Abstract
Commercial aquaponics systems remain a challenge independent of the country, fish, plant species, or system design type. Most aquaponics systems are made by hobbyists, with aquaponics not being the main source of income. As such, scholars and practitioners have long debated the real profitability of aquaponics systems. With the growth of the aquaponics industry and commercial businesses, sustainable economic viability is necessary. Recently, considerable literature has been published around the theme of aquaponics systems design but there is a gap in the literature regarding the business aspect of this. Moreover, only by acquiring the enterprise knowledge of planning a business case, obtaining funds, and running and maintaining a business will this industry be able to grow. This paper intends to create a directory of possible considerations to plan for a viable commercial aquaponics system by uniting already established business frameworks and adapting them to the aquaponics industry. This framework proposes a guide to evaluate the economic feasibility of the enterprise depending on the revenues, costs and investments needed for the chosen system within its operations, market, and environment.
Highlights
Aquaponics is still a recent study field
This framework proposes a guide to evaluate the economic feasibility of the enterprise depending on the revenues, costs and investments needed for the chosen system within its operations, market, and environment
The objective of this paper is to introduce and discuss a framework
Summary
Aquaponics is still a recent study field. One of the first papers that addressed it in the late 1970s did not even call it aquaponics, rather: “Combined production of fish and plants in recirculating water” [1]. The current landscape for aquaponics has been investigated in recent surveys [8,9,10]. As can be seen from these surveys, aquaponics practitioners are very new in the total food production system landscape and commercial systems are still a minority within this community. Aside from this, there is a knowledge gap of technical and operational issues and in how to make aquaponics profitable [2,11]. Most of the scientific knowledge acquired to date addresses the production system from a technical and scientific approach rather than looking into the economic issues [13]. A 2019 review shows that, from all the publications on aquaponics from 1980 to 2017, 58% had no economic references. The majority (82%) focused on different elements of the production system, while few (18%) dealt with the economics or management of commercial aquaponics [13]
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