|
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Several business opportunities - component parts of the Integrated Developing Scheme described in Africans, Stop Being Poor! are listed in following table.
| a-
SHEA BUTTER (5,
6, 7,
11, 12,
13)
b- BLUE GOLD (14,
15, 16,
17, 18,
19)
c- FREEZE-DRIED PAPAIN (20,
21, 22
and here)
d-
KENAF (23,
24)
e- VEGETABLE OIL (25,
26, 27,
28)
f- CEREALS (30,
31, 32,
33)
g- FRUITS (34,
35, 36,
37, 38,
39, 40,
42, 43,
44, 45,
46)
h- ESSENTIAL OILS (47,
48, 49,
50, 51,
52)
i- ROOTS & TUBERS (54,
55, 56,
57, 58,
59, 60,
61, 62,
63, 64)
j-
FOWL BREEDING (66,
67, 68,
69, 70,
71, 72, 73, 74, 75, 76)
k- FISH FARMING (78, 79, 80, 81, |
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FISH FARMING AS BUSINESS OPPORTUNITY: PART
III - FISH-FARMING ECONOMICS
There are two ways to establishing fishing-farms: 1- Labor-intensive and 2- Capital-intensive.
In the first case,
the cost of labor is, most of the time, the main factor to consider to keep production costs at bay. In capital-intensive ventures high feed costs are the primary limiting factor in terms of production costs.
A fishing-farm venture will be economically feasible if products can be produced and sold at competitive prices against other animal-protein sources (meat and chicken meat).
Economic considerations (particularly for capital intensive operations) can be divided into: 1- Preliminary Investment and Costs; 2- Production costs and 3- Processing and Marketing costs
| PRELIMINARY INVESTMENT AND COSTS |
- Initial facilities (ponds, alleys, wells, evacuation system)
- Buildings and equipment (tanks, filters, pumps, cooling system)
- Power sources (solar, fossil fuel, hydraulic)
- Maintenance
- Depreciation
- Taxes
- Interest on working capital |
| PRODUCTION COSTS |
- Fish stock (eggs, fingerlings, spawners)
- Chemicals (disease control, additional fertilizer)
- Feed preparation and catering
- Labor
- Water pumping, oxygenation (and sometimes heating)
- Fuel (operation and transport)
- Miscellaneous supplies
- Harvesting
- Equipment (nets, lifts, tractors) |
| PROCESSING AND MARKETING COSTS |
- Direct processing costs (fish fillets' production)
- Dispatching / Shipment to distributors |
Depending on the size of a fish-farm, Preliminary Investment and Costs could require large capital input. However, the resulting high productivity level could help lowering production's costs. Therefore, a comprehensive feasibility study (and a detailed Business Plan) are necessary before any large capital investment in fish-farming is made; that is the need to have a detailed evaluation of the biologic, and economic constraints
A STRICT RECORD KEEPING
Onshore fish farming is carried out in ponds (small, large and huge ponds up to 4,000 sq. meter for industrial farms); marine (sea, lake and river) fish farming are based on immersed cages or nets.
Therefore, to yield steady production a fish-farmer needs to have an absolute control on the biologic and economic constraints - based on a strict record keeping of all variables involved - as briefly exposed on above table and in previous delivery.
Record keeping could be easily performed when the operation is on small-scale basis (one, two or three ponds - 10 to 20 sq meter each - for fingerlings and fry breeding, alevins and fish fattening). It becomes more difficult to carry out when the business is vertically integrated, comprising ten to hundreds large ponds (several hundreds up to thousand sq. meter in surface) including fry production, feed formulation and preparation, growing fish to market size of 700 to 900 g, and processing fish into fresh skinless boneless fillets, on site.
In such case, and even in small-scale operations, a fish-farmer would perform better if it could rely on a productivity tool that takes into accounts the slightest variation in the several criteria that have an impact on productivity and therefore on profits.
AQUACULTURE DECISION SUPPORT SOFTWARE / POND
Pond (Decision Support Systems) is a computer program developed to guide decision making processes pertaining to warmwater pond aquaculture. It is a valuable productivity tool that assists educators, managers, planners and researchers to quickly and accurately analyze aquaculture systems under different management regimes.
Pond helps simulating production scenarios (feeding variation, temperature discrepancies during production period, fish-densities and/or species combinations, specify
stocking and harvest dates of individual lots, and either specify or allow the
model to generate feeding and fertilization schedules, and water balance/flow
descriptions through pond facilities.) In short, Pond assists in the development of optimal management and production strategies.
These strategies can be simulated by the
use of either the simple or more complex models. Simple models are expected to
be useful for planning/management purposes, and more complex models for
short-term management and research applications. A graphics module is available
for viewing the results of simulation runs. Click here to visit Pond makers' website and download the software for free.
Based on previous deliveries' contents, the next issue (January 15, 2006) will further consider Tilapia's breeding characteristics.
Adobe
Acrobat Reader is available here
- Interested parties - private African and international investors /
companies, government
agencies,
international development
agencies - to make contact through the Free Access Support Console available at this link
Contact through the support console will get quickest reply from Africabiz Online's staff, than contact by emails. Click here for contact information. Be advised that first contact should be through the support console to be followed by phone calls. If you are a VIP-Member, use VIP-Members Support Console available here.
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here to review this clarification |
