Fishteria

Our venture is committed to create profitable business solutions for the rural small-scale farmers. We want to unify traditional fish farming practices with modern innovations in aquaculture. This technology can be easily adopted by farmers who have to invest only around Tk. 70,000 for a tank of 10,000 liter capacity. In four months of time, each farmer can make a profit of around Tk. 50,000 from a single harvest. 

We are working with Biofloc technology that uses special bacterial cultures for fish farming. The water tanks are constantly supplied with oxygen and the bacteria present in the tanks convert residual fish feed and fish excretion into edible fish protein. The technology is eco-friendly with a water loss of only 5%.

This is an initiative which can be jump-started, requiring less land space, with minimal risk and very small initial investment - a very prosperous investment for farmers.

Bangladesh’s agricultural sector contributes 14.2% of GDP, employing 47% of the working population, with 17 million people (1.4 million women) depending on fisheries sector for their livelihoods through fishing, farming, fish handling, and processing. 

This huge segment of the population is directly or indirectly dependent on the fishing sector for their livelihood. The reality is that they rely on age old fish farming techniques that are inefficient and expensive in terms of post-harvest loss.

Fish farmers or people who are dependent on fishing sector can be divided in to many subcategories:

• Large scale farmers
• Small scale farmers
• Sea fish traders and fisherman
• Fish hatchery industry
• Fish feed industry
• Dry fish sector
• Further processed fish food - frozen/export
• And many more

Among all the listed categories, the small scale farmers are in worst condition, when it comes to fish farming. Not only do they suffer from scarcity of money, but they also have less amount of lands available to dig ponds for fish cultivation.

Even after managing small capital and little piece of land, they are often dependent on middleman and rural experts for decisions regarding farming - often at a cost of large amount of money. They lag in innovation and productivity to a great extent.

The solution for which we are working now, is largely dependent on inclusive innovation. It involves the requirements and necessities of our target groups - fish farmers, and the development process and the project journey is very agile in incorporating customer insights throughout the process. 

We believe that solutions which are built considering the insights collected from end users and involving them in the innovation process are the best performing inclusive innovations. So, our half of the work is understanding our customers better - the small scale fish farmers. The journey map is given below:

In the first two stages of our journey, we will do surveys on our target districts of Bangladesh to better understand the demand of fish farming and traditional aqua supply chain present in those areas. Our further study will include how tech adaptability is present among our target farmers and how much they can invest in fish farming.

The solution on which we are working will concentrate on solving critical issues like:

• Generating profitable fishing business with minimal investment
• Consistent and controlled harvest using innovations
• Using least amount of land
• Eco friendly solutions
• Less water wastage
• Less carbon-footprint
• Maximum profit
• Scalability
• Disease susceptibility

Fishteria will be a one-stop scalable service, providing latest technologies of fish farming at an affordable cost, and generating profits for farmers. The venture will emphasize on research based solutions that can be deployed at a fast rate and will give practical results in terms of fish harvesting and profits for farmers. 

Biofloc will be the key technology that Fishteria will capitalize its operation on. It is very promising for the Bottom of the Pyramid (BoP) community since it is reliable and easy to setup. It can also be scaled to multiple countries.

How Fishteria will operate?

• The venture will be an expert in indoor fish farming
• Will do Consultancy for big fish farms and small fish farms
• Biological Lab to analyze bacterial culture, regular growth of fish and monitor disease pattern from harvest to harvest
• Water Quality Testing Lab 
• Gateway for donor funding in Fish Farming and help small scale farmers by connecting them
• Owner of the Curriculum
• Provide logistical support to farmers using 3rd party importers/manufacturers

What is biofloc? 

It is an innovative and cost-effective technology in which toxic materials to the fish such as Nitrate, Nitrite, Ammonia can be converted to useful product, i.e. proteinaceous feed.

It is the technology used in aquaculture system with limited or zero water exchange under high stocking density, strong aeration and biota formed by biofloc. The culture of biofloc will be productive in the case of culture tanks exposed to sun.

Biofloc system was developed to improve the environmental control over the aquatic animal production. In aquaculture, the strong influential factors are the feed cost (accounting to 60% of the total production cost) and most limiting factor is the water/land availability. High stocking density and rearing of aquatic animals require wastewater treatment. Biofloc system is a wastewater treatment which has gained vital importance in aquaculture.

The principle of this technique is the generation of nitrogen cycle by maintaining higher C: N ratio through stimulating heterotrophic microbial growth, which assimilates the nitrogenous waste that can be exploited by the cultured spices as a feed.

A good nutritional value is found in biofloc. The dry weight protein ranges from 25–50 percent, fat ranges 0.5–15 percent. It is a good source of vitamins and minerals, particularly phosphorous. It also has an effect similar to probiotics. The dried biofloc is proposed as an ingredient to replace the fishmeal or soybean in the feed.

Fishteria will be an expert in indoor fish farming, with specialization in Biofloc fish farming processes and techniques. It will have a reputation of the best Biofloc research institution and will advise farmers accurately for consistent harvest of fishes.

