New Blog: Aquaculture Means Business

My research into ocean-friendly business practices has developed into a bit of an obsession with aquaculture. I believe this field is bursting with opportunities to make money while helping restore the world's oceans to their former healthy state. I hope you'll stop by my new blog - Aquaculture Means Business - and let me know what you think.

Brilliant! THIS Is the Kind of Thinking Ocean-Friendly Business Will Be Built On!

"A clever melding of wild harvesting and aquaculture, using a single piece of equipment."

According to Trevor Corson's blog,  Massachusetts lobstermen are experimenting with using baskets of oysters to weight down their traps, instead of the bricks they usually use. In overworked corporate parlance, this is a great example of "synergy".

"Heaviness is what you need for a lobster trap to sink to the bottom of the sea and stay there," says Corson, author of The Secret Life of Lobsters and  The Story of Sushi: An Unlikely Saga of Raw Fish and Rice. "When I worked as a lobsterboat crewman in Maine, numerous winter days were spent outfitting new traps with heavy bricks."

But bricks are not the only things that are heavy. The Massachusetts lobstermen are part of a pilot study in which they are replacing bricks with baskets of oysters, which will grow bigger while their weight helps keep the trap sitting on the bottom. Later, the lobstermen can harvest and sell the big oysters they’ve grown, along with the lobsters they’ve been catching.

If this works, I can see a past generation of lobstermen thumping their foreheads in "I coulda had a V8" fashion at the gorgeous simplicity of this idea. In addition to providing a new revenue stream, filter-feeding mollusks like oysters, mussels, and clams do double duty by helping to clean up the oceans.

The success of this strategy is by no means guaranteed:

"It partly depends how well the lobsters and the oysters get along in the trap," Corson says. 'Initial reports are that the lobsters are a little less inclined to walk inside."

But it demonstrates a way of thinking that has grown all too uncommon. I wish the lobstermen, the lobsters, and the mollusks the best of luck in their collaboration.

Obama Oceans Task Force Report: What Does It Mean for Ocean-Friendly Business?

I was always taught not to write a "question-mark headline" if the story I'm writing doesn't offer at least some answers to the question posed. Well, I'm going to break that rule. I just read the Interim Report of the Interagency Ocean Policy Task Force and, though it clearly demonstrates an understanding of all the relevant issues, I don't know what to make of it from the perspective of someone who wants to launch or expand an ocean-friendly business.

It is promising to see that the Obama Administration recognizes the need for a comprehensive national oceans policy and that that policy must extend to the inland activities affecting ocean health(I read this to mean use of chemical fertilizers, plastics, and coal-fired power plants, which are responsible for most of the non-naturally occurring mercury in our oceans). And since this is the task force's first report, I fully expected it to be short on specifics. The task force's next step is to develop "a framework for coastal and marine spatial planning, due to the President by December 9, 2009."

From a business-planning perspective, the opportunities and risks associated with the ultimate plan will depend on the combination of incentives and penalities actually put into place. Will the Administration dare to take on the agri-business and chemical-industry lobbies by reducing or eliminating the explicit and implicit subsidies that protect and support them while encouraging ocean-damaging agricultural practices? What about a phased-in ban on certain uses of plastics? Wouldn't it be laudable to discourage the continuous creation of plastic packaging that consumes years' worth of non-renewable petroleum resources and will exist far longer than products whose freshness on the shelf they were created to ensure? Will the task force recommend seafood traceability standards? Support sustainable aquaculture practices?

I guess I'm hoping there are people out there who know a lot more about these issues than I do (God help us if there aren't) and that they'll be kind enough to share their insights. What opportunities will emerge? What risks? Let's share some likely scenarios.

Is Now the Time to Go Long Soybeans?

Aquaculture is no panacea for our race's ocean-killing fishing practices. In fact, it can be a major contributor to the problem when you look at the amount of fishmeal required to generate one pound of farm-raised salmon (oh, how I miss salmon....)

As a rule of thumb, I avoid any of the large, carniverous pelagic species: if they're wild, they are already woefully overfished or on the verge; if they're farmed, they require an unconscionable amount of fishmeal to bring them to my plate. Farmed herbivores and omnivores (say, catfish or tilapia - ahhh.....tilapia.....) are another story.

So, what does this have to do with the price of soybeans? Plenty, it turns out.

According to this article in the Brownfield Ag News (I don't make these things up, really!), Americans are increasing their tilapia consumption by approximately 15% a year. Can you say "business opportunity"? Well, the Mexican government can (although I guess they'd say it in Spanish, right?) and is encouraging a boost in fish farming to meet this growing demand.

And what do you think the heavily subsidized Mexican fish farmers feed their tilapia? You've got it!

Francisco de la Torre, who coordinates aquaculture projects in the Caribbean and Latin America for the U.S. soybean industry, says he expects aquaculture in the region to consume about 200,000 tons of soymeal by the end of this year and for that amount to rise by 100,000 tons within the next three to five years.

That's a lot of soybeans.

The potential business opportunities in this story? Let's see: I'll be looking at soybean futures, shipping and refrigeration (I know, carbon footprint! but that's a topic for another post), soybean substitutes for when soybean prices go through the roof, aquaculture facility components...I'm sure you can think of a few yourself. C'mon, share!