The Ethicurean blog yesterday ran an interesting roundup of alternative fish feeds that fish farmers could use now or in the future to feed their water-bound livestock.
The ethical issue the blog attempts to address is the presence of fish meal and fish oil in what farmers currently need to feed to piscivore species of farmed fish, such as salmon. The blog post's author, Marc R., begins with the premise (supported by a recent article published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences) that catching wild fish to supply the fish meal and fish oil destined for the bellies of farmed fish is unsustainable.
The blog post covers everything from the potential of selectively breeding fish to better digest plant proteins to the GM question to raising insects for a feed substitute. Check it out and let me know what you think.
Monday, November 23, 2009
Friday, November 20, 2009
Valdez the younger on Pesquera Delly's future
In the Guaymas shipyard, underneath towering cranes that resemble machines out of a sci-fi movie, employees of the company Pesquera Delly are busy constructing small (27-foot diameter) geodesic spheres known as MicroPods.
Walking among the handful of men, who are attaching triangular panel after triangular panel onto the forming sphere, is a young man wearing jeans and a gray striped polo shirt. A black sunhat hides his face from the sun. Gustavo Valdez is the son of Oscar Valdez, the owner of Pesquera Delly, and operations manager for the company's nascent aquaculture division. I pulled Gustavo under one of the towering cranes for a quick conversation about Pesquera Delly's pioneering attempts at farming shrimp offshore, the future of the company and how changes in the fishing and aquaculture industry will impact the coastal communities of Sonora, Mexico. An edited transcript is below.
Gustavo Valdez, head of Pesquera Delly's new aquaculture division
Walking among the handful of men, who are attaching triangular panel after triangular panel onto the forming sphere, is a young man wearing jeans and a gray striped polo shirt. A black sunhat hides his face from the sun. Gustavo Valdez is the son of Oscar Valdez, the owner of Pesquera Delly, and operations manager for the company's nascent aquaculture division. I pulled Gustavo under one of the towering cranes for a quick conversation about Pesquera Delly's pioneering attempts at farming shrimp offshore, the future of the company and how changes in the fishing and aquaculture industry will impact the coastal communities of Sonora, Mexico. An edited transcript is below.
Gustavo Valdez, head of Pesquera Delly's new aquaculture divisionWhat is Pesquera Delly attempting with this project?
Gustavo: Pesquera Delly, as you may know by now, has been in the shrimp fishing industry and finfish industry for the last 15 years. Over the last five years we have seen the decline of the wild stocks and a weakening of the markets for wild species. So, we see this as a reconversion project. It's just a logical step in a policy that the company has undertaken to produce in a more sustainable way.
Gustavo: Pesquera Delly, as you may know by now, has been in the shrimp fishing industry and finfish industry for the last 15 years. Over the last five years we have seen the decline of the wild stocks and a weakening of the markets for wild species. So, we see this as a reconversion project. It's just a logical step in a policy that the company has undertaken to produce in a more sustainable way.
Tuesday, November 17, 2009
Steve Page arrives in Guaymas
I received a call this morning at 8 a.m. from Steve Page, the owner of Ocean Farm Technologies in Searsmont, Maine. He had arrived in Guaymas the night before and was in Mexico to help Pesquera Delly deploy several of their AquaPods over the next several weeks.
Steve Page, founder of Maine's Ocean Farm Technologies, stands in front of an AquaPod in Guaymas, Mexico
Steve told me he would be at the shipyard in Guaymas all morning overseeing the construction of a smaller AquaPod and for me to come down any time. I hopped on a bus and made the trip to the Guaymas waterfront, passing piers lined with the rusted hulks of shrimp trawlers that had seen better days.
Steve Page, founder of Maine's Ocean Farm Technologies, stands in front of an AquaPod in Guaymas, MexicoSteve told me he would be at the shipyard in Guaymas all morning overseeing the construction of a smaller AquaPod and for me to come down any time. I hopped on a bus and made the trip to the Guaymas waterfront, passing piers lined with the rusted hulks of shrimp trawlers that had seen better days.
Saturday, November 14, 2009
Desert-cum-shrimp farm
I visited a traditional shrimp farm while I was in Sonora. To get there, we drove away from the coast through a desert landscape with no paved roads, just wide tracts of tread-marked sand.
The road to the shrimp farm
When we arrived the shrimp farm was barren desert. The shallow ponds where they raise the shrimp were sandy patches with cows grazing the small amount of green scrub. The farm had been damaged during Hurricane Jimena, which hit the Sonoran coast in early September.
One of the empty shrimp ponds
However, the company, owned by the Luebbert family, is working on getting the 45-hectare farm back on line. I found the farm's manager, Ricardo Loreto, working on the pumps that fill and circulate the ponds with ocean water.
Loreto says the shrimp farms are struggling because of the low price for shrimp and the high cost of feed. Feed, he says, constitutes as much as 70% of the farm's expenditures. A ton of feed costs $850 and the shrimp need about 350 tons per cycle, which can last 90 to 110 days. Each cycle, the farm yields about 180 tons of shrimp. By my math, that means it takes roughly two tons of feed for every ton of shrimp produced. However, Loreto says the farm needs 1.5 kilos of food for every kilo of shrimp. (This interview was being translated and I wasn't aware of a discrepancy until I got my hands on a more thorough translation.)
Ricardo Loreto stands in front of the pumps that supply the shrimp farm with ocean water
I ask Loreto what he thinks of Pesquara Delly's attempts to farm shrimps in offshore cages. "I think it's a very good idea," he says, citing the open ocean water as a healthier environment for the shrimp and a suspicion that the infrastructure costs may be less than a land-based farm, which requires large amounts of electricity and diesel fuel.
