Crops & Livestock | Farm

Florida Aquaculture Teaches the Art of Raising Fish

Dr. Nicole Kirchhoff founded Live Advantage Bait (LAB), the nation’s first marine baitfish aquaculture company. Photo credit: Jason Nuttle

Americans are literally hooked on fish, eating an average of 16 pounds of it per person each year. And we aren’t the only ones.

There is a growing worldwide demand for the low-fat, high-protein, heart-healthy food, and there are two ways to meet it: harvesting wild fish through commercial fishing and growing them on farms through aquaculture.

As the fishing capital of the world, Florida is the perfect place for both. The nearly 1,000 certified aquaculture farms in the state produce an estimated 1,500 varieties of fish, aquatic plants, mollusks, crustaceans, turtles, amphibians and alligators for ornamental, food and bait markets, as well as for sporting, conservation and educational purposes.

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Evans Fish Farm in Pierson and Live Advantage Bait in Stuart are two of Florida’s aquaculture enterprises.

Spawning a Successful Business

Evans Fish Farm was an early adopter of aquaculture. The family began growing tilapia and striped bass in ponds on their farm 40 years ago. In 2003, they added a third species.

“We were pioneers in raising sturgeon,” says Geno Evans, who along with his sister, Jane Davis; brother, Todd; and mother, Marilyn, manage the farm. “It was a big learning curve, but we were lucky because we had the expertise of the professionals at the University of Florida Extension Office to help us.”

Florida aquaculture
Photo credit: Jason Nuttle

That decision 18 years ago makes Evans Fish Farm one of the few commercial sturgeon farming operations in the Western Hemisphere. Today, they also produce Ossetra, Siberian, and Sevruga sturgeon and Anastasia Gold caviar in tanks on their 100-acre fish farm, while continuing to raise tilapia and bass.

“Sturgeon have been overfished in their home range of the Caspian Sea,” Evans says. “Aquaculture is the best way to save the wild sturgeon.”

But raising them requires expertise, and a lot of patience, explains Davis, who holds a degree in aquaculture from Florida Technical College in Orlando.

“It’s all based on science,” she says. “We induce the fish to spawn inside our hatchery, so we perform sonograms on the fish to determine their egg status. We test the eggs to see when they are ready to mature and test the males for sperm maturity. Once they hatch and grow to 4 to 5 pounds, we move them to different concrete tanks where they stay for about five years, as it takes five to seven years to produce eggs for caviar. Then,

we test their maturity and move the females to cold tanks for caviar production.”

In addition to caviar, the farm raises sturgeon to sell for its meat, which Evans describes as “a good white firm fish that smokes well and is especially popular with Eastern Europeans,” and is exploring the possibility of adding red snapper to the operation.

“Consumers and chefs really appreciate how aquaculture adds to the diversity and availability of species and the ability to go from farm to table,” he says.

Florida aquaculture
Evans Fish Farm raises bass, tilapia and several types of sturgeon, which is used for caviar. Photo credit: Evans Farms

Taking the Bait

Nicole Kirchhoff grew up in Jupiter. She had studied aquaculture for decades, earning a Ph.D. in aquatic animal health and working as a marine biologist in Australia and Maine. Kirchhoff wanted to return to Florida, but no one was doing the kind of work in research, conservation and fish welfare that was her passion. The answer was to start her own aquaculture business.

In May 2013, Kirchhoff founded Live Advantage Bait (LAB), the first and only marine baitfish aquaculture company in the United States.

“We took a big leap,” Kirchhoff says. “We did a lot of research and found that there is a huge commercial market, with $275 million spent on live marine baitfish each year. At the same time, we found there was at least a 30% gap between what is needed and what could be obtained from the wild.”

LAB closes that gap. Every month, it produces 40,000 pinfish fingerlings, which is the name given to fish eggs that have hatched and reached a stage where fins and scales have formed. A planned expansion will allow LAB to increase production to 150,000 baitfish every 20 days.

See more: 15 Fantastic Summer Seafood Recipes

Kirchhoff credits LAB’s success to a commitment to science and to “my village of private businesses, researchers and NGOs who are innovators in getting aquaculture businesses off the ground.”

LAB’s growth is especially significant when you consider that the market for marine baitfish closed down during the pandemic.

Photo credit: Evans Farms

“Fortunately, we were able to pivot and work with researchers who needed our services during the pandemic. It was also a time when more people became educated about where their food comes from because they couldn’t get it. That prompted investors to see aquaculture as an efficient and sustainable way to fill that gap.”

The investments have allowed LAB to increase production of pinfish, red drum and pompano fingerlings, which are sold to others to grow out, and to put additional efforts into applied aquaculture innovation, restoration and conservation.

“It’s really healthy to eat fish,” Kirchhoff says. “Aquaculture is about health too. The health of the fish, which here we grow in ideal conditions using the most nutritious feed. The health of the environment, because in our growing process we recycle nearly all of our water. And the health of other fish species, because when we grow fish we leave more wild fish in their natural environment for the fish that depend on them.”