AQUACULTURE
Dixon oversees the tanks where fish are carefully cultivated, maintaining an organic system.
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global food conglomerate Cargill, containing
a variety of ingredients including
corn, soy meal and vitamin supplements.
Using Timmons’ system assures water
quality control, lack of contaminants,
metals, or chemicals and, when coupled
with a healthy diet, constitutes an organic
system that produces healthy fish ready
for market.
Tilapia had acquired an unfounded bad
reputation, according to both Timmons
and Dixon. One of the negatives came
from so many having been grown in China
and underdeveloped countries where they
don’t use all organic practices.
“Tilapia are filter feeders,” Dixon explains,
“so they’ll pretty much eat anything
in the water.” If their ponds are below
chicken farms, or pit farms, runoff with
contaminants and antibiotics can flow into
their ponds and into their diets.
CHANGING OWNERS
Now in the process of taking over the
business from Timmons, Dixon is set up
for early, fast-breaking success with a large
shipment of live tilapia leaving the farm
soon. Timmons is aspiring to spend more
time working with United Against Poverty
and supplying its food subsidy grocery coop
with protein rich fish.
Timmons regularly donates fish products
to United Against Poverty, and according
to CEO Gwendolyn Butson, “the fish products
are popular among our Indian River
Member Share Grocery Program.” With
locations in Indian River and St. Lucie counties,
the food program will be a continuing
beneficiary of Timmons’ largess. “We are
grateful for partners like Dr. Timmons who
offer opportunities to provide nutritious
protein products like fresh seafood, a
desired staple at dinner tables across the
communities we serve,” Butson says.
The farm’s genesis came when Timmons’
time at Harbor Branch was interrupted by
COVID. A colleague there, Tim Pfeiffer, a
USDA research scientist, urged Timmons to
set up a fish breeding operation locally. He
began the hunt for the appropriate property
in Indian River County for a farm. He had
designed and built several other aquatic
ventures, including in New York’s Finger
Lakes region and Beaver Dam, Kentucky.
PERFECT LOCATION
But Vero was a good place for his start-up.
“It’s generally pro-business here,” Timmons
says, “and colleges have programs with
plenty of people in fish farming; the systems
are technical and there’s a reservoir of technical
people to hire. That was a big deal.”
And it wasn’t long before he found the
perfect land. “Tim was bike riding one
morning and saw the property up for sale,”
Timmons remembers. “The next day, we
bought it.”
The 15 acres required some heavy lifting
to get it into shape. It had been a working
vegetable farm with an artesian well and a
26-by-200-foot greenhouse with only the
metal hoops and no cover. Overgrowth
of vegetation was to the top of the green
house and the property hadn’t been
farmed in eight years.
“It was back to a jungle,” Timmons says.
With effort, the green house soon became
the tanks holding area and the breeding
and fingerling business was born.
TIME-CONSUMING EFFORT
As Timmons the professor or Dixon the
young fish manager will attest, the business
of breeding fish for a processed or
live-fish market requires patience and a
lot of hands-on effort, because it’s compli
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