Loreto has watched the shrimp fishermen struggle year after year. "I think aquaculture is the option for the future," he says.
The road to the shrimp farmWhen we arrived the shrimp farm was barren desert. The shallow ponds where they raise the shrimp were sandy patches with cows grazing the small amount of green scrub. The farm had been damaged during Hurricane Jimena, which hit the Sonoran coast in early September.
One of the empty shrimp ponds However, the company, owned by the Luebbert family, is working on getting the 45-hectare farm back on line. I found the farm's manager, Ricardo Loreto, working on the pumps that fill and circulate the ponds with ocean water.
Loreto says the shrimp farms are struggling because of the low price for shrimp and the high cost of feed. Feed, he says, constitutes as much as 70% of the farm's expenditures. A ton of feed costs $850 and the shrimp need about 350 tons per cycle, which can last 90 to 110 days. Each cycle, the farm yields about 180 tons of shrimp. By my math, that means it takes roughly two tons of feed for every ton of shrimp produced. However, Loreto says the farm needs 1.5 kilos of food for every kilo of shrimp. (This interview was being translated and I wasn't aware of a discrepancy until I got my hands on a more thorough translation.)
Ricardo Loreto stands in front of the pumps that supply the shrimp farm with ocean waterI ask Loreto what he thinks of Pesquara Delly's attempts to farm shrimps in offshore cages. "I think it's a very good idea," he says, citing the open ocean water as a healthier environment for the shrimp and a suspicion that the infrastructure costs may be less than a land-based farm, which requires large amounts of electricity and diesel fuel.
Loreto has watched the shrimp fishermen struggle year after year. "I think aquaculture is the option for the future," he says.
Tuesday, November 10, 2009
Pesquera Delly
I came to Guaymas to meet Oscar Valdez, owner of Pesquera Delly, a local fishing company that traded in its fishing boats for fish cages.
However, I was never certain he knew I was coming. I showed up with my fingers crossed that I would land the interview and today my wish was granted.
This morning my translator and I drove to a seafood processing plant in the industrial section of Guaymas. We waited in a small room that reeked of fish. A faded photo of a fishing trawler hung from the wall. The receptionist wore a white lab coat and white Wellington boots. At one point she left her desk and came back with a shower cap on.
Oscar Valdez arrives and takes us upstairs into his office, a large white industrial box with a table and desk. A ventilator in the wall above his desk offers a constant hum.
Pesquera Delly at its peak had 11 fishing boats in its fleet. Today there are two. Valdez says the business had become difficult as the wild catch fell and its costs increased. He knew it was a time to make a change. So, taking advantage of a government program that pays fishermen to trade in their fishing boats ($100,000 each), Valdez cashed in four and used the money to buy three AquaPods from Ocean Farm Technologies in Searsmont, Maine, with the idea being to farm shrimp in the Sea of Cortez.
Oscar Valdez stands in front of half an AquaPod under construction on the docks in Guaymas
Valdez's vision is to reduce the number of shrimp boats in Mexico, which would relieve pressure on the wild populations, and offer those former fishermen another option. He hopes to demonstrate that farming shrimp and other species is a viable business in the Sea of Cortez, one that could offer fishermen another chance at making a living from the sea.
The AquaPods were not designed for shrimp, which have very different needs from fish, so Valdez has been working with Ocean Farm Technologies to make modifications to the cages to accommodate shrimp. In fact, Steve Page, the owner of Ocean Farm Technologies, and some of his staff will be in Guaymas next week to meet with Valdez.
Valdez inside half an AquaPod
In addition to the three large AquaPods Pesquera Delly owns, they are also deploying eight small AquaPods as a test. Each of the eight will be deployed with unique characteristics -- like different placement of the floats, for example. The goal will be to find the characteristics best suited to farming shrimp in AquaPods. The first of the eight will go in the water next week.
Sonora is the shrimp producing capital of Mexico and it was in the 1990s when shrimp aquaculture surpassed the yield of fishing boats. However, traditional shrimp farming in Sonora consists of long shallow ponds on land, though near the shore so ocean water can be pumped through them. Valdez didn't want to go that route for various reasons. One was cost of shrimp feed. While feed consists of a large portion of the traditional shrimp farms' cost, Valdez says he needs to feed the shrimp in his AquaPods much less because their diets are supplemented with food from the wild that floats through the cages. He says a submerged cage also offers a healthier environment for shrimp.
I plan to visit Pesquera Delly again next week when Steve Page comes to visit and the company deploys the first small experimental AquaPod. So, more posts to come on this company.
Here's a bonus photo from today:
Me interviewing Oscar Valdez
However, I was never certain he knew I was coming. I showed up with my fingers crossed that I would land the interview and today my wish was granted.
It was all about the connections. The mother of my translator worked in shrimp aquaculture in the past and now runs a conservation organization in Guaymas. She knows Oscar Valdez personally and was able to put in a good word and line up an interview.
Oscar Valdez
Oscar ValdezThis morning my translator and I drove to a seafood processing plant in the industrial section of Guaymas. We waited in a small room that reeked of fish. A faded photo of a fishing trawler hung from the wall. The receptionist wore a white lab coat and white Wellington boots. At one point she left her desk and came back with a shower cap on.
Oscar Valdez arrives and takes us upstairs into his office, a large white industrial box with a table and desk. A ventilator in the wall above his desk offers a constant hum.
Pesquera Delly at its peak had 11 fishing boats in its fleet. Today there are two. Valdez says the business had become difficult as the wild catch fell and its costs increased. He knew it was a time to make a change. So, taking advantage of a government program that pays fishermen to trade in their fishing boats ($100,000 each), Valdez cashed in four and used the money to buy three AquaPods from Ocean Farm Technologies in Searsmont, Maine, with the idea being to farm shrimp in the Sea of Cortez.
