Commercial Integrated Aquaculture - it begins

[Earthan Group]

As promised in our other thread, we are starting another large (20 tonne) fish farm that will feature our custom commercial plant integration. The good part is we have no NDA attached to it but there is some secret herbs and spices we will keep to ourselves. Gotta have a commercial advantage and all that...

The sump has been started. More details on the site.

http://www.earthangroup.com.au/20-to...rm-begins/874/

Comments welcome.

[ande]

Hi EG
Whats NDA? I'm not familliar with the term.
What fish specie are they planing to grow?
cheers

[Earthan Group]

Non Disclosure Agreement. We are often tangled up in those. Not so much for what is commonly known (aquaculture) but for "new intellectual property" though some prefer we do not talk about their project at all.

This is where the Murray cod and Jade perch are going to live.

[GaryD]

Hi,

Not so much for what is commonly known (aquaculture) but for "new intellectual property" though some prefer we do not talk about their project at all.

Since very little about aquaculture, aquaponics, hydroponics, integrated aquaculture is actually new, NDA's usually reflect competitive anxiety. At best, they provide a very brief window of opportunity for the new enterprise to get started.

And the more people that are involved in such projects, the sooner the project leaks information.....usually starting with the equipment suppliers.

In my view, the owners/managers of such projects would be better off to exploit the publicity and goodwill that would result (by explaining what is novel about what they are doing) than playing "secret squirrel."

Gary

[Earthan Group]

Yeah I don't think that anxiety covers it Gary. I only have issue with them when they try to encompass known techniques and usually they don't do that often. However, there is quite a bit about integrated aquaculture that is not known and if someone invests a few million into their project, I believe they can be afforded the privacy they ask for. As much as online discussions and sites are taking a more "sharing is caring" approach, even to an arrogant extent of demanding information, real life still remains highly competitive and the need, even for that brief leg up, is high.

Personally, I have no issue with it, though demands for information online is a little annoying to me when many people with the information have spent a small fortune and worked hard gaining that insight, they are hardly going to like being badgered into giving to the hordes.

Like in this project, we are more than happy to collaborate with education, industry and government though some information will remain with us. That is what consultation is about and it is what we do for a living. If we give it away, we would need to have another job to pay the bills. I am not sure why most people have difficulty grasping that simple concept.

Hi,


Since very little about aquaculture, aquaponics, hydroponics, integrated aquaculture is actually new, NDA's usually reflect competitive anxiety. At best, they provide a very brief window of opportunity for the new enterprise to get started.

And the more people that are involved in such projects, the sooner the project leaks information.....usually starting with the equipment suppliers.

In my view, the owners/managers of such projects would be better off to exploit the publicity and goodwill that would result (by explaining what is novel about what they are doing) than playing "secret squirrel."

Gary

[GaryD]

Hi Paul,

That is what consultation is about and it is what we do for a living. If we give it away, we would need to pack shelves or something at a supermarket to pay the bills. I am not sure why most people have difficulty grasping that simple concept.

As a consultant with quite a few years of experience (with an emphasis on small business marketing), I understand that what you give away and what you sell is a matter of balance. You do, however, have to give something away in the interests of convincing people that you have a sustainable competitive advantage.

As you are aware, not all knowledge about anything starts off with commercial operators, industry consultants or even in education and research facilities. In fact, most of the world most important discoveries happened at the hands of "mono-maniacs on a mission"......as Tom Peters described them.

Aquaculture, aquaponics, hydroponics, integrated "anything" are no different. The same people who end up playing "secret squirrel" with the information originally got it from someone else.....quite often for free. Sometimes, they even got it from backyarders.

Similarly, there are people who do make a genuine advance in a particular discipline but who are incapable of getting it to market. Arguably, the best example is probably Tom Speraneo. While he didn't invent flood and drain aquaponics, he's certainly the one who popularised it.

What is new about integrated aquaculture.....that doesn't come down to a small tweak here and there?

Gary

[Earthan Group]

What is new about integrated aquaculture.....that doesn't come down to a small tweak here and there?

At a commercial level? There are no small tweeks and not much opportunity for error either. Which raises the question, how many plants, of what species, in what climate, will 100 grams of which fish feed, at what protein level and phosphorous level, at what temperature, ph etc etc. The plant and climate varieties alone are complicated enough without the addition of the ability to design a commercially viable aquaculture unit attached to it. No small tweeks there Gary it has to be a science.

