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Filed Under - Alternative Aquaculture

Thinking of Starting an Aqua Farming Business?

The following series of articles cover some of important requirements for establishing an aqua farming business. The suggestions for business planning are intended to provide advice and to act as a guideline to follow. Persons wishing to investigate the potential of an aquaculture business may find this information to be useful.

There are three seperate articles in this series. This page is the introduction, the next page covers topics such as site selection and fish species selection. The third article deals with farm design, business potential evaluation and ecomonic considerations.

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Aquaculture - Is it for You?

In the fish farming information tour articles we covered the history and potential of the Aquaculture industry and reviewed recent anvancements in technologies and alternative farm designs. Those articles are meant to you with background information, however if you are serious about going in the business you need to make sure if it is something that suits you. The guidelines provided in this series of articles should help you to further access the business of aqua farming.

Aquaculture does offer good potential for financial returns and it can be a rewarding business and one you can be be proud of. Like any other idea, your business size and scope has to suit you and your resources to have the best chance for success. Do your homework first and plan your business, then work your plan.

Aquaculture can be undertaken on a full time or part time basis. Many successful individual farmers started farming fish on a part time basis and gradually developed full time commercial scale farms after gaining experience and developing resources. Starting a hobby aqua farm is a great way to gain experience and to determine if aquaculture is indeed a business/career choice you wish to make.

Small scale aquaculture requires considerable less investment than a full commercial operation diminishing your financial risks during the development and learning stages. Unless you have good training, farm management experience and strong cash reserves, look closely at starting small and testing the waters first.

If you are unfamiliar with the industry read our aquaculture information articles to gather a background understanding of the industry. It provides an introduction and an overview of the history of aquaculture. Statistics and information on the need and the potential of aquaculture is also given.

Commercial Aquaculture is a business and like any full time agriculture business it requires commitment of time and effort on your part. Owning your own business means that you will have demands upon your time and it may require you to be available on a 24/7 basis when employees aren't around or when a manager is required to make decisions. An aquaculture business is a lot like owning a dairy farm, the animal care is a continuous process and daily chores are required.

Aqua Farming as a business requires training. Most commercial operators gain training from a classrom setting, at a farm setting or from a combination of both. often would be farmers visit other commercial operators and either work as a volunteer or as an employee in order to gain hands on experience. Other people entering the business have set up a low cost small scale system before taking the plunge into farming as a business. To better understand the level of training required read the article overview of an aquaculture training program.

The above introduction touched upon the basics of what the business will require from you. The next step is to determine if aquaculture is a business suitable to your location or property. In the following two articles I will cover items that you will need to review in order to more fully evaluate the resource requirements, economics and regulatory needs of a fish farming business. I encourage you to read the articles and print them for future use as reference guidelines.

Next two articles

Site and Species Selection Guidelines for Aquaculture

Farm Design and Business Considerations in Fish Farms

By Robert Freeman - Updated Jan 2010

Guidelines for starting and aquaculture business by Robert Freeman is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 2.5 Canada License.
Based on a work at www.northernaquafarms.com.

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