Oscar Valdez stands in front of half an AquaPod under construction on the docks in GuaymasValdez's vision is to reduce the number of shrimp boats in Mexico, which would relieve pressure on the wild populations, and offer those former fishermen another option. He hopes to demonstrate that farming shrimp and other species is a viable business in the Sea of Cortez, one that could offer fishermen another chance at making a living from the sea.
The AquaPods were not designed for shrimp, which have very different needs from fish, so Valdez has been working with Ocean Farm Technologies to make modifications to the cages to accommodate shrimp. In fact, Steve Page, the owner of Ocean Farm Technologies, and some of his staff will be in Guaymas next week to meet with Valdez.
Valdez inside half an AquaPodIn addition to the three large AquaPods Pesquera Delly owns, they are also deploying eight small AquaPods as a test. Each of the eight will be deployed with unique characteristics -- like different placement of the floats, for example. The goal will be to find the characteristics best suited to farming shrimp in AquaPods. The first of the eight will go in the water next week.
Sonora is the shrimp producing capital of Mexico and it was in the 1990s when shrimp aquaculture surpassed the yield of fishing boats. However, traditional shrimp farming in Sonora consists of long shallow ponds on land, though near the shore so ocean water can be pumped through them. Valdez didn't want to go that route for various reasons. One was cost of shrimp feed. While feed consists of a large portion of the traditional shrimp farms' cost, Valdez says he needs to feed the shrimp in his AquaPods much less because their diets are supplemented with food from the wild that floats through the cages. He says a submerged cage also offers a healthier environment for shrimp.
I plan to visit Pesquera Delly again next week when Steve Page comes to visit and the company deploys the first small experimental AquaPod. So, more posts to come on this company.
Here's a bonus photo from today:
Me interviewing Oscar ValdezEstoy en Guaymas
(A quick departure from my recap of my time in Panama to update you on where I am today.)
I arrived in Guaymas, Mexico, yesterday. It was a beautiful drive through the sparse, cactus-covered landscape of the Sonoran desert to reach the brilliant blue of the Sea of Cortez. The Mexican state of Sonora is the largest producer of shrimp in the country and I'm here to meet with Oscar Valdez, the owner of Pesquera Delly, a company using Ocean Farm Technology's AquaPods to farm shrimp.
But before speaking with Mr. Valdez, I wanted a better understanding of the story of shrimp farming in Sonora. For a history lesson, I visited Karl Heinz Holtschmit, a former professor at Tecnológico de Monterrey's marine sciences school in Guaymas and a 40-year veteran of the Sonoran shrimp aquaculture industry.
Holtschmit told me how Tecnológico de Monterrey's marine sciences school in Guaymas was the second place in the Americas to successfully farm shrimp back in the late 1960s (Texas A&M University was the first), but that it still took more than 20 years for Sonora's shrimp farming industry to take off because of Mexican laws that prevented private ownership of shrimp farms. He took me on a sometimes dizzying tour of the different acronymical diseases (IHHN and TSV) that have ravaged shrimp farms here. He told me about the early conflicts between shrimp fishermen and shrimp farmers, which has lessened as more former fishermen are turning to aquaculture as a means to make a living from the ocean (a situation comparable to what's happening in Maine).
Shrimp farms are different than other aquaculture operations I've discussed in Maine or Panama. In Sonora, the shrimp farms consist of long shallow ponds on land, but close to the shore so that fresh ocean water can be pumped into the ponds. The ponds allow the shrimp farmers greater control over their livestock, such as being able to use more efficient feeding systems. In 2003, the yield from Sonora's shrimp farms surpassed that caught in the Sea of Cortez and Holtschmit doesn't see that trend ever reversing.
Holtschmit knew of Pesquera Delly's departure from the norm, but didn't have any details on how it was doing. Hopefully, those details will be forthcoming tomorrow: I was finally able to make contact with the company and the owner has agreed to meet me tomorrow morning in Guaymas!
I plan to transcribe and post my entire interview with Holtschmit at a later date.
Hasta luego.
I arrived in Guaymas, Mexico, yesterday. It was a beautiful drive through the sparse, cactus-covered landscape of the Sonoran desert to reach the brilliant blue of the Sea of Cortez. The Mexican state of Sonora is the largest producer of shrimp in the country and I'm here to meet with Oscar Valdez, the owner of Pesquera Delly, a company using Ocean Farm Technology's AquaPods to farm shrimp.
But before speaking with Mr. Valdez, I wanted a better understanding of the story of shrimp farming in Sonora. For a history lesson, I visited Karl Heinz Holtschmit, a former professor at Tecnológico de Monterrey's marine sciences school in Guaymas and a 40-year veteran of the Sonoran shrimp aquaculture industry.
Holtschmit told me how Tecnológico de Monterrey's marine sciences school in Guaymas was the second place in the Americas to successfully farm shrimp back in the late 1960s (Texas A&M University was the first), but that it still took more than 20 years for Sonora's shrimp farming industry to take off because of Mexican laws that prevented private ownership of shrimp farms. He took me on a sometimes dizzying tour of the different acronymical diseases (IHHN and TSV) that have ravaged shrimp farms here. He told me about the early conflicts between shrimp fishermen and shrimp farmers, which has lessened as more former fishermen are turning to aquaculture as a means to make a living from the ocean (a situation comparable to what's happening in Maine).Shrimp farms are different than other aquaculture operations I've discussed in Maine or Panama. In Sonora, the shrimp farms consist of long shallow ponds on land, but close to the shore so that fresh ocean water can be pumped into the ponds. The ponds allow the shrimp farmers greater control over their livestock, such as being able to use more efficient feeding systems. In 2003, the yield from Sonora's shrimp farms surpassed that caught in the Sea of Cortez and Holtschmit doesn't see that trend ever reversing.
