About Us
Acqua Farms was incorporated in the year 2019, in Chennai, a large urban city in South India.
Rahul Dhoka has an MSc in Biotechnology and Business Management from the University Of Warwick, United Kingdom. His interests include: balancing the benefits and necessities of business with that of the balance of sustainable systems and making sense of food production.
Rahul is the founder of Acqua Farms, an Indian wholesale hydroponic, organic gardening and wellness product distribution company, with a focus on integrating sustainable and moral concepts into a modern economic model.
Note from the Founder
Rahul Dhoka
Chennai faces several extreme situations from weather to food securities. Apart from the lack of space for any sort of agriculture practice, finding adequate quantity of water is the major challenge.
Chemicals and pesticides are sprayed and injected in vegetables; color added to enhance the visual appearance of the produce is a common practice found almost everywhere in India. Oxytocin, a growth promoting hormone is injected in almost all veggies to increase their size.
There have been more than a few reasons, which drove me chose the path of Clean and sustainable living.
Hydroponics was one such practice which gave me the solution for it.
Pesticide Free Food is a luxury with the ever increasing demand for food. Chemicals and Pesticides can be completely avoided in Hydroponics as we do not use soil. 99% of the soils borne diseases are eradicated as inert mediums such as clay pellets, perlite etc. are used
instead of soil.
Water Conservation is the most important reason to switch to Hydroponics as it uses 90% less water than the soil cultivation. Hailing from Tamil Nadu where we have decades of conflict for water from neighboring states, water is the truly the elixir of life. In Hydroponics a lettuce or basil takes around 3 liters of water from seeding to harvest, whereas it takes around 40 liters of water in soil. Major amount of water is lost in evaporation and the roots uptake is very less.
Zero carbon Footprint-As most of our food comes from farmlands and areas much away from urban cities, hydroponics give us an advantage to grow the food right at your roof top. No longer does you lettuce or spinach have to travel hundreds of kilometers and exchange several hands before landing up on your plate. Rooftops, balconies, indoors in a room, any location within your house can be suitable for hydroponics.
Space and time Constrain is something that most of us face on a daily basis. Hydroponics gives us a chance to use the vertical space and grow up to 5 times more in the same space and also helps harvesting the produce quicker. As there is no leeching of nutrients, plants grow almost 40-50% faster than soil counterparts. This gives us the advantage of more number of harvests per year, increasing the food produced and income generated from multiple harvests. Systems are specifically designed for small and urban spaces.
Eat Healthy!
Rahul Dhoka