Traditional Small Scale Aquaponics Cannot be Scaled Up!

If you want to grow some lettuce and tilapia in a small hobby farm and sell a few heads and a few fish - fine!  But do NOT expect to make a profit

All we have seen are failure after failure and still the same myth persists.  New aquaponics systems, small, modular pre engineered NFT systems claiming that simply ganging a hundred or more of these will give you a commercial aquaponics facility. IT IS NOT TRUE!   I don't know about Australia, or South Africa, or even the Caribbean islands but I can tell you with confidence that no commercially successful aquaponics operation exists here in America, nor have there ever been any!

Perfect Hydroponic Tomatos - This is the Model

Why? Anyone with commercial farming experience knows why.  How do they know why?  Because they are not academic researchers, they are professional growers   I have not come to this conclusion lightly.  I preparing to invest 3 million dollars in the creation of a network of automated aquaponics growing units across America.  For the last three years I have been studying, interviewing experts, and comparing existing operations.  I am giving you a synopsis of that work here.

Even though we have repeatedly told the tale on our Commercial Aquaponics Linkedin Group http://www.linkedin.com/groups?gid=4121735&trk=hb_side_g on this group and still ... grower after grower, after grower keeps talking about how they plan to start with a 1,000 sq ft site and scale it up to a commercial venture.  WRONG !   If you want to experiment with the chemistry and reinvent aquaponics one more time, then that's fine.  If you are a researcher in an academic institution and you are doing research into growth issues, or plant ecology, or aquatics, whatever -Fine!

Just don't fool yourself into thinking you can build a small system and scale it up.  You cannot!  It's a bit like making cookies for friends.  The recipe for baking a dozen cookies is totally different, even the equipment used is difference from baking 10,000 cookies.  So it is with commercial aquaponics.  If you are looking for a model to emulate use commercial hydroponics.  Look at the scale, look at the equipment. look at the automation.

You can do hobby, or backyard, or experimental hydroponics but it is not the same thing as commercial scale!  Not at all!

Stevens Point, Murry Hallum, Dr.Racocy, Nelson Pade, Tree Frog ...  No one has been able to make a profit purely from operations in the continental USA. No one has been able to survive more than a few years.  All of the above have turned to seminars/workshops, consulting, and/or equipment sales.  Believe me if they could have made money growing food, they would have continued to do so.

 IF you cannot sell to the large purchasers of greens etc, then you will NOT be profitable.  One more thing!  The Fish are not the profit drivers in aquaponics.  The fish are a fertilizer factory.  Keep the fish alive but focus on the greens!  Lots, and lots, and lots of greens

My advice: Automate to the max, not to save labor costs but to assure, quality dependability, and volume!  It is what we plan to do:  I'll keep you posted on the outcome!  Watch this space and/or visit our blog at: www.familyfishfarms.blogspot.com

20 Oz Oyster Mushroom Grown by Modular Growing Unit

These beautiful delicious and protein rich mushroom was grown using a proprietary system developed by Mike Duncan in Lake-fo-the-Ozarks Missouri.  It was produced in ten days using a modular growing methodology called The High Tech Mushroom Growing System, (HTMGS)

Technology
These wonderful mushrooms and many others can be profitably grown in an affordable modular unit.  The HTMGS employs a monitoring and control system that senses light levels, humidity, PH levels, temperature, air exchange rates.  The system also provides for feedback and self adjust various key elements like, light, temperature, and humidity.  Application of these modern production and food growing methods are creating a revolution in the ability of small farmers to produce a wide range of healthy nutritious mushrooms.   Presently we plan to offer Oysters Mushrooms (several different species)  we can grow almost any of the popular like Bottons, Portabello, Shitake, and Morels among others.

Applications
Mushrooms have a wide range of application other than culinary purposes.  Medical applications include immune system reinforcement, pain alleviation etc.  Another application of these grand single cell organisms is bio remediation.  Certain mushroom species can actually metabolized PCB's and Petroleum products.

Micro Farms:
The key is to become commercially viable, to be able to create and support a sustainable business for the small farm or  urban micro farmer.  In order to do this we are designing a unitized system that will be self-contained and come inclusive with all of the growing elements included.  This will provide all growing units, monitoring systems, HVAC and environmental controls and be fully plug in to local utilities or, alternative power network.

Urban Farming, Food Security, and Mushrooms

The Revolution is here - Who Will Lead?

Look around you ... Farmer's Markets populate the weekend editions of most major newspapers, Local TV highlights new urban farms sprouting from the trash heaps of decaying neighborhoods and dilapidated and abandoned old  industrial sites.   Food is growing everywhere ... community gardens, urban farms, and backyards across America are sprouting with local food!  We applaud and support this effort to bring true food security back to our country.  It is a matter of national defense and certainly homeland security!

Our food supply chain is too long, too vulnerable, and too dependent upon a thin line of overworked and under supported inspectors and enforcement agents.  These hard working folks are forced to rely upon information often supplied by those whose products are, in fact, suspect and whose partiality can not be trusted.   America is too extended and too dependent.   We import too much of our food.  It is dangerous because it can be easily contaminated and wasteful because of the carbon cost of transport and the environmental cost of greenhouse gasses.