Holtschmit knew of Pesquera Delly's departure from the norm, but didn't have any details on how it was doing. Hopefully, those details will be forthcoming tomorrow: I was finally able to make contact with the company and the owner has agreed to meet me tomorrow morning in Guaymas!
I plan to transcribe and post my entire interview with Holtschmit at a later date.
Hasta luego.
Sunday, November 8, 2009
Open Blue, part 2
Puerto Lindo, 10/30/09
My first morning in Puerto Lindo I hop in a boat with Brian and Ben Fazioli (an Australian and Open Blue's production manager) and head to the company's 74-foot former cargo ship, whose blue and rusted hull can be seen moored in the harbor.
(In the photo, you can also see three SeaStations, an open ocean fish cage manufactured by Washington-based OceanSpar, waiting to be towed offshore. Open Blue Sea Farms already has two SeaStations deployed offshore and one more still in pieces on the beach. It also has four small AquaPods, though only one currently contains fish.)
Engine trouble has rendered the ship, the Pristine Oceans, dead in the water while the company's full-time diesel mechanic works to fix the problem. The engine has been taken apart, had pieces sent to Panama City to be fixed, but still new problems seem to crop up as soon as others are fixed. The ship is needed to tow the three OceanSpar fish cages in the harbor to the offshore sites.
From the water, I see Puerto Lindo for the first time. It is surrounded by lush hills of green vegetation. Palms dot the shore. Except for the sailboats in the harbor (Puerto Lindo is a popular spot for Caribbean sailors and as a stopover point during the ocean passage between Columbia and Panama), the view could be exactly what buccaneers like Sir Henry Morgan saw in 1668 when he and his English soldiers sacked Portobelo, one of the centers of Spanish trade in America and only miles down the coast from Puerto Lindo.
The mechanic is still working in the fever hot depths of the Pristine Ocean's engine room. There's hope the work will be done in time to begin towing the first SeaStation this afternoon. To tow a cage to the offshore site takes approximately 24 hours. Because the weather begins to turn in early November, it's a race against time to get the three cages deployed offshore quickly.
Leaving the side of the Pristine Ocean, we head out of the bay. Brian wants to check the currents along the tow route to check how much force will push the cage towards shore as it's towed. To accomplish this, Brian has brought a white bucket with a weight hanging from its bottom and a rope and buoy attached above. At three predesignated spots, Brian fills the bucket with water, drops it in the water along with its hanging weight and records a GPS waypoint. The buoy floats on the surface. Now we wait for 10 minutes as our boat and buoy drift with the current. When the time is up, we retrieve the buoy, Brian marks another GPS waypoint to see how far it's moved. "Believe it or not, you're looking at one of the most advanced fish farms in the world," Brian says before retrieving the plastic bucket-cum-current meter.
As we drift, Brian explains why he believes fish farms will continue to be an important source of seafood and what he is trying to accomplish with Ocean Blue Sea Farms. Compared with the way humans raise other animals for human consumption, Brian says fish farming is far more efficient in its use of resources, from water to energy, than other forms of land-based livestock operations. "I think fish feed can be the best source of renewable energy on the planet," Brian says.
Fish feed for carnivorous fish contains fish meal and fish oil from small fish such as anchovetas and menhaden. The feed is one of the points of contention between fish farmers and those who say farming carnivorous fish such as cobia and salmon is by its nature unsustainable because it puts increased pressure on other wild fisheries to source the feed. In response, Brian says it can be sustainable if fish farmers focus on sourcing their feed from companies that acquire the fish meal and fish oil from sustainably managed fisheries. Also, Brian says one of the reasons cobia is a good fish to farm is that they require less fish meal and oil than other fish.
Brian says there are several reasons to move the aquaculture industry offshore, chief among them are to avoid conflict with recreational boaters, commercial fishermen or coastal landowners, and have cleaner water and more space to farm fish at lower densities.
"Why Panama?" I ask.
Simple really. Panama was receptive to the company's plans and offered less red tape, Brian says. Before launching Open Blue Sea Farms, Brian ran another aquaculture company, Snapperfarm, in Puerto Rico. Snapperfarm was only "demonstration scale," Brian says, but was one of the first companies to farm cobia and was the first to farm cobia offshore, which it did in first generation models of Searsmont, Maine-based Ocean Farm Technology's AquaPods. But while Puerto Rico was a good spot for research and development, it was a difficult place to turn it into a commercial-scale operation, Brian says. He did not consider launching an offshore fish farm in the United States for the same reasons, the hassle and cost it would have taken to get any offshore fish farm permitted.
I tell him some people would view Open Blue Sea Farms intention of choosing a place with few environmental regulations to launch its business as tantamount to operating an environmentally unsound project.
Brian reiterates his committment to operating his business in an environmentally sound way. After all, he says, it's within his company's best interest to farm fish in a sustainable way. "We want to build something that will last a long time," Brian says. "Not something that's going to die out in a couple years."
He says he's even worked with the Panamanian government over the past year to create some regulations for offshore fish farms. For example, mandated buffer zones around aquaculture lease sites, which prevents fish farms from packing too many cages into too tight of a space and upping the chances of disease. Getting the regulation passed wasn't a purely altruistic measure: It also protects Open Blue Sea Farms' 2,500-acre lease site, which Brian says is prime ocean real estate for an offshore fish farm, from future encroaching competitors.
