GOSHEN -- Fish farming as an emerging industry in Elkhart County has evolved since Mike Yoder first proposed it several months ago.
Instead of tilapia, it's now perch that's swimming the idea channels.
But one of the main concepts behind the venture -- using an abandoned RV factory to set up the aquaculture shop -- has proven impractical.
"This is a challenge. It's an expensive venture," he said. "It sounds good on paper. A lot of ideas sound good on paper."
Yoder, an Elkhart County commissioner and former Middlebury dairy farmer, is still working with a group of investors. It's going to cost more than $2 million to get an aquaculture facility up and running here. Instead of converting an old RV factory, he's now looking at starting fresh with farmland and a new building.
Yoder explained he's learned manufacturing facilities can be cleaned for food production use. However, of the five facilities he's toured officially and five unofficially, all are on city utilities, which are useless to the process.
Only fresh groundwater can be used to raised the fish, Yoder explained, so a well would have to be dug on any selected site.
"And we have no use for city sewer," he said.
A city probably does not want to treat fish waste at its wastewater plant, Yoder said, and the byproduct has value as a fertilizer.
Water is recycled as part of the process anyway, he said.
Another problem Yoder's encountered is that none of the facilities can be expanded. He said it would be "foolish" to locate somewhere where expansion is impossible.
Yoder also is talking with Bell Aquaculture, a processor in Albany. The company wants to work with his group by allowing them to use its technology to get up and running. Bell would then process the fish produced here.
"Until we decide to build a facility, there's really no reason to go any further with those discussions," Yoder said.
Yoder seems less enthusiastic than when he originally pitched the idea of tilapia farming a few months ago.
"Initially I presented it as an idea to the community," he said. "I'm not sure that's what I want to be spending the next 10 years of my life doing."
He said a few people did come forward expressing an interest.
Yoder also was hoping to obtain federal stimulus money for the project. That hasn't come to pass, ostensibly because it won't create many jobs. He expects to employ about four people initially.
He said state officials like the idea because it's a new industry and reuses buildings, but it's too efficient and doesn't employ enough people. "I've got zero indication that we'll be funded," Yoder said.
Employment will come later because of spin-offs -- through trucking and manufacturing of equipment, for example, he said.
"The whole idea in the food industry is to be very efficient with labor," Yoder said.
And that's the way agriculture has been going for some time.
Nevertheless, Yoder said Elkhart County is still in the right place at the right time for the industry.
"We're positioned well," he said.
Producers can ship live fish to numerous metropolitan areas, and processed fish as well, because of our location, Yoder said.
Perch is in high demand and people are over-fishing it in lakes, he said.
"It's time to grow it," he said.