Valley

program feeds growing field



By RUTH HEIDE

ALAMOSA — “Traditional agriculture and aquaculture are hand in glove,” Trinidad State Junior College Aquaculture Director Ted Smith told members of the Rio Grande Roundtable this week.

“The same gallon of water we need for potatoes we could be growing fish in it first,” Smith said. Nutrient-rich water from fish farming is recycled onto potato and barley fields in the San Luis Valley.

Smith, a fish farmer for 24 years, began the aquaculture program at TSJC about 12 years ago with a geothermal site on Ilene Kerr’s property. He described the various methods and types of fish grown in the aquaculture program. The program’s “bread and butter” fish is tilapias that are primarily sold to faculty, staff and students with the money going back into the program. Smith said 275 million pounds of tilapia are sold in this country a year with 80-90 percent imported from countries such as China. He added the main market U.S. growers could meet that foreign countries could not was the fresh fish market.

Smith said he is acquiring a fish processing grant that would enable the program to market its fish wholesale to area restaurants and incorporate a retail counter for individual customers.

In addition to growing food fish such as tilapia the aquaculture program grows bait and ornamental fish and works with agencies such as the Colorado Division of Wildlife and U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service in recovery efforts for endangered species and species in decline.

The program uses both geothermal water and coldwater ponds depending on the type of fish being raised, Smith explained. For example one location using cold water produces 80,000 catchable rainbow trout a year for the Colorado Division of Wildlife to stock into area streams and reservoirs.

Smith said the job placement rate from the aquaculture program is 100 percent with a waiting list of employers. “There’s more jobs than students,” he said. A graduate of his two-year program can start at $30,000 a year with an employer like the Division of Wildlife, the aquaculture program’s number-one employer, Smith said.

He said aquaculture is the fastest growing segment of American agriculture because of the demand for fish by consumers. He explained that fish are recommended for healthy diets.

Fish farming is a billion-dollar industry in this country, Smith said. More than six million pounds of catfish alone are produced annually, he said. That is the largest fish crop followed by shellfish, oysters, clams, crawfish, trout, salmon, tilapia and hybrid striped bass.

Smith said 70 percent of the seafood consumed in the United States is imported. “Behind oil, our number-two deficit in spending is in seafood,” he said.

For more information about the aquaculture program visit the Web site http://valley.trinidadstate.edu/aquaculture/default.html.