On the way back from checking the currents, we stop at the three SeaStations so they can do some work in preparation for the offshore towing. And the time comes for what I've been anticipating: Brian asks if I want to get in the cage with the fish while they work. I give an enthusiastic yes and grab my fins and mask. I leap from the boat onto the SeaStation, put on my fins, unzip the opening in the net and -- a bit of fear racing up my spine -- plunge into the warm Caribbean water and a confined area with 10,000 fish with the nickname "little shark face" for obvious reasons.
When I open my eyes, I am overwhelmed by the sight. I am surrounded by thousands of fish, between a foot and two feet long. The fish are colored a range of grays and near black. Most are a dark gray with a white line down the length of their bodies. They have a dorsal fin that give them the shark-like resemblance, especially when their fins break the surface when they feed. Luckily, these fish had already been fed today so aren't hungry. Otherwise, Brian says they might have nipped at me.
I'm only snorkeling, so I can't go very deep inside the cage. These SeaStations, which from top to bottom are roughly 80 feet, are only half in the water because the fish are smaller. Once they're towed offshore, they'll be fully submerged. While I'm snorkeling near the center of the cage, which is actually a diamond shape, there's a 40 foot drop to the bottom, the area teeming with fish.
The fish don't seem scared of my presence. They swim around me, under me, above me. They come close to my face, appearing to look me in the eyes. However, when I reach out my hand to touch one, the fish in the area surge away from me.
I swim with the fish for 20 minutes, marveling the whole time at the fact I'm in Panama swimming in what seems to me my own private aquarium and getting paid to do it. I love being a journalist.
My first morning in Puerto Lindo I hop in a boat with Brian and Ben Fazioli (an Australian and Open Blue's production manager) and head to the company's 74-foot former cargo ship, whose blue and rusted hull can be seen moored in the harbor.
(In the photo, you can also see three SeaStations, an open ocean fish cage manufactured by Washington-based OceanSpar, waiting to be towed offshore. Open Blue Sea Farms already has two SeaStations deployed offshore and one more still in pieces on the beach. It also has four small AquaPods, though only one currently contains fish.)Engine trouble has rendered the ship, the Pristine Oceans, dead in the water while the company's full-time diesel mechanic works to fix the problem. The engine has been taken apart, had pieces sent to Panama City to be fixed, but still new problems seem to crop up as soon as others are fixed. The ship is needed to tow the three OceanSpar fish cages in the harbor to the offshore sites.
From the water, I see Puerto Lindo for the first time. It is surrounded by lush hills of green vegetation. Palms dot the shore. Except for the sailboats in the harbor (Puerto Lindo is a popular spot for Caribbean sailors and as a stopover point during the ocean passage between Columbia and Panama), the view could be exactly what buccaneers like Sir Henry Morgan saw in 1668 when he and his English soldiers sacked Portobelo, one of the centers of Spanish trade in America and only miles down the coast from Puerto Lindo.
The mechanic is still working in the fever hot depths of the Pristine Ocean's engine room. There's hope the work will be done in time to begin towing the first SeaStation this afternoon. To tow a cage to the offshore site takes approximately 24 hours. Because the weather begins to turn in early November, it's a race against time to get the three cages deployed offshore quickly.
Leaving the side of the Pristine Ocean, we head out of the bay. Brian wants to check the currents along the tow route to check how much force will push the cage towards shore as it's towed. To accomplish this, Brian has brought a white bucket with a weight hanging from its bottom and a rope and buoy attached above. At three predesignated spots, Brian fills the bucket with water, drops it in the water along with its hanging weight and records a GPS waypoint. The buoy floats on the surface. Now we wait for 10 minutes as our boat and buoy drift with the current. When the time is up, we retrieve the buoy, Brian marks another GPS waypoint to see how far it's moved. "Believe it or not, you're looking at one of the most advanced fish farms in the world," Brian says before retrieving the plastic bucket-cum-current meter.
As we drift, Brian explains why he believes fish farms will continue to be an important source of seafood and what he is trying to accomplish with Ocean Blue Sea Farms. Compared with the way humans raise other animals for human consumption, Brian says fish farming is far more efficient in its use of resources, from water to energy, than other forms of land-based livestock operations. "I think fish feed can be the best source of renewable energy on the planet," Brian says.
Fish feed for carnivorous fish contains fish meal and fish oil from small fish such as anchovetas and menhaden. The feed is one of the points of contention between fish farmers and those who say farming carnivorous fish such as cobia and salmon is by its nature unsustainable because it puts increased pressure on other wild fisheries to source the feed. In response, Brian says it can be sustainable if fish farmers focus on sourcing their feed from companies that acquire the fish meal and fish oil from sustainably managed fisheries. Also, Brian says one of the reasons cobia is a good fish to farm is that they require less fish meal and oil than other fish.
Brian says there are several reasons to move the aquaculture industry offshore, chief among them are to avoid conflict with recreational boaters, commercial fishermen or coastal landowners, and have cleaner water and more space to farm fish at lower densities.
"Why Panama?" I ask.
Simple really. Panama was receptive to the company's plans and offered less red tape, Brian says. Before launching Open Blue Sea Farms, Brian ran another aquaculture company, Snapperfarm, in Puerto Rico. Snapperfarm was only "demonstration scale," Brian says, but was one of the first companies to farm cobia and was the first to farm cobia offshore, which it did in first generation models of Searsmont, Maine-based Ocean Farm Technology's AquaPods. But while Puerto Rico was a good spot for research and development, it was a difficult place to turn it into a commercial-scale operation, Brian says. He did not consider launching an offshore fish farm in the United States for the same reasons, the hassle and cost it would have taken to get any offshore fish farm permitted.
