AACE INTERVIEW: Eddie Choi and John Ng of Aeterna
“HVFF is North America’s largest land-based RAS raising steelhead trout from eyes to fish. Effluent from our closed-containment system is treated and used to water our plants. Our fish compost, which is packed with cannabis plants’s desired nutrients, are mixed with our organic soil base to make our grow medium.”
I remember helping my father grow Chinese vegetables in our backyard, back in the day we didn’t have the access to Asian produce, not like today where you can find Bok Choy at your local grocery stores. My father would set up his poles and netting to grow cilantro, Bok Choy, Gai Lan, and his favorite Bitter Melon. Fast forward a few decades and we are practicing on a scale never imagined by my father, Eddie Choi and John Ng are at the forefront of our agrarian legacy by creating businesses that farm fish locally and sustainably, and then use their by-products to fertilize hemp. Aeterna was one of 223 awardees for cultivation licenses in New York by the CCB ahead of the state’s launch of the adult-use cannabis market. I am honored to feature Eddie Choi and John Ng of Aeterna on AACE today. - Ophelia Chong
John Ng:
Hemp has been a source of food, clothing, building materials and more in China since as early as 10,000BC. In China, hemp was also used as medicine. However in history hemp and cannabis has been demonized for political reasons and generations since the 70’s have lost access to our own plant medicine. How did you embrace hemp in your career and business?
What was the epiphany that created NY Hemp Service?
I've never really had any inclination for alcohol, cannabis or any other substance and like a lot of us, I shared many misconceptions about cannabis. Until recently, hemp wasn't I our vernacular beyond reference to a type of fabric associated with a particular lifestyle. Since the farm bill, I began to hear more anecdotal stories about the benefits of hemp and cannabis. For the most part I waved those stories off but then it hit home, one of our facility managers from our recycling operations has a daughter who was paralyzed from a horrific car accident. The short version of the story is that she was depressed from several years of treatment with very little physical improvement. Her regiment involved 23 different meds but someone introduced her to cannabis and THC/CBD tinctures. It took a little while but when I saw her next, her mood improved 180 degrees, she was so much happier. She was still paralyzed but the 23 pills was dropped to 1, some blood thinner. She was socially active and her spirits has improved so dramatically. Until it happens to someone you've known for years people tend to wave off cannabis and hemp. That's when my mind toward the plant and the industry started to change.
Tell us how New York Hemp uses your sister facility Hudson Valley Fisheries’ products?
Fish pee, poo and exhale like you and me. With a facility like HVF, all those wastes must be either extracted or treated so its non-toxic to our fish. The solid wastes (feces & uneaten food) are screened out and composted. The liquid waste, ammonia is treated by a bio-filter that will convert it to nitrites and then to nitrates which is non-toxic to fish. A small portion of our system water is discharged for clean make up water. the discharge is used for fertigation. The CO2 the fish exhale also needs to be off-gassed from the water inorder to reoxygenate. The exciting part of our system is those off-gassed CO2 can be ventilated to our greenhouses for our plants to capture (something we will be doing this year)
What are the results and why do you feel this is the future for better and healthier yields?
The challenge with aquaponics is balance. Its going to take a lot more studies & trial and error to find the right balance of nutrients and volumes to make this work truly harmoniously.
What has been up to this moment your proudest moment in hemp and cannabis?
Even though i'm have a chief cultivator, I don't think anyone forgets the first harvest. seeing the results after a season of growing, overcoming those first year hurdles... walking through the fields and greenhouses and smelling the crop..first harvest is always memorable and a proud moment
Eddie Choi
How did you and John meet? What drew the both of you together to build new businesses together?
I met John in college. I went back to my hometown Hong Kong right after college and earned most of managerial skills there. In 2004 I came back to the States for good and reconnected with John. Since then we had worked on several projects together. Hemp started catching our attention in 2018 and after some serious considerations we decided to take advantage of John's RAS fish farm and grow hemp using fish effluent - a true sustainable farming.
Tells us about Hudson Valley Fisheries and why by using your products we will get better yields?
HVFF is North America's largest land-based RAS raising steelhead trout from eyes to fish. Effluent from our closed-containment system is treated and used to water our plants. Our fish compost, which is packed with cannabis plants's desired nutrients, are mixed with our organic soil base to make our grow medium. COA results show a consistent 15 to 20% jump in overall cannabinoid and terpene than just using regular grow medium.
What goes through your mind when you step into one of your greenhouses?
Our two freestanding 80,000 sqft greenhouses were already there when we acquired the property in 2014. They were built for raising fish and were quite dilapidated - missing roof panels, crooked support beams, abandoned plastic blue fish tanks, trenches filled with fish waste, you name it......It took us a good 4 years to gradually clean and upgraded and retrofitted one of them into a fully functional greenhouse - cooling walls, ventilation fans, drip irrigation system and artificial grow lightings, you name it. Lot of time and effort and of course money. I'm very proud we've come this far and every time I walk in there I can't help being oversentimental.
If you could name a new strain what would you name it? And would it be sativa, hybrid or indica?
I would surely name it New York Steelhead, it would be a hybrid. Again we recycle our fish water to water our plants, and add our fish compost to our soil mix.
What was the moment that the cannabis and hemp industry took your breath away?
When we were awarded the adult-use cannabis conditional cultivator license in April.
What has been up to this moment your proudest moment in hemp and cannabis?
We won the runner up of the 2020 Flower City "Harvest Cup", also awarded the "Best Look" and "Best Resin", and in 2021 "Harvest Cup" we were awarded the "Best Taste".
Links:
Eddie Choi and John Ng