Fishteria as per demand will do Consultancy for big fish farms and get its big share of revenue from those sources. If necessary, the venture will fly in experts from abroad to share their experiences.

For small scale fish farmers, Fishteria will create a subscription model, through which farmers will get regular training and 24/7 consultation service through dedicated helplines with trained experts.

Farmers will be able to input their daily pH, TDS, Ammonia readings, growth of fishes in their Fishteria mobile app, where they can also compare the growth of their fishes with expected growth rates.

Through its state of art research facilities and hatcheries, Fishteria can provide water sample testing, and disease analysis for fish samples send by farmers, and can advise accordingly. 

Lastly, through its competitive vendor enlistment, Fishteria will be able to provide on demand logistical supports to small scale farmers through the registered vendors at very competitive rates. The vendors will follow the guidelines set by Fishteria, so as to maintain the consistency all across. 

This venture will be one of the first data-driven ventures that will highly invest in agricultural innovations for masses, and provide solutions to maintain consistency by designing models based on collected data from thousands of farmers.  

In a country like Bangladesh, where fish is one of the major sources of nutrient, fish farming is definitely a profitable enterprise to pursue. No matter the amount of production of farmed fishes or how much fish are caught from the rivers, seas and oceans, demand for fish will always be at its peak in Bangladesh. 

If we consider our target population who belong to low and medium income categories and are rural small scale fish farmers, then proper guidance and constant support can highly boost their economic activity. 

Instead of applying unreliable techniques and technologies which are age old, our subscribed farmers will get updated information and proper guidance throughout their harvest period in real time. 

Our methodology and insight gathering processes will help to deliver proper knowledge to our small scale farmers to maximize their return from each harvest. 

More return from each harvest means more profit, which they can then invest in their families and ultimately upgrade their lifestyle. Not only can they meet their nutritional demand, but also can become an ambassador of providing fresh fishes in their own villages at a fair price.

The uses of technology and innovations will be open for agility, and the farmers can give their input and also involve their family members in the process. A farmer who is a mother will invest for her daughter's education. In return the daughter can help her parents in better applying the innovations in their farms and work together for a better harvest.

We have divided our project into four main stages: 

• Jul-Dec 2019 - Preparation Phase - 5 farmers (Approx)
• Jan-Jun 2020 - Prototype Phase - 20 farmers (Approx)
• Jul-Dec 2020 - Pilot Phase - 20 farmers (Approx)
• Jan-Dec 2021 - ScaleUp Phase - 1000 farmers (Approx)
• Jan 2022 - Jul 2024 - Execution Phase - 5000 farmers (Approx) 

Biofloc is relatively a very new technology that emerged in the last few years and became very popular in Asian countries due to its cheap setup cost. It is an adaptation to more expensive RAS system of farming, which couldn't get much popularity in Bangladesh mainly due to high investment requirements. 

In recent times, Biofloc became very popular in Cambodia, Philippines, Malaysia, Indonesia, India, Nepal and now in Bangladesh. 

Within next one year we want to complete our prototype stage and start our pilot stage with farmers. By this time, we want to complete our main task which is the development of the Fishteria curriculum.

Once the total data points are well connected and our systems have received enough data to design an optimum model for the curriculum, we will deploy the system among our farmers in the pilot stage. 

Using the Fishteria mobile app, our registered farmers will get access to our curriculum and get daily recommendations on water culture and fish growth from the app. Farmers can input daily pH level, TDS, ammonia level and weekly growth rate of their fishes, then get a chance to compare with standard growth rate suggested by our data models.

In this way, we can monitor cluster based growths and can identify seasonal impact on disease outbreak or on overall growth of fishes. Once the curriculum is successfully deployed in the pilot stage, for next five years we will give service at full scale to farmers all across.

In terms of financial, legal, cultural, or market barriers the project is in a fairly good state and will be very welcomed in Bangladesh both next year and in the coming next five years, unless more revolutionary innovations emerge.

Biofloc is so inexpensive compared to other technologies that farmers will be more than happy to invest in these and get return from their harvest. The amount of risk compared to any other agricultural activity is much less considering the amount of return each farmer can get. 

One of the main barriers that we will face is biological lab, which will be one of our main priority in this entire phase. The lab will be one of the key point for which the farmers will pay money to us and subscribe to our model, considering the overall benefits that they will receive.

For the Lab, we have already contacted Bangladesh Agricultural University (BAU) and got very good response from some professors and some more opportunities of funding is also there to setup up a state of the art lab. A biological lab is very crucial in this project, in order to produce consistent colonies of useful bacteria which are needed for this mode of farming. 

These bacteria determines the output of harvest, much attention will be given in developing them. Our value proposition will be to provide the best Probiotic that gives optimum harvest with consistency.

We are a Hybrid of for-profit and nonprofit.