It is not really about where the knowledge starts from, it is where it ends up. That is how the world turns, those with capacity to make that knowledge work for them, are the ones that will guard it. Take your book for example, is it free and did you come by the knowledge in the book freely?

[jobney]

I had mentioned this to someone in private conversation regarding calculators before. (Not that I know how much help consultants give clients or how much prerequisite knowledge consultants require of the clients. I can only guess) Consultants like Earthan Group or Aquaponic Solutions must have proprietary commercial scale formulas in the form of easy to use calculators (for the clients) to give them(<--the consultants) a competitive edge. Just like the way people want to turn the key on and go in their autos, the people that are paying for consulting don't want to know all the science or minutiae behind the system. Calculating the TAN production (mg/L/day) and the TAN removed daily by differing varieties of plants all growing simultaneously and at different stages of growth is easier said then done. It is a calculator of epic complexity. If it's too complex the commercial scale farmers are just going to do straight hydroponics (not that it's easy). This help to the farmer could be in the form of computer software, an easy to use formula wheel or even a system like a TAN in/out "deal a meal". I doubt any consultant would design a system and tell the client to "wing it". That would limit them to clients that already understood aquaponics. Is it not the point of consultants to inform the uninformed for a profit.
That's why I mentioned before about the need for an open and free wiki of DIY components and practices so that back yard growers can be their own consultants. You let the performance of the components and practices speak for themselves. The best ideas float to the top. If you accumulated all the plans from the DIY koi pond, aquarium, and hydroponic growing community almost all of the component section would be done. Free and easy to find practices and procedures not based on opinion but on first hand experimentation has always been the largest hurdle I've run into in my self taught aquaponics training. Systems are easy. Daily operations info is harder to find. I'm still trying to find the current best practice (short of calling them on the phone) commercial hydroponic growers are using to interface plants into NFT systems. (hint hint, someone tell me)

I agree with both EG and GaryD
Most of the experimentation is done on the small back yard and test scale. The best ideas then make it to the micro farm scale. By the time any system is on the very large scale it's already going by best practices with only small changes from new ideas that commercially make more money or cut costs. Disruptive large changes do happen but only when it's more lucrative to make it worth changing the way you do things.

I married into a commercial citrus growing family. Pressures like disease and labor costs are about the only thing that shifts these growers into major changes in operations. Don't get me wrong, there is great variation with some practices like tree spacing that is growers choice but there is still a range of normal. It always comes down to money. Growers experimenting on small blocks of trees is common. That's how the new "normal" changes over time.

[GaryD]

Hi Paul,

I wasn't suggesting that aquaponics was easy.....in fact (at the commercial level in particular) it can be very complex and I've argued to that effect. My "tweak" observation was directed more at the broader question of integrated aquaculture.....and that's a space that has changed little (that I'm aware of) in the past 40 years.

If anything, integrated aquaculture has become more narrow in its application since it morphed into aquaponics.

When I first became interested in integrated aquaculture, it included the integration of chickens, ducks, rabbits, fodder plants, algae.....in addition to the fish and food plants that it has now largely become.

Take your book for example, is it free and did you come by the knowledge in the book freely?

No.....although it is less than half the price it was 12 months ago (largely due to the saving associated with making it available online).

The book contains information that I acquired over a period of 30 years. Some of it was obtained from others with skills and experience in areas that I needed to know about, some of it was hard won (and sometimes expensive) experience, some of was the consequence of sorting through various aquaculture publications......and some of it even came from internet searches.

I have no issue with people charging for their expertise (provided they know what they're talking about) but, as I said earlier, what you give away......and what you sell......is part of the marketing conundrum that confronts most small businesspeople.

When people in an emerging industry are secretive about what they're doing, they shouldn't be surprised that people fill in the gaps.....not necessarily in a useful way.

Take the recent discussion about Portable Farms, for example. Colle Davis' refusal to provide information to rebut his critics probably fuels the speculation that his claims about his systems (and even the amount of time that he's been around aquaponics) lack credibility.

At the end of the day, however, people (including Colle Davis) can do what they like - so long as they accept the consequences of their choices.

Gary