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2 Responses to Any fish farming going on in Haiti? More food from aquaculture than from land grown food – Haiti can do?

1. There is some and it is expanding. Like any such enterprise there are a multitude of problems and poverty makes those problems more severe.

   For instance the people lack knowledge of how to do it. So education is a big thing. Research is expensive and most people lack the resources to do such without there being government support in the information area.

   Then there are needs for facilities, design of facilities, and land and water.

   If you are growing in outdoor ponds, you must grow fish adapted to the conditions, and they need to be worth something when you get done. (Could be invertebrates too)

   They need certain water conditions and they need them all the time. Run out of oxygen in the water for a couple of hours and you lose everything.

   You also need to either be able to buy or raise what you stock.

   And then you need to control diseases and predators, not to mention thieves.

   And there’s food. If you require a floating pellet with a particular nutritional makeup and you are in Haiti, that can be a big problem. The country is still quite deficient in supporting businesses for aquaculture.

   Then there is the big marketing thing. In order to raise fish efficiently, you grow a bunch that are ready at the same time. Taking a basket to the village market actually seldom works.

   So you need a way to harvest, process and preserve your production.

   In short it’s quite difficult to get started. Sometimes a local condition that already exists can be exploited but I’m not aware of any suitable such situations in Haiti. An example of that would be crawfish culture in rice fields. The residue of the rice provides the food, and the water and fields would already be there so the rice field is flooded after harvest and crawfish are stocked. Traps are used to harvest them later. You don’t get all your crawfish back, but costs are very low.

   That sort of thing.

   People often just think there is some water, have someone throw some fish in and everyone will get to eat a lot of fish, that seldom works.

   Marv

   

   BigNorsk
   January 20, 2012 at 5:50 am
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2. How about increasing the size of what is there already – MBL in Woods Hole, Mass. and Ziegler Brothers in PA were trying to increase the size of the tilapia back in 2003 – google for that article on the L’Acul area of northwest coast of Haiti.

   Another option is to have three or more schools (or their business partners) in the US set up one of these systems in a school in Haiti
   http://www.aquaticeco.com/topics/8/Classroom-Supplies

   Or do it in the neighboring country which is far more stable, even though they share the same island.

   

   clopha
   January 20, 2012 at 6:05 am
   Reply