Can We Make Commercial Aquaponics Work?

No Question - Aquaponics is the Future of Food!

Key issue -  Before aquaponics can take its place as a viable alternative to bland, empty corporate food, it must be able to secure substantive funding.  How do we get the investment needed to make this happen?   The Agribiz folks won't do it.  Why should they?  This goes against their "better living through chemistry .." model of massive fertilizer and pesticide application.  Why? Because they sell fertilizer and pesticides ... duhhhh!   It just ain't down their alley.  We have few successful examples of profitable aquaponics.  One reason is because of the boutique nature of the business at present.

Most aquaponic farms are demonstration and training facilities run by talented tinkerers, or a social entrepreneur.  Also, many farms exit on subsidies, grants, and/or are being deficit funded by the owner.  Aquaponics funding at the professional investor level is critical to solving the commercial business model.

Amy Crawford an Aquaponics Farmer from Northern California speaking at the 8th Annual Engineering Conference on Aquaculture,  Amy made the following address.   This highlights just how important professional funding is to the future success of this most promising technology.

An Interesting Challenge for Aquaponics
The majority of funding, of course, comes from the “industrial” corporations at the university research centers. Think CAFO … ie confined animal feeding operations… feed lots (cattle, hog, chicken, etc) that can maximize profits on the ...
Publish Date: 08/29/2010 18:14
http://theaquaponicsource.com/aquaponicgardeningblog/2010/08/29/an-interesting-challenge-for-aquaponics/


What our community needs is a well funded Aquaponics driven business model.

•  A dedicated, investor funded, stock corporation with a significant profit motive in addition to a social purpose.  
• ... a professional management team with modern process manufacturing and agricultural engineering abilities.  
• Aquaponics also needs to be optimized as a healthy, food production and distribution model!

A National Business Model and Roll Out Plan

The Family Fish Farm Network has an evolved, well thought out business model.  We can all participate.  Let's put our knowledge and experience together.  It is the only way we can overcome the combined interests of Agribiz and not permit this technology to be turned to no good purpose.  Join us here and help work towards a common goal. Go to our website: www.thefamilyfishfarmsnetwork.com and join our team.  Then sign-in link is  at the bottom of the site.  

As Peter Drucker, the father of American management once said, "... if you want to control the future, help participate in its design."

FFF Team Meets with City Council Staff in DC

Strategic Program Support for City Government

Today a team from MicroVenture Support and our Family Fish Farms Network met with Mr. Mark Long, Director of Constituent Services for Councilman at Large Vincent Orange.  This was our first meeting as a team.  I have known Mr. Long from other community activities and the mayoral campaign here in the city.  Present at the meeting:  J. Peloquin, L. Yahr, R. Tarrant, and Rob Ramson.  Mr. Tarrant is a former program officer at Covenant House (when our mayor was its executive director) and Mr. Ramson is a local businessman and community development advocate.

Public Private Sector Enterprise - NEW Green Jobs

The meeting was a great success in that Mr. Long (a former investment banker) really understood The Family Fish Farm Network model for bringing decent green jobs and economic prosperity to our communities.  This is a first step in engaging the city as an active supporter of our community economic development strategy:  The Family Fish Farms Network. We will advise as contacts and discussions continue.

Social Media Grows Fish

We have been active on Linkedin on our Family Fish Farms Group and others as well.  I am beginning to see more and more interest.  One of my recent contacts, a builder of trash stream recycling systems is working on an aquaponics development proposal at the request of a nearby mayor.  We are to draft an engineering specification and feasibility study in support of the eventual award and to build out the system as well.  I will advise as more details become available ... that is if this actually matures into a real project.

We also continue to blog and refine our social media strategy.  We are still limited by resources and skill but we will persavere and solve the minor issues that exist.  As you can tell we are making real progress.

A Repost from Linkedin's "Aquaponics Sustainable Farming Forum"

Commercial Aquaponics Needs a National Voice


When it comes to food production, even the largest scale aquaponics farms are lightweights compared to the Agribiz giants. If we are to have a real voice at the table we need two things. A national commercial success and a vocal, well funded advocacy effort here in Washington.

The good news is that we have logic on our side. All the primal indicators are with us. ... most of which are economic. We are also a triple bottom line business: Economically Viable, Environmentally Sound, and Socially Responsible. We have a fledgling national organization (it supports both Aquaponics and the more traditional Hydroponics) the organization is called: The Recirculating Farms Coalition. (www.recirculatingfarms.org) Marianne Cufon is the Exec. Dir.

