Ka Wai Ola - Office of Hawaiian Affairs, Volume 11, Number 4, 1 April 1994 — Molokaʻi launches aquaculture project [ARTICLE+ILLUSTRATION]

Molokaʻi launches aquaculture project

by Patrick Johnston It took only a few hours to put together but participants hope the backyard aquaculture tank set up on homesteaders Elmer and Abby Looney's property in Ho'olehua will provide a basis

tor tuture eom-munity-based e e o n o m i e development on Moloka'i. The tank was one of six put together as part of a partnership be|ween OHA, the state Aquaculture De velopment P r o g r a m (ADP), and the University of Hawai'i that hopes to establish a functional - and hopefully self-sufficient - backyard aquaculture industry across the state.

The Moloka'i tank was the sixth and final tank installed since the project began in August and had the highest ratio - 15 of the 20 participants - of native Hawaiians of any of the groups. "This was the most active of the groups we have worked with so far. The tank went up really fast," said OHA eeonomie specialist, Joan Chatterton who attended the event. Elmer Looney added, "The weather was perfect and people were really charged and enthusiastic." For the past 10 months OHA, the University of Hawai'i and ADP have been signing up potential backyard aquafarmers statewide and setting up workshops to explain the ins and outs of the trade. The first set of workshops was on the Big Island in August. Backyard aquaculture uses plywood-constructed round tanks with plastic liners filled

with approximately 2,800 gallons of fresh water to grow a variety of fresh water products. All project tanks have been stocked with Chinese catfish. This is because of their high market price and low mainte-

nanee cost. Participants in eaeh of the island projects go through five workshops covering subjects from construction and tank maintenance to business management and marketing. The hope is that they will eome out with a more complete knowledge of how to run and manage an aquaculture operation. When the course is finished workshop participants are encouraged to form cooperatives. "People in the past went in big scale by themselves and then went bankrupt," says Chatterton. "With a cooperative, growers ean buy materials at a cheaper price and schedule their production to sell their produce at a higher price." There is power in organized numbers. By making bigger orders - especially for materials from the Mainland - the cost per item is considerably less. By

staggering their production schedules eo-op aquafarmers ean make sure that they are not all harvesting at the same time, a situation that would drive down the price of the fish and drive producers out of business.

The first group to form a cooperative was in Kamuela on the Big Island. Anticipating that they would be able to sell $3,000 to $4,000 worth of fish, the group, Aqua Hui Hawai'i, is trying to leverage the anticipated revenue to buy a tank for another group member. The continued on page 19

Aquaculture project participants discuss tank construction in Ho'olehua.

Aquaculture project

from page 7 hope is that as tank owners harvests their fish they ean pay the eo-op for their tank and allow another person to buy one. "We are trying to follow a concept that whoever uses eo-op money to buy a tank will pay back the group for the tank," says Ben Sadeghi, Aqua Hui president. "That way the money goes to pay for the next tank." Aqua Hui Hawai'i hopes to harvest its first crop of catfish this month and will be selling them at restaurants, hotels and markets around the island. (For i -

information about Aqua Hui Hawai'i contact Ben Sadeghi at 775-0284.) Elmer Looney on Moloka'i wants to create a hui similar to the one on the Big Island then begin networking with groups across the state. "We haven't made any plans yet but a lot of people in our workshops have been saying they would like to take the advice of workshop organizers and organize a group to grow and market the fish."