By RICK A. RICHARDS
Indiana Correspondent

ALBANY, Ind. — While many aren’t aware there are fish farms here, Bell Aquaculture in Albany in east-central Indiana just announced a $5 million expansion of its five-year-old operation.

The company, which operates the nation’s largest yellow perch farm, broke ground for its expansion June 3. Bell Aquaculture may not be known by many people, but such is not the case for its fish – for the past three years, it’s been on the menu at the annual Purdue Ag Alumni Fish Fry.

“We are happy to partner with The Conservation Fund, Indiana Soybean Alliance (ISA) and Pranger Enterprise, Inc. to further develop Indiana aquaculture using sustainable water recycling technology,” said President Norman McCowan. “The added capacity of three million more fish per year is much needed to meet our growing customer demand.”

When the project is completed, yellow perch production at Bell will top five million fish a year. Within five years, McCowan said Bell could be producing 20 million yellow perch annually.

The project also includes a fish processing facility, which McCowan hopes will encourage other aquaculture entrepreneurs to enter the market. “One of the big drawbacks now is a place to process fish,” he said. “It’s a chicken and egg thing. Which do you need first to establish the industry, the grower or the processor?”

McCowan said another major drawback to aquaculture are the huge startup costs of building facilities to hold the grow tanks and all of the recirculating equipment necessary to maintain the fish from birth to harvest in an environmentally friendly and sustainable way.

“The startup costs are very intensive and banks that do ag loans aren’t set up to do aquaculture. They know livestock and they know row crops, but they don’t know aquaculture,” said McCowan.

“The potential for aquaculture is huge. The nation consumes $8.5 billion worth of fish and seafood a year, yet we produce only $1.5 billion (worth).”

To get the word out about the potential of aquaculture, he said Bell hosts several tours a year for schools, farmers and other organizations. “Education is very important in boosting the industry.”

Bob Rode, the aquaculture research laboratory manager at Purdue University, said the potential for aquaculture in Indiana and the rest of the Midwest is huge. “We’re barely getting going compared to countries in Europe and Asia,” he said. “I’m not really sure why it hasn’t taken off here.”

Meanwhile, Conservation International of Arlington, Va., just issued a report on the worldwide impact of aquaculture. The report shows some 75 different species are raised in farming operations, in both on- and offshore facilities.
“The environmental impact of aquaculture varies dramatically by country, region, production system and species, and a review of published information found that aquaculture is more efficient and less damaging to the environment, compared to other animal protein production systems such as beef and pork,” said Mike Phillips, co-author of the report Blue Frontiers: Managing the Environmental Costs of Aquaculture.

The report states aquaculture has grown at an average rate of 8.4 percent a year since 1970. In 2008, the most recent year from which statistics are available, aquaculture production was 65.8 million tons worldwide and a $100 billion industry. It provides half the seafood consumed worldwide.

China is the world leader in aquaculture, producing 64 percent of the total. By comparison, North America accounts for only 2 percent of production.
Steve Hart of the ISA, which is working with Bell Aquaculture to provide fish food for the operation, said the potential market is large.

“Right now, there are about 100 fish farms in the state, but Bell is by far the biggest,” said Hart. “Most of them are small and either provides live fish for farm ponds or goldfish for decorative ponds, or raises fish for ethnic communities in Chicago and other urban areas.”

Awareness of the potential aquaculture market in the United States is evident in the recent announcement from the United Soybean Board (USB) that it plans to help producers form partnerships with fish farmers. In addition, the board plans to increase funding into research to improve soybean meal for aquaculture diets.

“U.S. soybean farmers support the interests of all U.S. animal farmers, including aquaculture producers, in order to help protect our number-one market for our crop,” said David Wilson, a USB director and Alabama soybean farmer. “We’re interested in making U.S. soybean meal as good as it can possibly be for our customers.”

Chris Weeks, a Michigan State University aquaculture specialist who works in 12 Midwestern states that make up the north-central region of the country, said aquaculture is a $57.6 million business, but its potential is many times more than that.

“I think part of the reason it isn’t bigger has to do with U.S. consumers’ consensus in the importance of fish in their diet,” said Weeks. “They’re used to livestock and row crop foods, but seafood isn’t high on their list like it is in other parts of the world. What we’re seeing now is a growing awareness that seafood is a good product, especially now that the wild ocean harvest is at its peak.”

He added that as the wild ocean harvest around the world levels off and starts to decline, the importance of aquaculture to provide protein to the world will increase.

“Five years ago if you mentioned aquaculture, people didn’t know what it was,” said Weeks. “Now, they know of it and the potential is quite phenomenal. Over the next 10 to 20 years, it is going to become the fastest-growing segment for human consumption.”