DT |Google Fiber Presents "How They Built It" with Dre Taylor of Nile Valley Acquaponics

Dre Taylor is building a farm in the middle of Kansas City, Missouri, at 29th Street and Wabash Avenue.  The farm is called Nile Valley Aquaponics 100,000 Pounds of Food Project.

It was 2011 when Dre Taylor first dreamed of bringing fresh vegetables, fruits and fish to the neighborhood on 29th, one block west of Prospect Avenue.

When he’s not building Nile Valley Aquaponics, Dre runs Males to Men, a mentoring program at the Mary L Kelly Center at 51st, just east of Prospect Avenue. Dre mentors about 40 area youth, and alongside exercise and meditation, teaches them about growing their own food and being an entrepreneur.

"To me, being an entrepreneur means controlling my own destiny—doing, being able to provide and not having to settle." Dre comes from a family of entrepreneurs, his grandfather, Eli Sanders, brought the first trash compactors to the Kansas City area. “I have entrepreneurial blood in my family." 

Moderated by Rachel Merlo, Community Impact Manager-Google Fiber
Aquaponics is a unique, synergistic growing technique in which fish and plants are grown together, mimicking a natural ecosystem. The nutrient rich water from the fish tanks provide an abundant fertilizer for the plants. The plants, in turn, clean and filter the water that returns to the fish tank.  Aquaponic gardening uses less than 10% of the water consumed by traditional soil based growing methods and can sustainably produce food that is 100% organic, with no worries about chemical fertilizers, pesticides or mercury.