Inland Fisheries
Tchwrtmcf
see, here in the midwest there is a plethora of small, underfished farm ponds
and lakes. My thought was: Set up a small business whereby a roving crew nets
out these ponds for commercial-sized fish- primarily bass and bluegill- and
grinding up the smaller fish for fishmeal. The owners of the ponds and lakes
could be paid either by surface area fished or weight of fish- surface area
would be needed in ohio, due to legal restrictions on the sale of game fish.
The commercial-sized fish could then be shipped to niche markets on the coast,
for a change from ocean caught fish.
Granted, given the numbers available, this would be more of a novelty item than
a steady food source, but bluegill are supposed to be one of the finest eating
fish, crappy, bass and catfish are also supposed to be good, and freshwater
drum and carp are desirable in certain markets as well. Perhaps a live catch
could be fed and fattened up on the fish meal generated by the smaller fish. By
turning farm ponds and local lakes into revenue sources, this would encourage
farmers and locals to take care of their local water resources.
Whaddya think?
CAVM
problems with the manpower, equipment and the place to get them all processed,
not to mention marketing.
But, what the heck, give it a try on a small scale and see what happens.
TimeRanger
Personally, it sounds like a legal and logistical nightmare to me.
You would be dealing with the F&G people in each state, the FDA, the
DOT, and the local pond owners. The biggest problem would probably
be the Food & Drug Admin.- They seem to like processing facilities to
be sort of stationary so that they can inspect them. Add in the State
Health Depts. wherever you plan to operate. Transportation: Unless
you figure on using FedEx or UPS to get your product to market, you
will have to have a self-contained life support system aboard a truck.
Neither FedEx nor UPS will insure perishables such as fish and you
will need to have a HazMat account to use dry ice. I could go on here
but I think I have started to make a point. I believe that if these
land/pond owners were actually interested in having their stocks
harvested, they could simply open the waters to the public - even on a
limited basis.
--
"Our eyes and hands and feet will give us the same assistance in doing
mischief as in doing good; but it would not therefore be better for the
world, that all mankind were blind and lame. Arms are not to be laid
aside by honest men, because carried by assassins and ruffians; they are
to be used the rather for this very reason."
-George Campbell
Bill Atkins
http://www.aquaculture.com
It may give you some food for thought.
Bill
"Tchwrtmcf" <tchw...@aol.com> wrote in message
news:20001208225853...@ng-fs1.aol.com...
Tchwrtmcf
>You would be dealing with the F&G people in each state,
delivered to
the FDA, the DOT, and the local pond owners. The biggest problem would
probably be the Food & Drug Admin.- They seem to like processing facilities to
>be sort of stationary so that they can inspect them.
location where the fish would be gathered- as you might have realized if you
were really thinking over the idea rather than mindlessly tearing it down. By
your logic, no commercial fishing would be possible at all
Add in the StateHealth Depts. wherever you plan to operate
What, like every other farmer who raises stock for market? Of course, moron.
. Transportation: Unless
>you figure on using FedEx or UPS to get your product to market, you
>will have to have a self-contained life support system aboard a truck.
into ANY major grocery store. Of course, maybe you live in a place where there
aren't any such stores- judging from the ignorance implicit in your critique, I
wouldn't be surprised. The live catch would be transported to the central
processing location in a truck holding aerated water tanks. I didn't explicitly
state this because I thought anyone with two working brain cells could figure
that out. I didn't take into account that there are single-living-brain-celled
individuals like yourself around here.
>Neither FedEx nor UPS will insure perishables such as fish and you
>will need to have a HazMat account to use dry ice. I could go on here
>but I think I have started to make a point.
who is incapable of coming up with ANY original ideas of your own, and
compensates for your well-deserved sense of inferiority by slamming anyone who
DOES try to come up with an original idea.
I believe that if these
>land/pond owners were actually interested in having their stocks
>harvested, they could simply open the waters to the public - even on a
>limited basis.
trying to attract anglers to an unstocked pond, and accepting, say, $50 per
half acre to let a farm pond be netted out, this, like your other critiques, is
useful only as an example of ignorance and negativity.
brett rowley
tchw...@aol.com (Tchwrtmcf) wrote:
Not really a new idea. Been going on for centuries, raising fish in ponds and selling them to people to eat.
