Economics of aquaponics

The future

There is a prediction that within 20 years 80% of our seafood (including fresh water species) will come from farms! So, perhaps it is time to start farming!

Any fool cangrow stuff but few can sell it

The key to making money is MARKETING. Do you have a VERY good handle on:

• What specific products are you are going to grow?
• Who is going to buy it and at what price?
• Who is your competition?
• What is your yield/sq ft?
• What are your costs?
• Have you built in any contingencies to your numbers?

Some advice from Joel Salatin's book "You Can Farm"

Avoid debt as much as possible. His animals do the cultivation and fertilization. He avoids what he calls "things that rust". For example try to recycle the fish/plant waste into heat, food for bluegill, and fertilizer for other crops....This is in line with how he uses natural systems to his advantage.
Build relationships with your customers. Get them out to see what you are doing, create interest, etc. Educate, educate, educate....he lectures, he writes, he has school kids out to the farm...he constantly promotes alternative farming. Free labor using college kids as interns, home school kids (his favorites...they haven't been conditioned by the system). Use creative marketing methods (hope this doesn't strike a nerve with some but he is a very lateral thinker...LOL). Biggie here...start small within your means and grow upon that foundation. He spoke of operations starting in backyards ...he encourages urban agriculture. Don't stretch yourself too thin starting out.

Ideal setup.

pond and greenhouse operation with multiple tanks feeding multiple plant trays for both fish and veggie or flower production wholesale operation for live fish sales
wholesale operation for plant sales (both veggies and flowers) integrated fish mongering operation (cut, gut, fillet, chill, freeze) integrated plant operation (non-retailable vegetables turned into sauces, etc)
retail operation for veggies and products from item 5, above. marketing operation to support all the prior stuff.

Realistic setup

greenhouse operation with multiple tanks feeding multiple plant trays for both fish and veggie or flower production fish sales (live and fillets)
plant sales (both veggies and flowers)
family consumption
roadside fruit-stand
marketing when having time to breathe

Now, that we have all this laid out. The assumptions can begin.

Start small and simple

In my front room are 2 big aquariums a 130 and a 90 gal. that I keep my breeder Tilapia in with a showy strain of bullhead catfish ,Pacu,Oscar,different mussels and ornamental tropicals this is a self contained aquaponic system with NFT gutters running all the time .At a glance I spot any problems because I know the system better than the back of my hand.This is the way every one should start with Aquaponics up close in your face and painless when you become ok with the fish then expand to a green house but not until then or your losses can be sorta heavy by the time you notice a problem

Some rules of thumb

Keep the capital costs minimal

First I advise that you keep the capital cost of the tanks, greenhouse, grow beds, pumps, etc. minimal so that initial investment and any debt service is minimized. Duct tape, bailing wire, salvage materials, sweat equity....integrating thermal mass and solar into the system...multiple resource use.....you get the idea...

Gross revenue $10 per square foot

For planning purposes, you could use this general rule of thumb for income: A 2000 squarefeet=186 squaremeter greenhouse, which includes walkway aisles and tank
footprint space could bring $20,000 a year gross receipts in fish and/or plant sales. So, $10 per square foot per year, roughly. Please, don't even ask me about ratios of fish and plants and cost per pound of anything. I won't go there right now. These are fairly conservative, run of the mill estimates on what prices you can get, though...whether it's run of the mill tomatoes, or herbs, or salad greens, or fish..

Costs $5 - 8 per square foot

For planning purposes, you could use this general rule of thumb for cost of production of everything that comes out of the greenhouse (this does not include debt service):
Half of what your gross receipts are. So if your gross receipts are $20,000, you might set your goal of cost of production at $10,000. If your labor or energy costs are high, the cost of production can be closer to 75% of your gross receipts, and that is why DESIGN and OPERATION finess is critical.

Fish economics summer 2001

Bob sold live fish at $1.70/lb. Production cost of fish (not including start up cost) was about $.70/lb. So "profit" was $1/lb. It took 10 month to produce fish (tilapia) at a size of about 1.0 - 1.5 lbs each.

Basil economics summer 2001

Bob sold basil at $3.00/lb with a production cost of about $1.10/lb so, "profit" on basil was $1.90/lb

Two bugaboos to be aware of with above numbers

• Be sure to deduct some amount for labor...you should always be able to pay yourself at least what it would cost to hire somebody to do the day to day work. Think what might happen if you: a. got hepatitis, b. broke your arm. Both can happen, I can presonally vouch for it, and your business is at a dead stop if you don't have the ability to hire a back-up. If the business is not at least at break-even under these conditions you probably don't want to do it for the long haul. Short-term, start-up times are different, but be sure to include this in your planning.
• Beware of assuming that if one 2000 sq ft GH can produce 20,000 then 6000 sq ft can produce 60,000...there are critical points where youneed to add more management and infrastructure and you will wind up making less than you would with a small operation.

Aquanic.org

The Aquaculture Network Information Center is a gateway to the world's electronic aquaculture resources. AquaNIC is coordinated by the Mississippi-Alabama Sea Grant Consortium, and hosted by Purdue University and the University of Illinois through the Illinois-Indiana Sea Grant College Program. Try the links below! There is a lot to learn! http://aquanic.org/publicat/usda_rac/efs/nrac.htm
http://aquanic.org/publicat/usda_rac/efs/ctsa.htm
http://aquanic.org/publicat/usda_rac/efs/ncrac.htm