The Parish of São Francisco Xavier da Caparica, in Pragal, Almada, is developing the project "Super Horta, Aquaponics in a Container", a sustainable food production system that aims to assist the local community and be replicated in humanitarian missions. The infrastructure consists of a white container equipped with photovoltaic panels and a greenhouse, where plants grow without the use of soil through an aquaponics system that combines fish farming with vegetable cultivation in a closed water cycle.
Father Luís Ferreira do Amaral, the parish priest responsible for the initiative, explained that his experience working in refugee camps in northern Kenya motivated him to seek an autonomous food production system, after witnessing the complex logistics of food aid arriving from the port of Mombasa and the high diesel consumption associated with it. The idea came through a friend from Aveiro who introduced him to this sustainable method.
The system works through a cycle where water allows fish to grow, which provide nutrients to plants, and lettuces consume these nutrients while cleaning the water, which returns to the fish tank. This method eliminates the waste seen in traditional agriculture and operates with minimal losses associated only with evaporation. With just one container, more than 300 lettuces have been produced per month, biological foods completely free of fertilizers or chemicals.
The experimental project is taking place on the church grounds, in an urban peripheral area of Almada marked by social fragility and with a high index of population from Portuguese-speaking African countries. The initiative has funding from the EDP Foundation and the Auchan Foundation, in collaboration with the company Agro Simbiose Agrícola, has a planned duration of two years, and aims for future installation in United Nations refugee camps or in structures of the Jesuit Refugee Service.
