Jennie Koolstra is an aquaculturist who used to teach high school Spanish
and English. Her husband, who had always loved fishing, used to work at his
family's dairy. Now they run a fish farm together in Colorado.
"We almost bought a facility... and then my husband just decided we could
build one," says Koolstra. "We have the largest private trout hatchery in
Colorado now. He's been pouring concrete for 10 years."
Koolstra says helping to run a fish farm works well for her, as a mother
of young children.
"I sell the fish and schedule everything and do the invoices and all the
computer work, so it's nice for me, because I can stay home for my kids,"
says Koolstra. "It's nice because we're alone and the kids get to grow up
in a farm setting."
But that's not to say that fish farming is easy. Fish farming is hard
work.
"It's very physical," says Koolstra. "We load everything by hand onto
the trucks."
It was a fish farm owned by a relative that first got Karl Dickob interested
in aquaculture.
"An uncle of mine had a fish farm in Germany and I was hanging around
and it always fascinated me, but I had no chance to establish a fish farm
in Germany because the land is not available or too expensive," says Dickob.
Once he was in North America, Dickob was able to start a fish farm. He
has seen demand for farmed fish grow a lot over that time.
"It's only in the last 25 years or so, that... fish farming and the consumption
of fish got more and more popular," says Dickob. "Right now, we cannot produce
enough fish."
Dickob says that demand is likely to keep going. "The biggest pastime...
is fishing," says Dickob. "That fascinates people. And the fishing is getting
from bad to worse, so people try to get into [fish farming] to restock lakes
and so on.
"There's a lot of CFIP (Community Fisheries Involvement Project) groups
here -- they are community fishing improvement clubs... and they either buy
stock from people like us or they have small community hatcheries themselves,"
Dickob adds. "The interest grows and grows. And if it's done the right way,
and if you have the support, people can make a pretty good living."
Norie Spence has learned that starting a fish farm in your own home --
or even in a classroom -- is very doable. She's a high school science teacher
and guidance counselor who recently got her students interested in fish farming.
They plan to soon start one in the classroom.
Spence was on Facebook looking at groups focused on sustainability. She
saw some information about a workshop on fish farming in tanks that a nearby
university was offering.
"I thought, 'That's interesting' and read a little about it, signed up
for the course, took the course, and went, 'You could do this in a classroom!'"
says Spence.
"I thought, 'If I can teach the kids how to grow their own protein --
fish -- then they're not going to starve to death,' and I know that sounds
crazy, but I just think that if things get tight -- we're a very poor community
anyways -- then fish is a way to survive," says Spence. "And then if they
can grow vegetables as well, with their fish waste, then they're also going
to have healthy food."
Spence says there's a lot of great info out there if you want to start
your own fish farm. In many countries it's very common for families to grow
their own fish for food.
"There's lots of stuff on the Internet on it, because this is being done
all over the world," says Spence. "The only place it really isn't being done
(in a big way) is North America. You can do it in an aquarium -- it doesn't
have to be big."
Two main things have surprised Spence during her process of learning about
aquaculture and fish farming.
"I was stunned that it could be done at home," says Spence.
"And the other [surprise] was how it doesn't smell. The only thing that smells
is the food."