I tell him some people would view Open Blue Sea Farms intention of choosing a place with few environmental regulations to launch its business as tantamount to operating an environmentally unsound project.
Brian reiterates his committment to operating his business in an environmentally sound way. After all, he says, it's within his company's best interest to farm fish in a sustainable way. "We want to build something that will last a long time," Brian says. "Not something that's going to die out in a couple years."
He says he's even worked with the Panamanian government over the past year to create some regulations for offshore fish farms. For example, mandated buffer zones around aquaculture lease sites, which prevents fish farms from packing too many cages into too tight of a space and upping the chances of disease. Getting the regulation passed wasn't a purely altruistic measure: It also protects Open Blue Sea Farms' 2,500-acre lease site, which Brian says is prime ocean real estate for an offshore fish farm, from future encroaching competitors.
On the way back from checking the currents, we stop at the three SeaStations so they can do some work in preparation for the offshore towing. And the time comes for what I've been anticipating: Brian asks if I want to get in the cage with the fish while they work. I give an enthusiastic yes and grab my fins and mask. I leap from the boat onto the SeaStation, put on my fins, unzip the opening in the net and -- a bit of fear racing up my spine -- plunge into the warm Caribbean water and a confined area with 10,000 fish with the nickname "little shark face" for obvious reasons.
When I open my eyes, I am overwhelmed by the sight. I am surrounded by thousands of fish, between a foot and two feet long. The fish are colored a range of grays and near black. Most are a dark gray with a white line down the length of their bodies. They have a dorsal fin that give them the shark-like resemblance, especially when their fins break the surface when they feed. Luckily, these fish had already been fed today so aren't hungry. Otherwise, Brian says they might have nipped at me.
I'm only snorkeling, so I can't go very deep inside the cage. These SeaStations, which from top to bottom are roughly 80 feet, are only half in the water because the fish are smaller. Once they're towed offshore, they'll be fully submerged. While I'm snorkeling near the center of the cage, which is actually a diamond shape, there's a 40 foot drop to the bottom, the area teeming with fish.
The fish don't seem scared of my presence. They swim around me, under me, above me. They come close to my face, appearing to look me in the eyes. However, when I reach out my hand to touch one, the fish in the area surge away from me.
I swim with the fish for 20 minutes, marveling the whole time at the fact I'm in Panama swimming in what seems to me my own private aquarium and getting paid to do it. I love being a journalist.
Tuesday, November 3, 2009
Open Blue, part 1
Puerto Lindo, Panama, 10/29/09
The drive from Panama City to Puerto Lindo was pleasant. It's a strange feeling to drive from the Pacific Ocean to the Atlantic Ocean in one afternoon. Richie Pretto, general manager of Open Blue Sea Farms, and Brian O'Hanlon, president of Open Blue Sea Farms, picked me up in the city and we took the highway north. The highway is less than a year old and has reduced a trip from Panama City to Colon from three to one hour.
During the ride I learned more about the backstory of Open Blue Sea Farms. Richie Pretto was one of the founders of Pristine Oceans, a company formed by Seattle, Washington-based Environmental Technologies Inc., which manufactures aquaculture feed systems, and Panamanian investors. But, according to Brian, ETI didn't have the experience to launch a fish farm and took Pristine Oceans in the wrong direction. So Pristine Oceans tanked at first. Panamanian investors pulled out. Employees were let go. Richie says it was the business plan, which was developed from scratch because very few people had seriously attempted to launch an offshore fish farm. "It's a new experience for everybody," Richie says. "There are only a handful of people who've done this: Brian, Kona (referring to a company in Hawaii) and some guy in South Korea who doesn't speak English or Spanish."
But Richie didn't give up. He bought out the other investors, ditched the U.S. company and approached Brian and Open Blue Sea Farms, which had been considering Panama for an offshore aquaculture site since 2005. Rather than duplicate efforts, Open Blue Sea Farms arranged to acquire Pristine Oceans. Open Blue officially took over operations in Puerto Lindo on August 1, but continues to finalize the acquisition.
Today, the company employs 30 people. Two months ago it had 10 employees, Richie says.
Starting a company attempting to do something that hasn't been done before is not an easy proposition. Its a startup, but one that has very high upfront capital costs followed by a lag in any cash flow until the fish can be farmed roughly a year later. As a result, the company has the feel of a startup, complete with the employees working long hours and going above and beyond to make the company a success, Richie says. "Everyone here is in endurance mode," Richie says.
While we were in the car crossing the isthmus that is Panama, Brian was checking his email on his iPhone. One email made him speak up from the backseat. It was from Mario Batale's business manager. Brian bumped into Batale the last time he was in New York. He didn't let the opportunity pass him by. He introduced himself, told Batale about Open Blue Sea Farms and the cobia they are farming. Last year, Batale competed against Jamie Oliver on the "Battle Cobia" episode of Iron Chef America. They didn't use Open Blue Sea Farms cobia and Brian wanted to make sure that didn't happen again. The email from the business manager was a followup asking Open Blue Sea Farms to contribute some cobia to a benefit event Batale is hosting. "We'd be delighted," Richie says from the driver's seat, smiling.
Cobia is a solitary fish, so it has never been extensively fished and is still relatively unknown to many consumers. But it is a good fit for aquaculture. It breeds well in captivity, it grows quickly and, though a carniverous fish, it doesn't require high amounts of fish meal and fish oil in its feed, according to Brian.
