Comment

Comment by Dave Pennington on January 15, 2011 at 8:46am

$2/lb for whole frozen tilapia (from China) is like paying $4-6/lb for poor quality fish fillets, plus YOU have to fillet them and dispose of the waste (1/2-2/3 of the fish). That's not a really good deal.

Comment by Sylvia Bernstein on January 14, 2011 at 1:47pm

Just had a comment on my blog about Organic certification that you guys might find interesting

"Having grown ‘third party certified’ organic vegetables for some twenty years we found the certification part very top heavy with paperwork and expense.

A local group of growers have commenced a small grower certification system called Certified Naturally Farmed. It’s for local small organic or biodynamic growers selling their FRESH produce to local consumers. Have a look at it on the web and see what you think. We are currently setting up an aquaponics system and will document the process from start to getting it going.

It would be easy to include Aquaponics in the Certified Naturally Farmed project after sorting out a few standards required to make sure the aquaponic vegetables really are clean and so called ‘chemical free’"

The guy's name is Geoff Simmons, and I invited him to join us here.  Let's see...

Comment by David Hart on January 4, 2011 at 10:17am

Hi, I recieved this in an email from my local extension office....hope someone can take advatage of it.....

 

Attention organic producers:

The National Institute of Food and Agriculture (NIFA) is pleased to announce the release of the FY 2011 Request for Applications (RFA) for the Organic Agriculture Research and Extension Initiative (OREI).  The OREI seeks to solve critical organic agriculture issues, priorities, or problems through the integration of research and extension activities. The purpose of this program is to fund projects that will enhance the ability of producers and processors who have already adopted organic standards to grow and market high quality organic agricultural products.

 

Deadline:  Applications must be received by Grants.gov by 5 p.m. Eastern Time on Thursday, February 10, 2011.

 

Funding Opportunity Number:  USDA-NIFA-ICGP-003388

 

NIFA Funding Opportunity Page: 

www.nifa.usda.gov/fo/fundview.cfm?fonum=2120  This page includes links to the request for applications (RFA), the NIFA Grants.gov Application Guide, the application package, and abstracts of funded projects. 

 

Grants.gov Synopsis Page:

http://www07.grants.gov/search/search.do;jsessionid=JTjyM1hXK2KsKGpLJ0LKRv2dN8mWQvtv3zPpwG0shpsF85n5nWyy!1487006757?oppId=58918&mode=VIEW

This page includes a synopsis of the funding opportunity, a link to the full announcement (RFA) and the application package.

 

Grants.gov Application Package:

http://apply07.grants.gov/apply/GetGrantFromFedgrants;jsessionid=WmcJM1fbd846ylnWhQw0PgBR7JZd31svstBQ8dCwxRVhvB5nhcyv!-243159580?opportunity=USDA-NIFA-ICGP-003388&agencycode=USDA-NIFA

This page links to the application instructions and the application package.

 

If you have questions regarding the RFA, please contact: Dr. Mary Peet, mpeet@nifa.usda.gov or (202) 401-4202. 

 

If you have any questions related to Grants.gov content, contact the Grants.gov Contact Center: 

Email:  support@grants.gov, Phone: Toll Free: 1-800-518-4726, 24 hour support, excluding Federal holidays. 

 

Useful Links:

NIFA Grant Application Information: www.nifa.usda.gov/funding/application_info.html;

Grants.gov Help:  www.grants.gov/help/help.jsp

Comment by Sylvia Bernstein on December 31, 2010 at 8:52am

This group might find the recent blog post by Douglas Becker about competition in commercial aquaponics interesting.  Go to Blogs in the tabs above to read

Comment by Sylvia Bernstein on December 29, 2010 at 5:06pm

Saw this message on the S&S list-serv.  Just in case anyone is considering producing in St. Louis, MO...

 

From: andyrdls@earthlink.net
Date: Mon, 29 Nov 2010 18:36:57 -0600
Subject: tilapia

I distribute locally produced food products to St. Louis area chefs.
I have people interested in locally produced tilapia. I wonder if you have restaurant quality product to sell.  

- "Eat Here Andy" Ayers
Eat Here St. Louis, LLC

Comment by David Hart on December 23, 2010 at 10:19am

Here is another twist on comparing ways to raise fish.....wish I could remember where I read this.(?) I thought I had saved it...?

Anyway, what I read was talking about... in a certain country, that raises a lot of fish. They 'specialize' in each area of the fish's growth.

One farm/family may just breed fry, another grows out the fry to small fingerlings, another raises the small to larger fingerlings, then another may specialize in grow out to adults. Of course there are others that just take care of transferring the stock and also the final sales.

The article pointed out, that since they were so specialized at what each did...they could do it better/cheaper then trying to do the whole operation.

If I find it again..I'll post it

Comment by Daniel E Murphy on December 23, 2010 at 9:49am

I see many similarities between pond in pond systems and aquaponics.  I would almost be willing to call it aquaponics.

Comment by TCLynx on December 23, 2010 at 8:06am

Well extensive pond systems don't necessarily loose water or at least don't necessarily need to replace water through a growing season.

 

Extensive pond system don't need expensive water filtration.

 

Extensive pond systems may not even need to buy fish food if they are using algae bloom culture to feed the tilapia (and they might even get the fertilizer to cause the algae blooms for free from animal manure.)  So they might not spend any money on food in the first place.

 

Extensive pond systems might not use any electricity at all and their only labor costs might be monitoring the algae bloom and then harvesting the fish.

Comment by Daniel E Murphy on December 23, 2010 at 6:00am

Yes cheaper:

1) because we dont lose water

2) we dont neeed expensive water filtration

3) we can grow fish food in same system

 

Comment by TCLynx on December 22, 2010 at 8:11pm

I don't know that aquaponics will necessarily produce fish "cheaper" than an extensive pond culture system.  Most Aquaponics operations are just happy if the fish bring in enough money to cover the costs of the fish feed.  And then they make their money from the veggies.  Think of it this way, it's kinda like an aquaponics system that pays for it's own nutrient solutions.

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