A number of weeks ago Andrew Duff spoke about co-operatives in Aquaculture. In particular, he suggested possible advantages for small producers achieving economies of scale in areas such as marketing to high value, large fish markets in Asia.

This concept interested me and I’ve been doing some research on some existing co-ops.

Broken Bay Oysters is one. They faced a tough problem a number of years ago and through grouping their funds were able to invest in the technology necessary to solve their predicament.

This story can be read at the link below;

http://www.hospitalitymagazine.com.au/Article.aspx?ArticleID=234954

Here’s an example of a much larger scale co-op that represents a range of organic foods in Switzerland. Even though it’s not a purely aquaculture based co-op, it is funding important research into 1) processing of organic aquaculture products and 2) natural antioxidant constituents in fishmeal.

Here’s some information;

http://www.growfish.com.au/content.asp?contentid=3729

Getting back to purely aquaculture co-ops – Read this excerpt about the Texas Aquaculture Cooperative:

<<<<”The positive feasibility study provided the impetus for 31 producers to form the Texas Aquaculture Cooperative in the fall of 2002. Shimek is the co-op president and Hanson is vice president. They began processing their local catfish harvests in a building donated by Harold Bowers of Bowers Shrimp Company in Palacios.

Peter Woods became the Extension fisheries program specialist in the summer of 2002 and began working with co-op members to improve and expand their production ponds. He has helped growers produce 8,000 to 10,000 pounds of fish per acre. Most co-op members have several 8- to 10-acre ponds.

A few months later, with a business and marketing plan in hand, co-op members pooled $415,000 of their own start-up capital and built a 5,250-square-foot processing facility near Markham. The plant can process 150,000 pounds of fresh catfish per week.

The plant churned out more than 867,000 pounds of catfish in the last year, employed 24 full-time workers, and has pumped more than $17 million into the regional economy.”>>>>

Does anyone know of any WA or Australian Co-ops who are following a similar business growth strategy?

Sean