It was night by the time we reached the small fishing village of Puerto Lindo. I met a few of the employees in the office before Brian and I walked down the beach to a restaurant with white plastic tables and chairs set up outside on a patio. In the daytime, we would have seen several sailboats moored in the bay, along with three fish cages that Open Blue has set up in the bay, ready to tow to an offshore site. We ordered a few Balboas, a Panamanian cerveza, and began to chat about Brian's ironic dislike of eating fish. "I wish I'd eat more," he says. "I know it's health benefits. But I have this mental problem."
Brian comes from a longline of men in the seafood business. His grandfather and father were both seafood distributors in New York. "So I kind of grew up being force fed fish. So I have this mental block," he says. "I blame my grandmother."
Brian's interest in aquaculture was fostered by a deep love of the ocean and his family's personal experiences with fishing. His father invested in cod boats in the 1980s, which proved to be a bad business decision as cod landings suffered. "Fishery collapse has wreaked havoc on my family," he says. "So I developed an interest in aquaculture at a young age."
His attraction to the business was also driven by two pieces of advice from his father: He would never make money as a marine biologist and that he'd never meet a beautiful woman working on the water. (For the record, Brian's wife is a personal trainer.)
So he found himself hatching red snapper in his parents' basement at 17, launching an aquaculture company in Puerto Rico in his 20s and now, at 30, leading one of the most innovative aquaculture companies on the planet.
Coming up...the fish farm and swimming with the cobia
The drive from Panama City to Puerto Lindo was pleasant. It's a strange feeling to drive from the Pacific Ocean to the Atlantic Ocean in one afternoon. Richie Pretto, general manager of Open Blue Sea Farms, and Brian O'Hanlon, president of Open Blue Sea Farms, picked me up in the city and we took the highway north. The highway is less than a year old and has reduced a trip from Panama City to Colon from three to one hour.
During the ride I learned more about the backstory of Open Blue Sea Farms. Richie Pretto was one of the founders of Pristine Oceans, a company formed by Seattle, Washington-based Environmental Technologies Inc., which manufactures aquaculture feed systems, and Panamanian investors. But, according to Brian, ETI didn't have the experience to launch a fish farm and took Pristine Oceans in the wrong direction. So Pristine Oceans tanked at first. Panamanian investors pulled out. Employees were let go. Richie says it was the business plan, which was developed from scratch because very few people had seriously attempted to launch an offshore fish farm. "It's a new experience for everybody," Richie says. "There are only a handful of people who've done this: Brian, Kona (referring to a company in Hawaii) and some guy in South Korea who doesn't speak English or Spanish."But Richie didn't give up. He bought out the other investors, ditched the U.S. company and approached Brian and Open Blue Sea Farms, which had been considering Panama for an offshore aquaculture site since 2005. Rather than duplicate efforts, Open Blue Sea Farms arranged to acquire Pristine Oceans. Open Blue officially took over operations in Puerto Lindo on August 1, but continues to finalize the acquisition.
Today, the company employs 30 people. Two months ago it had 10 employees, Richie says.
Starting a company attempting to do something that hasn't been done before is not an easy proposition. Its a startup, but one that has very high upfront capital costs followed by a lag in any cash flow until the fish can be farmed roughly a year later. As a result, the company has the feel of a startup, complete with the employees working long hours and going above and beyond to make the company a success, Richie says. "Everyone here is in endurance mode," Richie says.
While we were in the car crossing the isthmus that is Panama, Brian was checking his email on his iPhone. One email made him speak up from the backseat. It was from Mario Batale's business manager. Brian bumped into Batale the last time he was in New York. He didn't let the opportunity pass him by. He introduced himself, told Batale about Open Blue Sea Farms and the cobia they are farming. Last year, Batale competed against Jamie Oliver on the "Battle Cobia" episode of Iron Chef America. They didn't use Open Blue Sea Farms cobia and Brian wanted to make sure that didn't happen again. The email from the business manager was a followup asking Open Blue Sea Farms to contribute some cobia to a benefit event Batale is hosting. "We'd be delighted," Richie says from the driver's seat, smiling.
Cobia is a solitary fish, so it has never been extensively fished and is still relatively unknown to many consumers. But it is a good fit for aquaculture. It breeds well in captivity, it grows quickly and, though a carniverous fish, it doesn't require high amounts of fish meal and fish oil in its feed, according to Brian.
It was night by the time we reached the small fishing village of Puerto Lindo. I met a few of the employees in the office before Brian and I walked down the beach to a restaurant with white plastic tables and chairs set up outside on a patio. In the daytime, we would have seen several sailboats moored in the bay, along with three fish cages that Open Blue has set up in the bay, ready to tow to an offshore site. We ordered a few Balboas, a Panamanian cerveza, and began to chat about Brian's ironic dislike of eating fish. "I wish I'd eat more," he says. "I know it's health benefits. But I have this mental problem."
Brian comes from a longline of men in the seafood business. His grandfather and father were both seafood distributors in New York. "So I kind of grew up being force fed fish. So I have this mental block," he says. "I blame my grandmother."Brian's interest in aquaculture was fostered by a deep love of the ocean and his family's personal experiences with fishing. His father invested in cod boats in the 1980s, which proved to be a bad business decision as cod landings suffered. "Fishery collapse has wreaked havoc on my family," he says. "So I developed an interest in aquaculture at a young age."
His attraction to the business was also driven by two pieces of advice from his father: He would never make money as a marine biologist and that he'd never meet a beautiful woman working on the water. (For the record, Brian's wife is a personal trainer.)
So he found himself hatching red snapper in his parents' basement at 17, launching an aquaculture company in Puerto Rico in his 20s and now, at 30, leading one of the most innovative aquaculture companies on the planet.
