Mr Farmer,

what was the title of the book you bought from Mardi ??

am going there tomorrow
thanks

hi guys, wondering whats the best way to market my salted eggs?

how do you guys market your foods?

currently I am selling to retails and kopitiam....

if you guys got the ins and outs and secret in dealing with this people then please let me know....

business to business is my first venture...my past business is business to consumer....

Mr Para & Mr Farmer,

Thanks.
I'm practising the same as Mr Farmer.
Cut, dissect the affected tree & dig the crom if necessary.

currently 2 tree were cut down due to this weevils. now testing to propagate some berangan by crom. hopefully some good result.

This post has been edited by poks: Apr 8 2013, 08:06 AM

Hi ParaOp

I was googling about Tilapia farming and it brought me to lowyat!

I have a body of water, a lake to be precise, of about 200 acres.

Thinking of venturing into Tilapia farming.

Searching for info about capital(investment) and operational costs.......could you enlighten me on this since
you seem to have a handle on fish farming?

Thanks!

Sorry

Whats RAS?

wow!...200 hundred acres of water body, thats huge!
you can intergrated farming like ducks with fish

Serangga Perosak Buah-buahan Tropika Malaysia

Hi prophetjul,

thanks for writing.

hadnt been in Fish Farming for like 5 years now.

If you have a place like 200 acres then you can "divide" into smaller cachement and rear non stop and thus giving you output everymonth or even every 2 weeks.

Capital is subjective. And there is no figure i can put out. It actually depends on how much you are able to put forward for this venture then only work backwards.

RAS : is Recirculating Aquaculture System which is usually housed in tanks and alot of factors like weather and fish quality can be monitored and controlled.

ParaOp

Thanks for replying.

We were thinking of using the cage system as we have the water body size.
We are also thinking of the vertically integrated system from cultivation/production to filleting/freezing/packing.

As far as Capex is concerned, we have no limits. We have access to funding.
What would be a the ball park investment per acre?

In your opinion, how much would be the average operating costs in RM per ton of fish?

Thanks for sharing!

Hi Farmer,

How is your shopping for the sprayer? Do you mind to share infromation about the sprayer that can reach to 40-50 fleets?

HI Teratai,
No luck

Mist Blower (backpack), it's about 15 to 25 ft high (with a micronex head attached, reduce the droplets to micron size)

Seen some photos of people using back pack power sprayer with long lance. I think for pest control, wastage is quite high. For foilar spray, fertilizer, I guess it's ok. Another thing, the long lance looks heavy, difficult to handle in the field.

Still scratching head.

Rain stopped. Off to farm.

If 200acres is entirely water size with depth 10ft and above, it's a huge lake.
Question to consider, how well you know the lake, what's in it? It can make a difference.
How about the security etc?

Having access to large funding, wonders can be done.
Despite that, you would want to avoid as much mistakes and time wastage.

There are numerous downstream activities that can be done with Tilapia.
But I believe, one step at a time is better approach as you can stabilize yourself with experience learnt before moving downstreams.onl
Yet again, with $$, you can short cut and hire the expert know how people to do the work.
I myself prefer to hands on everything, will only leave it to managers once the ship had been steadied.

I myself is in the Aqua Feed business, where my department mainly handling Tilapia Feed business.
I'm also in the Tilapia farming, small farm with 2 ponds. I also secure my clients would be able to sell their fish when harvest.

My feed cost in my farm is about RM3.50 - RM4.50 per kg of fish depending of what I am doing with it. Market ex-farm price vary from RM8-RM10 per kg. Fluctuations depends on demand and supply.
Feed cost would be your largest operating cost. How efficiently you balance cost vs benefit is the key. How efficiently you convert your FCR. We usually aim to have lower FCR to be more profitable. Yet, on another hand, lower FCR with better margin may not neccessary means more profits.
As for other operating cost, it entirely depend on yourself.

Lastly, most important is the market and your location.
Certain location does not command a good price.

Oh yes, prices fluctuations play a major part. Papaya in my area dropped by 50% recently. No eye see. Waiting for my flight to Krabi for some time off. Deal with it when I'm back.

Hi M

Thanks very much for your input.

I know the lake very well.
We are indeed thinking of employing some experts.
I understand there is a large tilapia setup in Perak. That's what we are thinking of.

Our market would be predominantly overseas where we probably fetch better prices.

Whats your yield from your two ponds?

Yes. Feed costs is the highest portion of operating costs.
Therefore we are thinking of the holistic approach from fries, cultivation to packaging, feedmeal manufacturing, etc.
Thinking of using the cage systems.

are the operating risks associated with such venture?
One of concern is the waste as in the fish poo. Is the contamination by such waste a big concern for a large
lake with continuous inflow of water from streams?What

You could employ experts if you have $$ muscle, but a real expert cost a bomb. Domestic experts is rare commodity.

China is world largest Tilapia exporter with ex-farm price at RMB8 = RM4! true that their quality is doubtful but their price is extreme low.
Shall you like to fetch good export EU Price or Middle east price, you need to spend a lot to get certification from them. Having said that, the price you fetch only slightly higher than domestic. Therefore supply domestic is far better if you have ways.

As far as I know in Perak, their ex-farm price atm is slightly lower than those in Selangor.

Fries - although there isn't that high number of hatchery. I do believe atm certain fries are at oversupply which push down the prices, except for some species, but those are the imported ones where we call completely neutered.
Packing - Margin is low unless you found targeted market.
Feedmill - Getting the right nutritionist is tough enough. Jalan to get quality and rare raw materials is very tough (mainly secretive), plus countless of additives out there in the market. So to use which and at what composition to efficiently to better the FCR of the feed is a true challenge. It look like rocket science to me in the beginning. Till now, my business partner take care of it while I work on marketing.

There are numerous calculated and uncalculated risks. I do advise start small, however the same successful way of managing 1 pond is not the same with doing it on 10 ponds with same practice.

Fish poo may seems the big problem to some, but it's rather easy to overcome. You just can never overcome nature.
In huge lake, I believe the ecosystem itself may be helpful to you.

I had considerable success with approximately 3-4 fish/m cube of water with conservative approach. I'm testing at much higher number, even if that so, that will only be estimation. Some may say I'm too conservative. But in practice, you just can't be greedy in aquaculture. Try it out, then you'll find out by yourself.

In fish, our plural is much. It's not like in cows or pigs, where you can really talk about "daily gain". Nature can help or destroy you.

Despite saying that, our country is consider cheap enough utilizing land and nature water, rather than going for RAS system etc. Look, it's Tilapia, not grouper. Don't have to make things complicated.

Thanks mate! That is very helpful!

All the best in your venture.

Hi M-Century, any chances of you going to your pond on 26 ~ 29th April, would lie to follow & look see, if it's permitted I still harbor an interest of aquaculture
(very small scale, integrated farming ) just that I'm still working on my phase 1, agriculture.

You are very welcome to visit during that time.
I left you pm on my contact number.

hi guys,

sorry to intrude. Im new here,i have been planting chilli plants for about 6 weeks now(started farming on a personal scale since early 2013).

My plants are suffering from spider mites.

I read ladybugs do help control the infestation. Do anyone know where I could purchase them?(tried mudah,cant find)

Im reluctant to go for pesticides. But if there is no other options,I might have to

If anyone has other suggestions to get rid of them, would be most appreciated.

Hey, if you can't get those ladybugs; why not try spraying neem extract on those infected chilli plants.

Just my humble opinion, maybe there is a much better way.