We believe in small ... we believe in commercial. Our preference is for a distributive system of aquaponics micro farms all commercial and branded under a single name. The is what we intend The Family Fish Farms Network to achieve. We do NOT feel competitive with anyone and will open our minds and resources to anyone who wishes to pursue this most elegant and logical solution to a number of societal problems.  The list of benefits runs down the left hand side of this blog.  Read 'em and Cheer!

Vote for Investment in Aquaponics

White House Petition Initiative  Go to: http://wh.gov/4uO 
 PLEASE send this link out to your networks ...PLEASE!

We just launched a petition on the  white house web site asking for favorable tax incentives for investment in aquaponics systems to offset the cost of pollution, the carbon cost of food and as Marianne Cufone just published on the Recirculating Farms Coalition facebook page ...

U.S. PIRG put out a piece on childhood obesity, subsidies and growing commodity crops like soybeans and corn for sweeteners and high-fat oils. "Between 1995 and 2010, $16.9 billion in tax dollars subsidized four common food additives - corn syrup, high fructose corn syrup, corn starch, and soy oils." Would be great if recirc farms got that kind of help from the feds to provide healthy fresh food! http://www.uspirg.org/home/reports/report-archives/tax--budget-policy/tax--budget-policy--reports/apples-to-twinkies

Our Petition could go a long way towards getting the attention of policy wonks in the White House ... well, it might?

Aquaponics Urban Farming - 101

"We plan to develop the business models and operating standards for the next century food production - Aquaponics Farms"

The Family Fish Farms Model
Our company employs aquaponics, a combination of intensive aquaculture and hydroponics to grow different varieties of seafood and vegetables.  Our business model includes distributive production with small local operating units. In consumer terms this means a wide choice of fresh local food options in both vegetables and seafood.   The resulting diversity in product mix gives us the flexibility to be responsive to local and regional consumer demand.

Aquaponics works like this
The technology is at least 500 years old.  It uses natural processes to brow both high quality protein (seafood and fish) as well as organic quality vegetables in a closed loop system.  The fish effluent is filtered and bio digested to permit only the nutrients to flow into the  plant growing subsystem (see graphic)  The fish are kept happy in clean clear water that is exchanged every three  hours.  Fish are sized to eliminate competition for food and the water is oxygenated and carbon dioxide removed.  Fish are also fed with organic vegetable based protein to eliminate contamination.

MSNBC Green Planet with Brian Williams explains how Aquaponics can solve the twin problems of feedign a growing population while treading lightly on the environment.   Ann Thompson interviews a subsidized aquaponics site that also provides training for young people who will operate and maintain the future growing needs of our planet.

Urban Farms: A Growing Idea!

Food Security?  Urban Farming to the Rescue!
Environmental, Economic, Social, and Nutritional concerns augur well for the mass application of urban farming and we believe that Aquaponics will be the wave that brings Food Security and nutritious local food to cities and towns all over America.  Traditional farming in urban lots will prove a problem.  For example DC's soil is so polluted that present crops must be grown on raised beds. DC is relatively untainted by big heavy industry.  What about the rust belt?   Our model requires no soil, or fertilizer at all.  This piece from The Smart Planet Blog makes the point, that using urban agriculture cities could become self sufficient, without reliance on Agribiz or commercial fertilizer.

Could cities rely 100% on urban agriculture for their food ...
A recent study finds that cities could use vacant lots, rooftops, and backyards for urban agriculture to become self-reliant in basic food needs.
Publish Date: 09/13/2011 21:38
http://www.smartplanet.com/blog/cities/could-cities-rely-100-on-urban-agriculture-for-their-food/915

Urban Aquaponic Farming:  The ANSWER to Many Problems.
Urban Aquaponic Farming is enormously productive and it produces both protein AND carbohydrates. Our company employs aquaponics, a combination of intensive aquaculture and hydroponics to grow different varieties of seafood and vegetables.  Our business model includes distributive production with small local operating units. In consumer terms this means a wide choice of fresh local food options in both vegetables and seafood.   The resulting diversity in product mix gives us the flexibility to be responsive to local and regional consumer demand


The new mayor of Chicago thinks so and Detroit, and Baltimore, and many, many, others.  It's time to take off the blinders and see that Urban Farming, Aquaponics, and The Family Fish Farm Network can bring new green industry, provide needed jobs, save precious fresh water, cust the cost of food transport, and eliminate farm source pollution.  Let's do this folks ... go to our Facebook page (like and/or subscribe)  We also Twitter @famfishfarms

Emanuel: Turn Eyesores Into Urban Farms « CBS Chicago
Green acres could be sprouting up all over the city of Chicago if Mayor Rahm Emanuel has his way.
Publish Date: 07/26/2011 14:55
http://chicago.cbslocal.com/2011/07/26/emanuel-turn-eyesores-into-urban-farms/

Stay tuned for more on this and watch our website: www.thefamilyfishfarmnetwork.com for more information on this critical development in Urban Agriculture.

