Nova Scotia’s first commercial aquaponics farm is poised to start production by next February at the former Newport Station elementary school building in West Hants.
The building was sold by the Municipality of West Hants through a public tender process late last month. The successful bidder was CaNile Consultants Ltd. of Halifax, which offered a price of $95,000.
“This is very good news for West Hants,” said Warden Abraham Zebian. “This is a great day for West Hants as this company will be developing the building to begin an aquaculture and aquaponics business, processing and packaging agricultural products. This will result in the creation of a minimum of 10 to 15 new jobs for our area and hopefully more as the business grows.”
In an interview, CaNile Consultants’ owner Mohamad Ramadan said he, along with two partners, are the new owners of the school under the banner of the Newport Station Investors Group.
“We have been studying aquaponics for some time now and felt it might be a very good idea to start aquaponics for the first time in Nova Scotia,” said Ramadan, noting the indoor organic farming practice is really popular in other areas of Canada, across the U.S. and in other counties, with higher yields, and less water usage than traditional farming methods.