Backyard Aquaponics
A place to discuss aquaponics

This is kind of pointless, starting to get a little like cricket stats...

Wise words of a person who has proven himself in this field.

BTW, the sane persons you are referring to, are the 95% that fail in practically everything they do. For that reason they always come with the same stupid argument "if it really is such a good idea, everybody would do it by now!" Success is partly based upon pure luck and partly on vision. The latter is hard to find....as well as the former.

And indeed, it is the person who runs the operation that makes the difference.

Gold diggers starting up AP enterprises are bound to failure, sooner or later. Simply because their initial attitude is the wrong one, greed! A serious entrepreneur, willing to invest time, energy, intelligence and money will succeed. Joel proved it, and not only he did. There are way more successful commercial AP systems out there than visible on this limited forum.

Rupert, I think you missed the point here.... No offense.

Well might all depend on your definition of "successful".... but care to name a few...


Perhaps.... what was the point....

I thought the topic was about commercial aquaponics farming... not aquaponics businesses such as BYAP....

Domani

EB put up a business based on selling an idea he is passionate about. An AP system produces fish and vegies, that is your end product perhaps with a little spin.
I personally think a small business could succeed, but you are *frack* if you think you can prevail over the current agri/market/fish industry in modern society. A government could do it, with will, or a corporation wasting money on their greenie ad budget.
As Rupert said the one loop is impractical for this.

Actually I'm just a humble purveyor of keyboards, and there is no quicker way to wear out a few than to have this conversation again

With the right internet marketing template... you could probably sell that dead horse Yavimaya...

Then your only way you make money is to sell keyboards which loose the letters printed on them? Or is that the cleaning them which requires holding the end in one hand and giving them a couple of hard bangs on the desk?

Yep, and probably not the last time I'm going to mention cricket stats..

What's that old saying about those who keep saying something can't be done, standing out of the way of those giving it a go...

And how is Stuart going?
Although I disagree with Rupe on a number of things, I would be loathe to encourage anyone to put their life savings and probably their home into an enterprise that is not, at the moment and in a lot of locations, viable.
We have this discussion many times, and no doubt many times again; if you have a passion or a dream, follow it.

BTW I have no idea what cricket statistics have to do with this and EB your Avatar currently looks like a Meerkat smiling and blinking the right eye ( the curl on the vege looks like a nose).

I'm not standing in the road of anyone wanting to "give it a go".... or even saying it "can't be done"...

I'm just suggesting that the way it's being proposed... and the scale at which it's being proposed....

Probably doesn't match... the hype with which it's being proposed...


And apart from that... nobody has to listen to anything I say anyway.....

Do your own spread sheets and business plan... and see if it'll work for you...

This is my point, I don't believe anyone said anything about any proposed scale, and no one hyped anything...

You make assumptions.

And yes, actually I have done the figures and not just the figures, I ran a trial.

On Koh Chao there was one that ran pretty good. Something went wrong though, nothing to blame to the setup or the management. Also, there seem to be some places spread over Thailand that are active commercially in AP. but hard to follow, since my Thai is limited.

The principle seems to work, but as Joel already mentioned, it depends a lot on the person that is running the show. To say in general that commercial AP won't work.....I'm doubting if that will hold in court...

Personally, if i can create a business where i no longer need to work in another position to support my i would consider that a successful commercial system. Whether it is "large' or not is debatable. My thought is that if i can succeed, then there should not be a reason i could not repeat it and therefore support additional help.

The one problem i have with aquaponics is more an issue with aquaculture. We're competing with 3rd world countries where labor is cheap and there are few rules on overtime, worker safety, environmental impact controls, 12,000 pages of regulations and battles with mega-corporate influencing government to put small businesses out on their butts.

In spite of it all, i think it can be done.

To my way of thinking, that means:
- Sufficient income that does not require income from an outside source. No investments, no grants, no second job.
- Income is derived soley from the production of crops/fish. No seminar fees, no sales of related equipment/books/consulting.

If I can do that, I'm happy.