Something's fishy on Massachusetts Avenue

By Shrell Krawczyk and Elizabeth Lewin
BengalNews Reporters

There is something fishy going on at the Growing Green farm on Massachusetts Avenue, where a straw-bale greenhouse is home to 2,000 tilapia in Buffalo’s first aquaponics system.

The tilapia have been on the West Side now for about a year, feeding on duckweed and other vegetarian fare grown on Massachusetts Avenue Projects’ urban farm. The system that supports the fish is called aquaponics, a closed ecological system that recycles fish waste into plant food.

Jesse Meeder, the Growing Green farm manager, said this system is actually a prototype.

“It’s a test for a much larger system we will have May 1,” he said.

Growing Green is Massachusetts Avenue Project's youth development and agriculture program. The program runs after school workshops about sustainable urban agriculture, nutrition and healthy cooking.

Plans for a larger greenhouse are coming together, where the number of tilapia will increase to 30,000, Meeder said. The 96-foot-long and 24-foot-wide greenhouse will also offer more room for produce and composting, which the farm does with the help of 200,000 worms and waste collected from local restaurants.

Beginning in May, Massachusetts Avenue Project will sell organic tilapia at its Mobile Markets, where fresh produce is brought to various sites across the West and East sides of Buffalo on a weekly basis. The fish is sold on ice, unprocessed. Consumers must gut the fish themselves.

Meeder said the organization is working on plans to sell the tilapia in batches to anyone in the community who desires to create their own aquaponics system. The idea supports the organization's mission to teach the community how to access affordable and nutritious food, while being environmentally responsible.

“I’m excited about the expansion project, actually. I’m ready to go commercial. I feel that we’ve learned a fair amount this year, we have a good business plan, and were ready to supply fish to the local community,” Meeder said.

Jesse Meeder announces aquaponics workshops:


Tilapia are easy fish to raise, Meeder said, and were chosen for farming due to their hardiness and easy diet. Tilapia are vegetarians, so they eat various greens produced at the farm, and they are not a threat to each other, he said. Another benefit to raising tilapia is there isn’t need for permits or licenses to grow them in New York state. Because they cannot survive in Buffalo’s climate on their own, they are not considered an invasive species, Meeder said.

Raising fish might seem farfetched to some, but Laura Hill Rao, director of volunteer and service-learning at Buffalo State College, likes what Massachusetts Avenue Project is teaching the community.

“Their message is anybody can do this. You don’t have to have a greenhouse, you don’t have to have big systems. You can do this in your basement,” Rao said. “It’s a great way to grow your own food and support sustainability.”