Commercial aquaponics production and profitability: Findings from an international survey

By D. Love, Jillian P. Fry, Ximin Li, Elizabeth S. Hill, Laura Genello, K. Semmens, R. Thompson. 2015

408 citations recorded by the source corpus.

Abstract Aquaponics is the integration of aquaculture and hydroponics. There is expanding interest in aquaponics as a form of aquaculture that can be used to produce food closer to urban centers. Commercial aquaponics uses methods and equipment from both the hydroponics and aquaculture industries. There have been few studies of commercial-scale aquaponics production, and the purpose of this research was to document the production methods, crop and fish yields, and profitability of commercial aquaponics in the United States (US) and internationally. An online survey was used for data collection, and 257 respondents met the inclusion criteria for the study. Eighty-one percent of respondents lived in the US, and the remaining respondents were from 22 other countries. The median year that respondents had begun practicing aquaponics was 2010. A total of 538 full-time workers, 242 part-time workers, and 1720 unpaid workers or volunteers were employed at surveyed organizations. The most commonly raised aquatic animals by percent were tilapia (69%), ornamental fish (43%), catfish (25%), other aquatic animals (18%), perch (16%), bluegill (15%), trout (10%), and bass (7%). Production statistics, gross sales revenue, investments, and sales outlets for operations are reported and compared to other fields of aquaculture and agriculture. A multivariable logistic regression model was used to study which factors were associated with profitability (as a binary outcome) in the past 12 months. Several factors were significantly associated with profitability: aquaponics as the respondents' primary source of income (p

Subfields: Aquatic Science, Water Science and Technology

View Paper: https://www.semanticscholar.org/paper/190056e78c8a4d160184752b93a0ec348f1c4c7e

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Citations in the corpus

Consolidating the current knowledge on urban agriculture in productive urban food systems: Learnings, gaps and outlook (2019, background): “Despite this, an international survey revealed that the majority of commercial projects will reach profitability within the next few years, selling mainly on-farm or at farmer’s markets (Love et al., 2015).”
Sustainable Intensification of Aquaculture through Nutrient Recycling and Circular Economies: More Fish, Less Waste, Blue Growth (2021, background): “Integrated multi-trophic aquaculture systems could be implemented within freshwater aquaculture, functioning at a smaller scale than extensive mariculture systems (Chopin et al. 2012; Turcios and Papenbrock 2014; Goddek et al. 2015; Love et al. 2015; Wongkiew et al. 2017).”
Economic analysis of aquaponics and hydroponics production in the U.S. Midwest (2018, background): “In an international survey of aquaponics, Love et al. (2015) found that tilapia was the fish species that was commonly raised in aquaponics systems, while the commonly grown crops were high-value vegetables and herbs such as basil, lettuce, tomatoes, salad greens, kale, chard, bok choy, peppers,…”