One way of looking at organic and hydroponics is to see them each as valuable assets in the sustainable farming toolbox. They are both resource efficient ‘closed-loop’ growing systems, that deliver important environmental and societal benefits.

But organic farming and hydroponics (where food crops are grown without soil, usually in nutrient infused water) represent very different approaches. Organic is rooted in practices that promote biologically active, healthy soils and is summed up by the motto of organic growing ‘feed the soil, not the plant’. Hydroponic, and other soil-less growing systems, are based on the opposite strategy.