IRTA launches first portable aquaponics unit in Tortosa for social inclusion

The project at the Mercè Pla Foundation enables people with disabilities to grow vegetables using a circular system.

Generic image of an aquaponic system with lettuces growing over water tanks.
IA

Generic image of an aquaponic system with lettuces growing over water tanks.

The IRTA has launched Catalonia's first portable aquaponics unit in Tortosa, installed at the Mercè Pla Foundation to promote the integration of people with disabilities this March.

This innovative initiative allows twenty users of the occupational center to manage a system that combines fish farming with vegetable cultivation. The mechanism, funded by the GALP Mar de l'Ebre, is modular and easily transportable.

"It is a circular food production system, in which the waste of one animal is used by another to grow."

Enric Gisbert · Head of the IRTA aquaculture program
The system uses fish waste, which bacteria transform into nutrients for lettuces, eliminating the need for soil. Currently, the tank holds twenty mullets, and the first lettuces have already begun to grow for local consumption.

"For them it is growth, giving them new opportunities to do innovative things and have production."

Laura Beltran · General Director of the Mercè Pla Foundation