which she aptly named “duckaponics.”

“It’s better than walking to the supermarket; you have control of what you eat,” Chen said.

While the basement fish farm may seem like an odd hobby, it could be the future of farming. Aquaponics has seen a boom in the last decade, particularly in arid climates in India and the Middle East. Australia is currently the global leader in aquaponics with an estimated 7,000 operations.

In Canada, the fishy method could be the solution for the agriculture industry’s looming water shortages and lack of arable land, according to an Alberta researcher at the global forefront of aquaponics research. The systems require little fresh water, no artificial fertilizers and can be set up nearly anywhere a fish can live.

“My personal opinion is that integrated farming like aquaponics has no alternative,” said Nick Savidov, a researcher with the Alberta agriculture and rural development ministry. “This is the only food production system in the world that provides only food and no waste.”

Savidov has studied aquaponics for over a decade hoping to find an affordable and efficient method for Canadian farmers. His aquaponics method is arguably the best in the world — the yields are higher than any other aquaponics system ever built.

The secret, he says, is in the water, which is rich with nutritious microcultures that speed up the vegetable’s growing time.

“The longer we have the same water with fish and plants, the better quality the water is from point of creating these micro organisms.”

Still, it’s a marketing nightmare — people who buy vegetables don’t necessarily want to think about how great fish poop and bacteria are for their salad greens.

“There is always a risk, but in the case of fish the risk is minimal,” he said, pointing out that cattle and chicken waste is already used as fertilizer. “If you follow proper food safety protocol there should not be any higher risk of getting pathogens than just working in the farm.”

Still, Canada has only a handful of large-scale aquaponics systems, most of which are located in Alberta, where the ministry of agriculture has invested in researching and developing the systems. Four Alberta businesses are consulting with Savidov to kick-start their own operations.

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Toronto only has two aquaponics farms aside from hobby farms. They are set up in two high schools to teach students about farming.

But Toronto’s first large-scale commercial aquaponics farm is now in the works, and it is expected to bring fresh, fish-fuelled vegetables to Toronto markets in the new year.

The 1,800 square foot system will be built in a Downsview Park greenhouse in January, making it the biggest aquaponics system in the city.

“We passionately believe in making aquaponics a comprehensively successful business venture,” said Evan Bell, a project manager with WaterFarmers, the designing agency behind the project.

The year-round farm will live in a greenhouse in the park owned by Fresh City Farms. A school of fish, possibly tilapia or jade perch, will swim in tanks beneath the gardens while salad greens grow above.

But the fish at Downsview Park won’t make it to dinner plates.

“Our focus is vegetable production. From a cash flow perspective, it makes more sense,” Bell said.

Setting up the niche systems is nothing new for Bell; his company has already designed and implemented aquaponics farms in China, India and Hong Kong, where climates allow cheaper outdoor systems that don’t require greenhouses.

Because of the lack of trial-and-error in Canada, many businesses see aquaponics as a gamble, Bell said.

“I think it could take five to 10 years before (aquaponics) will be a large industry . . . once there are a few more examples of this being commercially affective,” he said.

More stories by Graham Slaughter on Thestar.com