The Opportunity and The Need - Our cities are replete with abandoned buildings and large structures of the rust belt era of manufacturing.  Grow  here, Eat Here needs to become the watchword of local food purveyors.  The US Department of Agriculture has a 250 mile radius for qualification as local food.  Every day an ear of corn, or a head of lettuce travels, it loses both taste and nutrition. For example, Did you Know? Fresh peas can lose up to 50 percent of their nutrients within a week of harvesting.  This is true of many vegetables like Broccoli.  Food is often picked before it ripens to extend shelf life.  It also diminishes its nutritional content.  The average head of lettuce travels 1,500 miles from harvest to table.

A Solution: Food Security and Food Sovereignty - We believe it is now necessary for ... we the people, to develop a solution.  The government can barley run itself.  Let's do this ourselves.  We can form A National Network of linked urban farms.  A National Urban Farming Cooperative that assures healthy fresh food available to every American family.  We can assure nutritional reasonably priced food that includes a variety of local harvests with both protein and carbohydrates in a balanced mix of local food products.  Here is an example of what we have and what we can contribute to this solution.

Mushrooms: The Wonder Food! - The trend towards vegetarian and vegan eating habits brings up the old argument of protein and the issue of B12 deficiency ... I'm no dietitian but we have recently been informed about a food that has more protein than some meat and that can be grown virtually without fertilizer, a food that is fast growing and inexpensive to produce with the right technology.   Oyster Mushrooms, for example  have as much or more protein than many so called "meats."  31grams of protein per 100 grams of weight.  Only braised eye-of-round steak has more with a rating of 40.62.  A broiled t-bone steak (porterhouse) 32.11 and baked lean ground beef only 24.47!

We have the technology and are willing to share it with every urban farm that will join in a national network to accomplish the universal American goal of Food Security and Sovereignty

The Huffington Post Nails our Future (and US) to the Wall

"How Climate Change Could Destroy Our Food Supply

OSLO, Aug 15 (Reuters) - Downpours and heatwaves caused by climate change could disrupt food supplies from the fields to the supermarkets, raising the risk of more price spikes such as this year's leap triggered by drought in the United States."  Huffington Post!

Once the Supermarkets are empty ... all the food will be gone, then there will be no more food!  What will we do?   Well, if you have a Family Fish Farms Network  Aquaponic urban micro farm in your neighborhood you will still be able to eat ... That's for Sure!

How to Grow the Network?

Background
In a recent MSNBC Green Planet piece, (see sep't 25th Blog) Sociologist Alphonse Morales noted that Aquaponics was twenty years away from being a practical food growing technology.  This was because of two factors: a lack of effective business models, and an absence of trained personnel.  The Family Fish Farms Network has a practical solution to both of these issues.

Business Model
Through application of a distributive growing strategy that creates many small (micro) farms located in the urban centers where the majority of the population is centered, we can grow food locally.  We can also present a national brand by controlling the marketing, standards, and training thorough a strong central organization.  The urban micro farms will be locally owned and operated but will be marketed centrally.  This will permit farmers to respond with agility to local consumer demand and it will eliminate the need for costly transport, while also eliminating the cost of a jobber or distributor, thus reducing the cost to the consumer.  It will also assure a supply of high quality protein and organic vegetables if there is a national food distribution problem.  In other words if gives control (sovereignty) and confidence (security) that the food will be nutritious, fresh, and available.

Staff Training
We have a proprietary, highly efficient skills training model, that will permit us to provide focused performance based skills training, that will enable us to teach anyone to effectively manage and operate one of our network farms.  Our skills certification program will allow us to provide a generation of competent aquaponic technicians who are capable of running operating any farm in the network.  The Network will also apply sophisticated process control methods to assure quality.  We will also apply technology to simplify and manage daily plant operations.  Our centralized management system will support each urban micro farm through accounting, technical performance, and inventory control.  Central ordering and national network operations through cloud (internet) connectivity will be a universal constant.

Creation of The Global Family Fish Farms Network

We have launched a global movement to establish aquaponics as a means to local food security and food sovereignty.  Today at 12:00 PM (Noon, EST) we will host our first international conference call to that end.

We have established a Linkedin Group named:  Commercial Aquponics.  If you have an interest in starting or supporting a commercial aquaponics food production program, then this is where you should be.  The group has some 50 or so members and it was only started a month of so ago.  This is a further indicator of the level of interest in Aquaponics in general and the larger issues of healthy food production and environmental husbandry.

What We Intend to Accomplish?
Background - Although some well run aquaponics operations exist both here and in other countries, the technology is not well known and reliable technical information necessary to run a commercial aquaponics operation is still not codified.  Understand that we neither refer to boutique operations that are dependent upon grants and philanthropy, nor do we include large scale factory operations.  The Family Fish Farms Network supports and advocates a distributive network of urban, peri urban, and rural micro aquaponic farms that are highly efficient and optimized for local food production.

Vision - It is our inention to create a framework, or network of highly efficient aquaponics micro farms.and in addition  to foster, support, and invest in those who share our vision.   The internet provides a common communications vehicle with which to establish such a network.  Our Linkedin Group has given us the sense of need and purpose necessary to this task.

Inception - We will start by building a common sense of purpose, sharing technology, and business models and then by group sourcing a funding mechanism.  We intend to do this In close association with The Recirculating Farms Coalition www.recirculatingfarms.organd as a member of that organization.  The specific details of the network are yet to be defined but the need is clear and the will obviously exists.  This is the first such conference call.  There will be others and we are also planning a Webinar to further share our model and vision.