Urban Aquaponic Farms - NEW Green Jobs

Will Aquaponics and Urban Farms Yield a Green Job Harvest?

By Charles Redell

Published September 16, 2011

"In addition to Green jobs, The Family Fish Farms Network will generate revenue back to the communities and neighborhoods where it is so desperately needed." - FFF

In the wake of President Obama's jobs speech last week, the national conversation is intently focused on growing jobs -- and particularly green jobs -- in the weak economy.

This week, we saw a new twist on green jobs, and one that promises something of a Holy Grail of sustainability: Creating jobs to grow sustainable food products at an economically viable scale that will be consumed in the local foodshed.

That's the pitch from the Recirculating Farms Coalition (RFC), which launched earlier this week. The group says the type of farms and farming it promotes can achieve those goals and more, including urban job creation.

The coalition is promoting sustainable, closed-loop farms that grow local, fresh food and, it says, create green jobs using clean, recycled water in place of soil. The farms can produce plants, fish, or a combination of both -- a method called aquaponics. In its first year, the group aims to increase public awareness of recirculating farms and their benefits, help develop better technology and approaches for the 30-year old practice and work with policy makers to make it easier for new farms to start operations.

Recirculating farms reuse as much as 99 percent of their own water and recycle organic waste from fish into nutrients for other crops. They are endlessly customizable so can be placed in just about any underused, or otherwise unwanted urban environment, according to the Coalition's executive director Marianne Cufone.

"These farms are scalable," she said, speaking after touring one covering just 1/20th of an acre located behind a strip mall in Orlando, Fla. "I've seen some the size of a desktop growing herbs and goldfish and I've seen ones covering acres and acres."

Bail and mint growing in towers on the rooftop of Bell Book and Candle restaurant in the West Village (Manhattan), New York.

The crops grown on recirculating farms can vary widely. On the small Florida farm she'd just seen, Cufone said lettuce and herbs were being grown alongside Tillapia. Other farms grow produce like tomatoes and eggplants and a variety of higher-end fish stocks. Bail and mint growing in towers on the rooftop of Bell Book and Candle restaurant in the West Village (Manhattan), New York.

Urban farms are taking off across the country. Will Allen, whose Growing Power farm is a model of green urban farming discussed the "good food revolution" on GreenBiz.com in 2009, and Leanne Tobias profiled the rise of urban farming this summer.

One of the biggest hurdles for commercial recirculating farms is permitting. Some jurisdictions view them as labs while others view them as traditional agriculture operations, Cufone says. Neither one fits the bill, so RFC is working to change permitting and to develop a checklist for potential operations to help smooth the permitting and inspection process.

On the federal level, RFC aims to convince elected representatives and government agencies [PDF] that recirculating farms are economically better, safer environmentally and healthier than ocean-based aquaculture.

From a sustainability perspective as well as an economic perspective, advocates of recirculating farms have some strong numbers to back them up.

While Cufone wasn't able to give me an ROI on an aquaponics system, the manufacturer of a home-based aquaponics kit conducted a study [PDF] that found they can pay for themselves in 2.5 years. And taking the raw production numbers from one well established farm, commercial-sized farm shows what kinds of returns might be possible.

The farm, which has been operating at the University of the Virgin Islands (UVI) for the last 20 years, costs $40,000 annually to operate its four fish tanks and six 100-foot vegetable beds. It produces 1,400 cases of leaf lettuce and 11,000 pounds of fish annually. Just using back-of-the-envelope calculations based on food prices at Safeway.com, that's at least $99,000 in retail value of fish (if it's tilapia) and almost $73,000 in lettuce (if it's romaine lettuce, at 18 heads per case).

Financially, a farm like this earns its keep, and environmentally, the story is much the same. The UVI aquaponics farm produces all that food while using just shy of 19,000 gallons of water. One head of lettuce produced there requires about 7.5 gallons of water. On a traditional farm, it would need just shy of 16 gallons to grow, according to RFC.

The job-creation potential of recirculating farms, which RFC is promoting, is a bit muddier. The idea is to "go back to where we once were," Cufone said. "We used to farm and grow food for ourselves and maybe for our neighbors who were good at other things. We're moving back to creating our own jobs."

Photos courtesy of the Recirculating Farms Coaltion.