1. Md. Abdul Awal - Managing Director 
2. Shuvho Chakroborty - Scientific Adviser
3. Tahzib Mashrik - Co-founder - Technical Expert 
4. K M Jawadur Rahman - Co-founder - Technical Expert
5. Asif Mahmood Abbas - Founder - Marketing Expert
6. Muhammad Faisal - Project Manager - Badda
7. Abir Imtiaz - Project Manager - Bosila
8. Sakil Ahmed Abir - Project Manager - Nagdarpar
9. Zafor Sadeq - Project Manager - Shibpur
10. Liton Gazi - Project Manager - Ghorashal

1. Mayesha Tafannum - Junior Software Engineer
2. Awsaf Mahmood Lisan - Junior Software Engineer 
3. Mozammel Hoq Mishuk - Supervisor - Narshindi Zone 
4. Md. Shariful Islam Himel - Supervisor - Dhaka Zone

We have a great combination of people in our team with diverse backgrounds who have great commitments to this project. 

Apart from the core team of three founders, we formed a large team based on common interests and on profit sharing model as per their investments. 

Our Managing Director has 22 years of experience in fish farming in Bangladesh. He was involved in bringing new species of fish to Bangladesh from Africa and Thailand and successfully replicating the farming processes among thousands of farmers in Bangladesh. 

Another key and important person is Shuvo Chakroborty, who has done his undergrad and masters in fisheries and nutrition and is currently doing his PhD on same topic.

Our founder, Asif Mahmood worked as a Brand Manager and has 5 years of extensive marketing experience in the FMCG sector of Bangladesh and additional 9 years of experience in youth activism and training. Our co-founders Jawad is a data scientist and Tahzib is a software engineer with prior experience in designing complex models and innovative hardware as well as software.

Our project managers are landowners and chief investors in their area with strong hold in their localities. They will be our key point for farmer acquisition and fish hatchery & fish feed mill setup in different districts. 

Overall, the team structure is very dynamic and will be expanded in the future based on requirements and possible opportunities. Now, we are in the process to hire microbiological consultant and a civil engineering consultant for Fishteria.

Right now we are under the consulting phase for probable partnership with multiple organizations:

1. BoP Innovation Center, Netherlands - they are one of the largest inclusive innovation consultants of Europe and they are guiding us for further process. We want to hire them them from scale-up stage to design our scale-up strategies in Bangladesh, Nigeria, Kenya, Cambodia and Vietnam. They will be our source to bring in international technical experts for providing innovative solutions to large scale farmers. 
2. Bangladesh Agricultural University - they will be our key point for local research in Bangladesh and exchange of microbiological experts. We will provide them research opportunities in our selected farms, where students will get the opportunity to do their thesis and internship. So far we have received very good response.
3. Corporate Institutions - we are in the process to secure deal with multiple institutions for large corporate investments. Hopefully, by mid-July we will secure three investments for our pilot stage.

Here is the Social Business Model Canvas of fishteria.

For fishteria, we will adapt Organizational Support Model to run our operations. 

Using organizational support model of Fishteria, we will sell products (Fishling, Fish Feed, Probiotic, Instruments) and services (consultancy, technical assistance, water testing, microbiological testing) to an external market, large farming institutions or small scale farmers. In some cases the target population or "client" is the customer, which is mainly the small scale fish farmers.

Majority grants will be invested on developing microbiological labs, proper fish feed formulas, an easy app for the farmers and harvesting curriculum. 

Funds will be invested in training of farmers, increasing organizational capabilities and skill development of implementing agencies who will work for the development of the farmers. 

Infrastructural developments will be covered from investments of private entities for specific zone bases on shared interest.

Employee salary and operating expenses will be covered from overall revenue generated from the business operations, majority of which will be consultancy service of large scale farms. Most of the revenue generated from selling products will be reinvested in respective labs and research and development activities.  

We as a team are not over confident but have full trust in our determination and capabilities of making this venture as one of the most successful in Bangladesh, and we firmly believe that. 

Based on the initial research that we have done and from the field visits, we have received very good amount of positive vibe from everyone, but we need to make the prototype successful as a model, so that it can be replicated among thousands of farmers. 

1. We need expert advice to pinpoint our mistakes in our strategy, or future problems that might arise during scale-up. 
2. We need domain specific expert opinions in order to make this venture more lucrative among the donor communities.
3. We need M&E tools that can perfectly flag any mistakes during scale-up and give us time to correct the interventions.
4. We need tools that can be used for providing support to farmers in terms of Financial Inclusion and make it more cashless.
5. We need robotics experts for providing us sensors of pH and Ammonia which is the key indicators to maintain any water tanks. 

We are hopeful that through this Tiger Challenge we will be able to identify ourselves better and make this plan a successful one by participating in this journey.

We will require more International opportunities to learn from similar ventures from other countries. 

Our top most priority is now to work with two international organizations: 

1. Holland Aqua
2. DSM

We also need international collaboration with organizations who can provide microbiological and aquaculture support for our laboratories and hatcheries.