Where is all this going?

[Kobus Jooste]

Well, trying to sneak back in here after a self imposed sabbatical and just quietly seeing what is going on has been nullified by a front page welcome.  So there, now what?  Well, perhaps I can throw the thoughts that have been floating in my head at all 800 puzzled people waiting for the man from an unknown town in the only place in the Southern Hemisphere where it is NOT raining to say something riveting. 

 

Well there is not much fun stuff over here right now.  Sorry.  After giving two years of my time and a lot of money to aquaponics, I had to reach an angry conclusion late last year that either I am missing something or the rest of my country is.  In a place with very little urban food production, poor nutrition in large sections of the population and a serious shortage of good agricultural land and water, the scientist in me immediately thought that aquaponics is not such a bad idea.  Maybe even a good idea worth convincing other people to try. Oh well.  Two years later and I was facing an interesting reality.  This country is very likely very, very far away from caring about sustainability, nutritious food, our water crisis or any other selling point that seem to work well on people all over the world. The kind folk in public office put in charge of funds earmarked for such type of things were not moved.  The ones that did not fall asleep at the mention of how it works that is. I never wanted to take aquaponics to home unit mode here.  That is possible, but the kind of people in need of the produce I had in mind, or that could derive an income from it, are not the kind of people that you would sell one of those to.  I was looking at larger commercial operations from a community development angle.  In my part of the world, there is not a massive market for home units, and thus targeting that as a sole objective will never cut it.  A rather acerbic financial wizard family member of mine with a knack for saying the right thing in the most uncaring manner possible looked at me and bluntly stated that the market out here will not give a stuff about the goodness of a cucumber, the sustainability of the farm it came from or the neat way in which it was grown.  They will ask how much it costs.  Not much else.  All this was very annoying to a scientist, but I heeded his instructions to look critically at how I try to market myself or my product.  He also mentioned something about the cutting edge versus the bleeding edge of technology, and mused that I am likely to far ahead of the rest of the pack down here in terms of how I view a cucumber.  Bleeding edge is not good.  Not when Plan B got left behind in 2009 somewhere and the broken stuff around the house is getting numerous.

 

So between the cobras, the drought, the stock thieves and the elderly people having strokes we tried to have a Christmas and I tried to work out how on earth to market aquaponics here, if at all.  The sad conclusion for me is that I do not think it is worth marketing here right now.  Organic markets, farmer's markets or any other place to buy locally produced vegetables does not really exist.  Urban agriculture does not exist.  Aquaculture does not exist.  Most people are focused on budget, and the rest, is history.  I do not think that this scenario is peculiar to South Africa, but I was wondering what the thoughts of others may be on the topic.  How do you market aquaponics in an arena where none of the obvious selling points seem to mean anything?  If you take away sustainability, produce quality and all natural from the marketing language, what would you say?  Well, all you can say is what it costs, and how much of it you can deliver.  Am I missing a key marketing point here?  According to the aforementioned financial wizard, people are all about convenience, and toiling 40 days for a cucumber from their back garden just does not make sense if he or she calculates his or her hourly worth and looks at the price of a cucumber.  Never mind that the ones in the shop tastes like nothing.  A great tasting cucumber is not worth the toil of a home system to too many people, and in a country with a small potential customer base, this is a serious consideration. 

 

I was left with this one publishable thought.  The typical customer, according to The Man, should therefore be health conscious, environmentally aware, have enough space available and heaps time on their hands.  Alternatively you play the convenience card like a mad man to the people that were all of the above except in possession of ample space and/or time.  Just one snag.  According to players from the Australian scene, around 80% of these suitably characterized potential aquaponics folk like to build their own set-up.  So again, if the market is small, and 80% of the few you are going to snag will trundle off and do their own thing, you are left with a small customer base.  Too big a gamble for a family man.  Still, the optimist in me says that it is interesting enough to hang about and see where it will all go.  I want to design a single (perhaps two) project for 2011 that is based on the most salient selling points of aquaponics for my setting, number and type of theoretical customer.  One angle is the wellness crowd.  Stick an aquaponics system in at a wellness centre, give some talks and see what comes of it.  The other option is gunning for the convenience model on a manageable scale.  A small system producing to order on a trial basis to begin with.  Thoughts?   

[Jeff G.]

Hi Kobus. I have just a few follow-up thoughts on your reply. 

I wouldn't concern myself with competition in this field, or from freely available sources information. What you are really selling with the business that I described, is the one commodity that nobody has enough of; time. Think of it not as selling information itself, but as selling the efficient delivery of that information. Whether it is a monetary cost, a temporal cost, or both, information always has a cost.

And while the act of distributing information freely, as you described, is a respectable endeavor, it may actually diminish the perceived value of that information in the mind of the "consumer". While that seems entirely irrational, it is well documented that we humans act irrationally more often than we think we do.

Dan Ariely, Professor of Behavioral Economics at M.I.T and Duke University, studies one facet of this consumer irrationality is his paper Placebo Effects of Marketing Actions: Consumers May Get What They P... . 

With respect....Jeff

[Kobus Jooste]

Hi Jeff.  Thanks for the input.  Providing customer support and expert consulting services / info packs is surely an option.  The only problem for someone like me (you will see how my mind works in time) is that I see two big stumbling blocks.  The first is that the internet is a wonderful place, overflowing with information.  At first it is confusing, but as you find your feet in your topic, you can rapidly scour the Net for almost anything you can think of - thus packaging it is a great service, but one with a free competitor if the person is willing to use his or her own head.  Second, I believe aquaponics is a three dimentional playing field of multiple crop agriculture with no real set rules, methods or beginning and end.  Sure there are some golden rules and useful ratios, but as the method grows, the different methods and ideas will too, until the "basic guide" will look like a library.  Not being a Jack of all trades but a person focused mainly on the ecological and functional aspects of aquaponics, I will soon loose the ability to know everything about everything.