However, many problems and fallacies associated with this version. First, most of these ponds and lakes cost way more to
build and stock than the fish can be sold for in a market. Next, most of the species you mention are regulated as "non
food" species and not legal to sell in most states, no matter where or how they were produced. Largemouth bass, bluegill,
and crappy are not legal for sale in Texas as food items. (period) Also, these species are very difficult to handle alive.
That and the fact thier value as "live fisheries resources" far exceeds the value as food items. (eg.) Largemouth bass to
stock more ponds are selling for $11/pound in Texas.
OTOH, been many years, but I worked on a project for low income farmers wherein they stocked ponds with catfish or other
foodfish species, set up a central processing point, bought a delivery truck and harvesting gear, and formed a "cooperative
fish project". Each week a different farm pond was harvested, the fish processed, advertised locally, and sold. It worked
very well for several years until "big catfish" became well established in the South and the prices fell to around $0.65 per
pound. At that rate, small farmers could no longer compete as production costs were closer to $1 per pound.
The other problem is that most farm ponds and lakes have too many underwater obstacles to make harvesting practacle.
NOw, it might be possible to harvest such ponds and sell the fish to stock other ponds. It would require a huge amount of
equipment, a fish holding facility, well trained fish hatchery workers to handle the fish and keep them alive, a marketing
specialist, and a "land man" to find the fish to harvest. Costs to set up such an operation would be on the order of
constructing a fish hatchery.
Why, indeed, would I know all this????? Might be because it is something I've been doing for the last 20 or so years.
Brett Rowley
Fisheries Biologist
Brett's Fish Farm
Liverpool, TX
www.brettsfishfarm.com
C. Drues
.
>
> OTOH, been many years, but I worked on a project for low income farmers wherein they stocked ponds with catfish or other
> foodfish species, set up a central processing point, bought a delivery truck and harvesting gear, and formed a "cooperative
> fish project". Each week a different farm pond was harvested, the fish processed, advertised locally, and sold. It worked
> very well for several years until "big catfish" became well established in the South and the prices fell to around $0.65 per
> pound. At that rate, small farmers could no longer compete as production costs were closer to $1 per pound.
>
I am a bit unclear over the above passage.
I think what I hear you saying is that once the marketing niche your
co-op was selling to became established that the price fell to .65/lb.
from somewhere above $1.00/lb.
Was that because southern concerns had comparative advantage due to
more efficient feed conversion, faster growth etc.?
Or something else? What has been the historical price of catfish when
harvested in the wild if ever. I am generally unaquainted with catfish
fisheries but imagine there was a market for catfish prefishfarming.
> Why, indeed, would I know all this????? Might be because it is something I've been doing for the last 20 or so years.
In the last 20 years what commercial aquaculture fisheries have
succeeded the best over the long haul. How did the production costs and
wholesale prices differ as production ramped up etc.?
Charlie
CAVM
>wherein they stocked ponds with catfish or other
>> foodfish species, set up a central processing point, bought a delivery
>truck and harvesting gear, and formed a "cooperative
>> fish project". Each week a different farm pond was harvested, the fish
>processed, advertised locally, and sold. It worked
>> very well for several years until "big catfish" became well established in
>the South and the prices fell to around $0.65 per
>> pound. At that rate, small farmers could no longer compete as production
>costs were closer to $1 per pound.
This sounds like an idea who maybe worth revisiting. There are plenty of co-op
movements around and lots of folks trying to find replacement crops, like for
tobacco.
Cornelius A. Van Milligen
Iowa Protein Inc
SeafoodAdv
fish in your pond for "u-fish" operations. It is similar to the concept of
u-pick fruits. You stock and grow your fish in your private pond(s) or lake(s)
and charge for admission(fishing licenses not required in this case). Some
places are already doing this in the U. S. and charging the customers for
caught fishes by the pound.
The customers are happy for the experience and fresh fish; you are happy with
"less" work and profit. It is a conceptual and there are certainly other things
to consider for overheads(amenities, johns, baits, rent a tackle, etc). But it
is much less hassle than harvesting, processing, and marketing freshwater
fishes. The customer does most of the work in this case for harvesting the
fishes.
