The United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) funds capacity building grants in order to strengthen teaching, research and extension programs in the food and agricultural sciences by building the institutional capacities of the 1890 Land-Grant Institutions. Although many of these grants explore ways of making aquaculture more accessible to limited-resource farmers, many of these farmers avoid aquaculture due to the high cost of entry in temperate U. S. states such as Kentucky, higher risks, and marketing difficulties, when compared to more traditional food products such as produce.
Despite the challenges associated with aquaculture, there are many avenues for beginning farmers to consider. Many of these farmers in Kentucky are refugees who have traditional consumption habits of live/fresh fish, which could lead to a significant marketing advantage. Tilapia aquaculture can be conducted in outdoor tanks, requiring modest investments, and the product could be sold in African and Hispanic communities which have shown a preference for live tilapia. Therefore, aquaculture might have a place on limited-resource farms, even as a tool of supplementary income and whole farm risk mitigation.
This project, funded by the USDA beginning farmer training program, investigated the marketing and sales of small scale aquaculture products in Kentucky. A survey was conducted in the summer of 2021 in order to determine available aquaculture products in the state, the seasonal availability, and the current market prices. The results showed that due to limited availability of locally grown aquaculture products in urban areas, direct-to-consumer sales in urban ethnic markets could be an avenue for minority and limited-resource farmers to enter into aquaculture.