Fresh produce has always been rare in traditional food bank donation streams so any pantry looking to distribute more fruits and vegetables must purchase the bulk of them. While ShareNet purchases a lot of produce, we also benefit from donations from local small farms and home growers who make it a point to share.

One of the farms helping ShareNet and other food programs is Hansville’s Kitsap Farms. When Angie Cordiano and Harold Hogan purchased their property in 2013, they began talking about how to utilize their 2.5 acres for farming. Hogan grew up on a cattle farm in Texas, but Cordiano had grown up in New York City, where she didn’t think much about where her food came from.

Cordiano became sensitized to the issue of hunger through foster parenting. Hearing kids talk about stealing and dumpster diving in order to eat was hard to hear. She recalls serving a 16-year old a steak and the first thing he did was cut a piece for his sister. When he was told it was all for him, “He looked like he won the Lotto,” Cordiano said.

Knowing they did not have enough land for a traditional farm they began researching alternative methods and in 2016 embarked on aquaponics, starting Kitsap Farms. Their mission is to “provide healthy, locally grown produce and food-grade fish food to our community using sustainable farming practices,” Cordiano said.

“Aquaponics is the combination of recirculating aquaculture and hydroponics, where fish waste provides nutrients for the growing plants, and the plants provide a natural filter for the water the fish live in—an ecosystem where both can thrive. Aquaponics is the ideal answer to a fish farmer’s problem of disposing of nutrient rich water, and a hydroponic grower’s need for nutrient-rich water, essentially mimicking every natural waterway on earth—growing crops in a concentrated yet sustainable manner,” Cordiano said.

In the original greenhouse of 1,800 square feet they had a thousand-gallon fish tank with three one-tier grow beds, producing 265 plants per week. Going vertical has allowed three three-tier grow beds to produce 900 plants per week. The fish have also expanded to their own building and four times the tank space. Grow lights and heaters for the water uses a lot of electricity, offset by a solar system.

Some of the advantages of aquaponics are the ability to concentrate planting, elimination of soil-borne disease and pesticides/herbicides, and using a fraction of the water needed in traditional field production.

The system “works best for leafy greens such as butter lettuce, salad mixes, romaine, choy, endive, parsley, cilantro, mustard greens, baby kale and leaf cabbage,” Coridano said. But they can grow fruiting vegetables by starting plants in the greenhouse and moving them outside, using the same nutrient-rich water added to the soil through water lines running outdoors.

Kitsap Farms had a heart for donating, and in late 2022 began participation in WSDA’s Farm to Food Pantry, administered locally by Kitsap Conservation District. The program allocates its funding to buy produce from local farms at wholesale prices, which is then distributed among food pantries. Cordiano said, “This program has given us the opportunity to get clean healthy food to people who may not be able to access it otherwise.”