 

Your suggestion will work as part of a suite though - if there is enough people to make something with systems, something with consulting and design, some support teaching here and there.  That is a few years off down here though, and until then, I'll have to limit myself to work that earns some bucks while I try to see where the gaps will open. A last thought is that I am also unfortunately one of those people that believe that information that can change lives or improve sustainable practice should be spread as far and wide as possible, thus am willing to put most of what I know out here free.  Perhaps that will earn me some of Sahib's Karma, but it will be difficult to charge someone for knowledge that is out there and free.  My dad wrote many subject books, and for a while, they sold well, but as the subject changes, a new one comes out and your info pack is in need of re-working.  You therefore becaome an author, a system designer, a installer, a R&D person or a trainer, but it will be difficult to be everywhere.  My head works in R&D mode most of the time.

[Kobus Jooste]

Harold - sorry to hear about your all too familiar run in with the Agriculture representative.  Humans are creatures of habit indeed.  Seems like they want to eat the last wild caught fish before they look for alternatives.  Public funds, it seem to me, is likely out of our grasp.  I'm going to try for private investment next - a method called Corporate Social Investment (CSI) here.  It is a pseudonymn for tossing money at a good cause in order to get a tax benefit.  An easier way to go than commercial investment where you need a business plan.  I have a good plan, but unfortunately it does not fit the model of what I want to try as a plan B.  I want to compare sustainability training and awareness campaigns (school outreach) with a system that is large enough to deal with the orders of perhaps 4 small commercial clients - eateries, coffee shops and not retail.  Thus the convenience angle for the produce generated in a training setting, and then we see from there.  This will obviously not be the type of thing that is commercially viable, but if it supported by commerce to get off the ground, it can be a nice experiment. 

[Jeff G.]

As a beginner in the field of aquaponics, I feel inclined to offer some input:

There is a real need for organized and detailed information in this field. Compile, organize and sell information on this subject. If you do this from a website platform and distribute your information digitally, you can minimize overhead while expanding your target market to the world. Meanwhile, the information that you provide helps to facilitate your local market for products and services, over time. 

Perhaps you do this already, but if not, you might consider it.

All the best...Jeff

[Harold Sukhbir]

Hi Kobus and welcome again, i know this is the last time I'm going to say welcome to you. Interesting situation, which by the way,parallels exactly the same here.What is with this third world thinking!

 

Last Monday i was fortunate to get an appointment with our equivalent of the"greenhouse agricultural gov't minister. I am trying to source funding for a greenhouse.I explained what Aquaponics was and began to briefly describe my model when he rudely interrupted me and started ranting about "Pie in the sky", "reality" etc and ended by calling me a "Mad scientist". Within 2 minutes i was out the door and heard in a mumbled voice "wasting my damn time".The guy has never heard of Aquaponics in his life! and he had no inclination of trying to understand.

Kobus i tell you, i will build this GH, i will grow fish and plants, i will show others, because it is my intention, because i see the need, because i am interested in this, it will happen but in time. So patience is necessary, i have to wait for the world(Trinidad) and it's thinking to catch up. Granted i don't have all the depressing peripherals you have around you but i do have have some daunting ones as well.

 

I say go for the larger GH and create a wonderful beautiful looking display system, invite key people to a walk through, invite the press, the schools,universities. I believe if you give this effort before 2012 you'll get your wish.

 

[Sahib Punjabi]

Namaste Kobus :-)

 

My what a detailed and interesting article! 

 

Aquaponics, while not a "new" way of growing food, is "new" to our way of life. It is only natural that whenever a new method is introduced, there is resistance from many sources (just look at the use of computers in our daily life). This does not mean that we should stop advancing use of such or doing research on improving it further. Even though we are a shrinking world, we unfortunately are still surrounded by fences and economic inequalities (often not market imposed), hence we will experience different results depending upon which part of the world we live in.

 

You are a true "researcher" and in my humble opinion, a beacon to look to for cutting edge answers in this field. If not in your home country, I am sure that your fantastic work is, has been and will continue to be well received worldwide. I would even go on to say that you may even one day be asked to head some important international research projects ;-)

 

I believe the teachings of Lord Krishna to Arjun in the Shree Bhagwad Geeta that one should continue to do his duty, his Karma, without an expectation of reward...that we leave up to the Lord. You know, there may be delay in his blessings...but to the true devotee, they always are there. (see below for a little more extract on this from http://www.suite101.com/lesson.cfm/18770/2121/5)

 

Keep up the fantastic work that you do. We need such honest, diligent and caring people like you in Aquaponics :-)

 

("The question that arises is what good karma is. In the Bhagwad Geeta Krishna describes good karma as duty performed without the desire of reward. This is easily the simplest and the best definition of good karma. Krishna also alludes to the difficulty we face in understanding and accepting this concept. We have no knowledge of our past lives. Hence our situation in any life could be because of good karma in the earlier life or bad karma in the earlier life. We cannot trace our progress to salvation. Further what is good karma depends on where one is in the hierarchy. A particular action may be acceptable for the sinner but not for the saint. Also it is difficult in most cases to assess the net result of one’s karma because most people live neutral lives. Hence it is very difficult to predict where one will head in the next life. It is like playing snakes and ladders where you roll the dice but you do not know where your counter is on the board.")