Coming up...the fish farm and swimming with the cobia
Monday, November 2, 2009
The men of Open Blue Sea Farms
I just returned to Panama City after three days in Puerto Lindo, where Open Blue Sea Farms has its aquaculture operation. Before I get into the nuts and bolts of the fish farm, let me introduce you to the faces behind the story. Open Blue Sea Farms employs roughly 30 people. Here are a small handful of those workers.
Brian O'Hanlon - founder and president of Open Blue Sea Farms. A native of New York, O'Hanlon comes from a third generation seafood family. He began his career in aquaculture at 17, when he gutted his parents basement to build a hatchery for red snapper. No one had hatched this species in captivity before, but O'Hanlon was successful by tricking his brood stock into thinking it was mating season by altering the temperature of the water and length of the day that light shown on the tank. At 30, he now runs a company pursuing another first: to prove that raising fish in offshore cages can be a sustainable and profitable practice. In the photo, O'Hanlon in the bay of Puerto Lindo. In the background are two AquaPods from Searsmont, Maine-based Ocean Farm Technologies. The cages are currently empty, but the company expects to fill them with cobia in January.
Richie Pretto - general manager of Open Blue Sea Farms. Richie is Panamanian and a veteran of both the U.S. Army and Panama's shrimp farming industry. Richie was one of the original founders of Pristine Oceans, the Panamanian company that started operations in Puerto Lindo in early 2008. However, it struggled from lack of experience and was near shuttering when Open Blue Sea Farms got involved. O'Hanlon had been considering Panama as a site for an offshore fish farm for several years and instead of duplicating efforts, acquired Pristine Oceans' assets. Open Blue officially took over operations of Pristine Oceans in August.
Ben Fazioli - production manager. An Australian and veteran of that country's salmon farming operations, Ben met Richie at a conference and decided to throw his lot in with the nascent Pristine Oceans. Ben also worked at a salmon farm for six months in Chile and witnessed first hand the havoc that unsustainable practices, such as stocking fish at very high densities, can have on the quality of fish and the industry as a whole.
Luis - Scuba manager. Luis is a commercial scuba diver who was recently hired to take care of Open Blue Sea Farms' scuba diving operations. A fish farm requires a number of skilled divers to maintain the submerged fish cages, from mending nets at 30 feet below the surface to collecting the dead fish, or "morts," at the bottom of the cages.
Valerio - expert in fish hatcheries. Valerio, an Italian, will take over Open Blue Sea Farm's hatchery operations when they are built. In the meantime, he helps out everywhere. The rest of the staff look forward to his nights in the kitchen.
Javier - employee. Javy is a veteran of Panama's shrimp farming industry and a skilled scuba diver. He lives about two hours from Puerto Lindo and commutes home a few times a week.
Mario - employee. Mario is a diver and good dancer.
Ismael - employee. Ismael is a relatively new employee at the company. His skill is scuba diving.
Cappy - employee. Cappy lives in Puerto Lindo and is very skilled with a hook and line thanks to the fact he's been fishing since he was five years old.
Faustino - employee. Give him a rope and he'll splice it with the best of them.
Brian O'Hanlon - founder and president of Open Blue Sea Farms. A native of New York, O'Hanlon comes from a third generation seafood family. He began his career in aquaculture at 17, when he gutted his parents basement to build a hatchery for red snapper. No one had hatched this species in captivity before, but O'Hanlon was successful by tricking his brood stock into thinking it was mating season by altering the temperature of the water and length of the day that light shown on the tank. At 30, he now runs a company pursuing another first: to prove that raising fish in offshore cages can be a sustainable and profitable practice. In the photo, O'Hanlon in the bay of Puerto Lindo. In the background are two AquaPods from Searsmont, Maine-based Ocean Farm Technologies. The cages are currently empty, but the company expects to fill them with cobia in January.
Richie Pretto - general manager of Open Blue Sea Farms. Richie is Panamanian and a veteran of both the U.S. Army and Panama's shrimp farming industry. Richie was one of the original founders of Pristine Oceans, the Panamanian company that started operations in Puerto Lindo in early 2008. However, it struggled from lack of experience and was near shuttering when Open Blue Sea Farms got involved. O'Hanlon had been considering Panama as a site for an offshore fish farm for several years and instead of duplicating efforts, acquired Pristine Oceans' assets. Open Blue officially took over operations of Pristine Oceans in August.
Ben Fazioli - production manager. An Australian and veteran of that country's salmon farming operations, Ben met Richie at a conference and decided to throw his lot in with the nascent Pristine Oceans. Ben also worked at a salmon farm for six months in Chile and witnessed first hand the havoc that unsustainable practices, such as stocking fish at very high densities, can have on the quality of fish and the industry as a whole.
Luis - Scuba manager. Luis is a commercial scuba diver who was recently hired to take care of Open Blue Sea Farms' scuba diving operations. A fish farm requires a number of skilled divers to maintain the submerged fish cages, from mending nets at 30 feet below the surface to collecting the dead fish, or "morts," at the bottom of the cages.
Valerio - expert in fish hatcheries. Valerio, an Italian, will take over Open Blue Sea Farm's hatchery operations when they are built. In the meantime, he helps out everywhere. The rest of the staff look forward to his nights in the kitchen.
Javier - employee. Javy is a veteran of Panama's shrimp farming industry and a skilled scuba diver. He lives about two hours from Puerto Lindo and commutes home a few times a week.
Mario - employee. Mario is a diver and good dancer.
Ismael - employee. Ismael is a relatively new employee at the company. His skill is scuba diving.
Cappy - employee. Cappy lives in Puerto Lindo and is very skilled with a hook and line thanks to the fact he's been fishing since he was five years old.
Faustino - employee. Give him a rope and he'll splice it with the best of them.
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