Contact your local USDA extension for more info.
Hope this helps,
Good Luck.
Walter Rhee
brett rowley
"C. Drues" <wa...@harbornet.com> wrote:
>brett rowley wrote:
>..
The price fell with the onset of "big catfish" in Mississippi, Arkansas, and Louisiana. Hundreds of thousands of acres of
production, gigantic co-ops owning production, feed mills, and processing, copoeratively bargaining pricing, both for profit
and to keep other producers from coming online. Small producers find it difficult to compete with cheap catfish in the
grocery stores, shipped in from the big producing areas. The result was the demise of the small coop which could no longer
compete on price.
At the same time, regulatory agencies in Texas became unfriendly to fish producers here and made it that much more difficult
to keep production costs down.
The sad result is that most of the fish produced and processed in Mississippi are sold in Texas. Just a model of the entire
country, though. Cheap imports, produced in places without regulatory restrictions continue to outcompete domestic
production on price, if not quality.
I do know of several small catfish and tilapia farms in Texas servicing niche markets, usually live fish, hand delivered to
ethnic based markets. Along the lines of "20 pounds of live fish per store", delivered to 15 stores in order to sell 300
pounds of fish per delivery route. Hard way to make a buck.
The catfish fishery has grown fast in the last 20 years, but the infrastructure that allowed it to happen is not as easy to
duplicate in Texas. Large farms, already owned in whole by the farmer, improved by building ponds which are easily financed
on land, as muahc as 10,000 or more acres per owner, going into production and then processing owned by the producers. Same
with feed mills. Producer owned.
That model just doesn't quite fit the Texas situation. Add the regulatory problems and you got very little catfish being
produced here.
Other species have been marginally more successful. I know of one large striped bass farm, several redfish farms, and many
shrimp farms in Texas. Big difference is the selling price, with striped bass and redfish selling wholesale closer to $3
per pound vs. $0.65 for catfish. Same with shrimps.
The more difficult a species is to work with, the easier to compete as others will have the same or more troubles as you.
If you can stay a few steps ahead of the crowd, then you might do OK. The catfish crowd is already so far out of sight as
to be almost impossible to catch uip with. Hence my working nowadays with high grade Japanese koi, many selling for around
$500 per pound (upwards of $2000 per fish). I went to Japan for stock and technology, studied hard under masters for ten
years, and began production. My niche (if you will) is for koi that other domestic producers do not understand how to
produce and that cost 3 to 10 times as much if imported from Japan (freight and currency exchange).
Brett
brett rowley
ca...@aol.com (CAVM) wrote:
I've been working with a high school in Tennessee on that very issue. They have a $300,000 Federally funded, indoor fish
farm. They raise tilapia and koi. However, anybody that thinks raising fish will ever replace tobacco as a cash crop is not
realistic in their worldview. Fish farming is marginally profitable at best, difficult, expensive to set up and very, very
risky.
Brett
C. Drues
I think I got the picture about the southern catfish industry. Your
personal niche appears to have fatter margins than .65 catfish. What
kind of volume can your market handle?
Is there any wild catfishery? If so do they compete at the same pricing
level?
Thanks
Charlie
brett rowley
"C. Drues" <wa...@harbornet.com> wrote:
>Brett,
>I think I got the picture about the southern catfish industry. Your
>personal niche appears to have fatter margins than .65 catfish. What
>kind of volume can your market handle?
Wish I could sell a dozen fish for $2000 each a month. Unfortunately that is not the case. In reality, I sell a lot of fish
for $2 each and precious few for $2000 each. Almost enough of a market there to make a profit, next year for sure. Oh, I
said that last year, and the year before, and the one before that? Guess I did. But this one's the one or else. Those two
most ugly words in the English Language....real job. Or was that...chemical plant...or....office building...or...
>
>Is there any wild catfishery? If so do they compete at the same pricing
>level?
There is a wild caught fishery for catfish. Some of it is legal, mostly illegal. Depending on many factors, wild caught
catfish will sell for more or less than farmed ones. In most cases, for less. In the case of some species that are not legal
for trade, for more.
Brett
> Thanks
> Charlie