What Makes Organic Fish Farming Difficult? The Difficulty Lies in Getting It to Market (Part 2)
Editor's note: This article is one in a series introducing ecological aquaculture. Continuing from the previous article's introduction to farming methods, this installment reports on the market and sales side of ecological aquaculture. For the previous article, see Fish farming can also be very organic - what on earth is ecological aquaculture? (Part 1)
The marketing challenge of ecological aquaculture
Because organic farming is something people can see and touch, it is relatively easy to develop agricultural experiences, farmers' markets and other promotional activities. But with aquaculture, unless you pull the fish out, you have no idea what conditions are like down there. You don't know how many died or how many are left. "And when we harvest, we have to bring up a certain volume at once, otherwise just the labor costs make it not worthwhile." Therefore, ecological aquaculture must have fixed sales channels that make large-volume purchases; unlike crops, it cannot be sold in small batches to individual buyers.
"Once the sales process drags on, the freshness of the fish differs. So it is also very hard for us to hold an organic market like farmers do, because fresh products cannot withstand long periods of transport and display for sale." says aquaculture operator Chiu Ching-yao.
To ensure that no drug contamination occurs during processing, when handling the fish, Chiu Ching-yao arranges the time with the processing plant in advance; the fish must be pulled ashore and processed together immediately the same day, using dedicated knives, and the packaging is exclusive as well, so there is no chance of cross-contamination with other vendors' fish. Chiu Ching-yao says: "I remember one time, because a neighboring village suddenly needed to ship a large quantity, the processing plant left my fish until the next day. When I found out, I immediately told the plant that this batch would not go to the fresh market and would be made directly into kabayaki. Even though the price of kabayaki is cut in half, in order to be responsible to consumers, I still had to grit my teeth and handle it that way."
